Entre Europe et USA, entre apparence et réalité

Entre Europe et USA, entre apparence et réalité

21 juillet 2003 — Peu avant que Tony Blair ne parlât devant le Congrès américain, Joschka Fischer s’était rendu à Washington. Brave soldat de la plume respectueux des consignes, John Vinocur de l’International Herald Tribune s’est emparé de la chose, pour les appliquer effectivement (les consignes disent qu’il faut “punir Schröder et oublier l’Allemagne”, comme elles disent qu’il faut “punir la France et Chirac”). Il a fait dire à Fischer des choses qui, avec un peu d’interprétation empressée, permettent de mettre en question certaines idées troublantes.

Dans le discours de Blair devant le Congrès, on ne trouve pas que des vaticinations sur l’Histoire. Il y a des considérations plus actuelles, notamment sur les réflexions des uns et des autres sur les circonstances des relations internationales aujourd’hui. On ne s’étonnera pas complètement qu’elles rejoignent effectivement ce que dit Fischer, traduit par Vinocur.

• Fischer vu par Vinocur, sans aucune trahison de la pensée mais un peu de charcutage innocent, cela donne ceci :

« Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany, the leading candidate to become the European Union’s first foreign minister under its new constitution, has told Bush administration officials in Washington that the Europe of the future can be strong only ‘‘together with the United States, and not as its rival.’’ The statement is an important one, a German official in Berlin said, because it clearly differentiates, in an American setting, Germany’s view on Europe’s development from that of France — which talks of Europe as a separate power-to-be in a world of competing poles, alongside the United States, Russia, and China. The German position does not recognize or seek a multipolar world, the official said, but a multilateral one in which issues of international importance are decided through discussion and on the basis of international law. »

• Blair devant le Congrès, parlant effectivement des relations internationales, offrant sa thèse, applaudi comme on l’imagine (dans The Independent du 18 juillet) :

« In his speech to Congress, he delivered a thinly veiled attack on states such as France which failed to support the war in Iraq. “Any alliance must start with America and Europe,” he said. ”If Europe and America are together, the others will work with us. But if we split, all the rest will play around, play us off and nothing but mischief will be the result of it.

» “There is no more dangerous theory in international politics today than that we need to balance the power of America with other competitor powers, different poles around which nations gather.”

» He balanced this with a message to the US not to “give up on Europe” but to work with it, saying: “It's not the coalition that determines the mission but the mission [that determines] the coalition. I agree. But let us start preferring a coalition and [only] acting alone if we have to, not the other way around.” »

Finalement, les deux hommes, Blair et Fischer disent la même chose : il est impensable de parler d’un monde multipolaire ; seules sont acceptables les coalitions, la coopération, le multilatéralisme et ainsi de suite. Dans les deux cas, l’opposition entre multipolarité et multilatéralisme est un exercice sophistique de la pensée, vite à son terme : on ne peut envisager du multilatéralisme (“multilatéral”  : « qui concerne des rapports entre plusieurs parties, entre États... » [Robert]) sans qu’il y ait multipolarité, c’est-à-dire plusieurs “pôles” (dans ce sens  : « point d’attraction, d’intérêt », définition appliquée effectivement à des États). Le multilatéralisme entraîne nécessairement la multipolarité. Faire de la multipolarité un concept agressif revient à déformer la pensée en faisant un procès d'intention bien dans la logique du sophisme qui gouverne cette sorte d'attitude. C’est le cas dans ces exemples cités, intentionnellement dans l’esprit de Blair, qui n’a aujourd’hui comme seule ligne de pensée l’ambiguïté coupable ; c’est le cas dans ce qu’on fait “dire” à Fischer, avec cette phrase particulièrement inepte (« The German position does not recognize or seek a multipolar world, the official said, but a multilateral one... »), — mais une phrase que ne démentira pas le ministre des affaires étrangères allemand, qui est lui un adepte de l’ambiguïté passive plutôt que de l’ambiguïté coupable.

Tout cela n’importe que pour montrer combien le discours transformé par l’interprétation idéologique ou simplement par l’usage coutumier de la logique sophistique, comme savent faire les journalistes alignés sur les consignes gouvernementales. Il faut placer ces réflexions sous la lumière éclatante d’un texte d’analyse comme celui de William Pfaff, publié ce matin, qui frappe par la vigueur et la clarté de la phrase. On se permet ici d’en citer une partie substantielle, permettant ainsi de mettre dans une perspective définitive, celle des tromperies de la pensée, les chinoiseries byzantines sur le multilatéralisme et la multipolarité.

« The trans-Atlantic alliance is under what may be terminal strain. George Robertson says NATO will provide no further help to the United States in Iraq — meaning that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's principal European members refuse to let the alliance do so.

» NATO might survive the present crisis, but only as a structure providing U.S. bases in ex-Communist Europe. The United States is going in one direction, and NATO's European Union members in another, a rival direction.

» This is a reluctant choice by the Europeans, but their perception of Washington has in the last two years changed dramatically. The United States is now seen in Europe as a threat to Europe's independence. The American side does not understand this.

» During the last few weeks, I have been at a half dozen European conferences bringing together political specialists and policy analysts, as well as past or present officials from both sides of the Atlantic, to talk about current affairs and the future.

» The declared subjects differed: Italian-American relations, European security, global financial and economic issues, questions of world order. In every case, wherever it started, discussion quickly turned into a debate about how to cope with the Bush administration's new America, seen as a disturber of world peace and a risk to the security even of its allies.

» At these meetings, U.S. foreign policy found very few West European defenders. One or two half-hearted Brits. No Dutch, Germans, Italians or Scandinavians. Even the British said that Europe now has to have its own policy and its own security resources (although with Tony Blair's speech in Washington, the British government now seems unqualifiedly committed to American leadership). All said this without enthusiasm. No one likes the situation.

» The Europeans simply no longer agree with the United States. They don't agree about the terrorist threat. They don't think Osama bin Laden is a global menace. They don't take Washington's view of rogue states. They don't agree about pre-emptive war, clash of civilizations, the demonization of Islam, or Pentagon domination of U.S. foreign policy.

» Such views are interpreted in the United States as “anti-Americanism.” The truth, as a leading (conservative) figure from ex-Communist “New Europe” said at one of these meetings, is that the Bush administration has turned America's friends into anti-Americans.

» He said that throughout his political life he had been an admirer and defender of the United States against left-wing European critics, but now he has become what he calls a “new anti-American.”

» He defined new anti-Americans as “former anti-anti-Americans, now forced to become anti-American themselves.” He said that in his own country, the U.S. ambassador behaves in the way the Soviet Union's ambassador did before 1989. This simply is unacceptable. »