Gloire à Tea Party…

Gloire à Tea Party…

Ce commentaire de Stephen M. Walt, distingué commentateur de Foreign Policy, le 6 janvier 2011, est intéressant. Walt est un modéré, un “réaliste”, mais aussi incontestablement un homme de l’establishment, de l’univers de l’expertise académique aux USA. Son appréciation extrêmement élogieuse de la position d’un représentant (un parlementaire) de Tea Party sur les questions de défense et de politique extérieure est donc à retenir. Elle marque bien plus l’évolution, et le fractionnement potentiel, de l’establishment vis-à-vis de Tea Party que le contraire (l’évolution de Tea Party absorbé par l’establishment washingtonien…)

«I spent a half-hour yesterday on Warren Olney's KCRW radio show To the Point, discussing defense spending and deficit reduction. The other participants were Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker (the political writer I'm most jealous of because he writes so damn well), William Hartung of the New America Foundation, and Chris Littleton, co-founder of the Ohio Liberty Council and a committed member of the “Tea Party” movement. […] The main topic of discussion was whether efforts at deficit reduction are going to include taking a major whack at defense spending. […]

»For me, however, the most interesting part was listening to the Tea Party representative, Chris Littleton. His views were easily the most extreme of the group and bordered on what would normally be disparaged as “isolationism.” He articulated this view very well, I thought, and was particularly good at countering the claim that such views are unpatriotic. He also acknowledged that Tea Partiers are far from unified on this issue: Some favor more hawkish defense policies while others believe the United States is badly overextended, should get out of the business of policing the world, and sharply cut back defense spending as part of an overall effort to shrink the size of government. (He would obviously place himself in the latter group). […]

»…I came away from the conversation with a new appreciation for what the Tea Party may – repeat, may – bring to the national debate on foreign policy. Right now, there is still an overwhelming consensus inside the U.S. foreign-policy establishment for continuing to run the world, a consensus that includes liberal interventionists of the Madeleine (“Indispensable Nation”) Albright variety and virtually all neoconservatives. And as I've noted before, there is significant imbalance of power inside Washington, generally favoring those who want to do more overseas. The result is that the United States tries to do more than it should, finds it much harder to set clear priorities, and tends to miss opportunities to "pass the buck" to others. If the rise of the Tea Party creates some significant domestic opposition to that tendency and helps generate a more lively public debate on fundamental issues of grand strategy, the country as a whole may end up with policies that make a lot more sense in the long run. It won't be Mr. Littleton's agenda, but it also won't be the outdated strategy we've been following since the end of the Cold War.»

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