Des experts défendent Poutine

Des experts défendent Poutine

Le torrent de rhétorique et de propagande anti-russe qui emporte ou colore l’essentiel des appréciations des médias occidentaux vis-à-vis de Poutine répond à une réaction d’émotion politique et morale qui a l’avantage, — ô surprise assez divine, convenons-en, — de correspondre au conformisme général et aux consignes de la plupart des directions occidentales. Tout cela est donc d’une simplicité aveuglante, notamment pour ce que valent ces commentateurs et médias occidentaux.

Sur le cas des anti-missiles US en Europe, le cas est d’une simplicité aveuglante : toute, absolument toute la responsabilité échoit aux USA, qui ont décidé le déploiement de ces systèmes déstabilisants. Les rengaines sur la néo-Guerre froide et sur les droits de l’homme ne changent rien à cela.

Parfois, on découvre un texte qui, citant des experts occidentaux, s’emploie simplement à illustrer cette évidence. C’est le cas de ce texte d’AFP, relayé par SpaceWar.com le 6 juin, — dont voici quelques extraits.

«President Vladimir Putin's threat to aim missiles at Europe was a rational Russian response to US missile defence plans and other deployments that call Washington's stated intentions into question, analysts say. His recent rhetorical offensive also marks a “line in the sand” to halt what Moscow sees as a pattern of thwarted expectations and broken promises by the United States since the 1991 Soviet collapse that have left Russia feeling isolated and threatened, they say.

»“The US has literally changed its military deployment in Europe,” said Bob Ayers, a former US intelligence officer specialising in intelligence and security policy as an associate fellow with the London-based international policy think tank Chatham House.

»“They're moving forces into bases in Poland and countries that were former members of the Warsaw Pact. In Russian eyes, here's the US superpower drawing closer and closer to their borders. Even if the Russians were not paranoid they would have to be asking the question: Why are you doing this?” “We're not seeing a Russian action here. We're seeing a Russian reaction — to things that we have done,” Ayers said (…)

»Other analysts agree and say Washington would do well to find a way to definitively calm Russia's worry over the missile shield.

»“Missile defence locks us in confrontational mentality, imposing Cold War schemes on the US-Russian relationship,” said Pavel Podvig, an international security expert at Stanford University in the United States.

»“This is what Rice should have termed ‘purely ludicrous’,” he said in an article published recently by the specialist nuclear security journal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

»Tensions between the United States and Russia generated by the missile shield plans have probably been compounded by a series of factors since the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union that have fostered a sense in Moscow that Washington is not playing straight, analysts said.

»Specifically, Moscow feels Washington reneged on pledges not to expand NATO into the former Warsaw Pact, demands Russian compliance with European military pacts it refuses to ratify itself and takes an extremely dim view of the 2002 US unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty.

»“Putin's reaction is very, very understandable,” Ayers said. “Here's a guy who feels threatened by a nuclear superpower. And the Americans' reasons for why they are doing this missile defence are just not credible.»

Mis en ligne le 7 juin 2007 à 14H18