La diplomatie de GW au tamis de la sottise crépusculaire : l’extraordinaire cas des rapports avec la Syrie

Quelques précisions encore, extraites de l’interview que Seymour Hersh a donnée à Amy Goodman, de Democracy Now !, le 14 août. Cette fois, cela concerne les rapports de Washington avec la Syrie, et les interférences des USA sur la politique israélienne vis-à-vis de la Syrie. (Actuellement, les Israéliens tentent d’avancer l’idée qu’on doit coopérer avec la Syrie alors que Washington n’a qu’une idée : convaincre Israël d’attaquer la Syrie!)

L’ignorance, l’inculture et même le sens de l'incivilisation de l’administration GW, cette sorte très spécifique et novatrice de barbarie postmoderniste, éclatent dans ces détails que donne Hersh sur la façon dont sont rejetées les propositions syriennes de coopération, l’interdiction faite en 2003 aux Israéliens de négocier avec la Syrie la restitution du Golan, etc. L’explication américaniste aujourd’hui tient en quelques cas très simples : une sottise crépusculaire, qui semble englober autant la pauvreté d’esprit et l’absence d’âme que l’arrogance de l’attitude, et qui est essentiellement une sottise de Fin des Temps. Cette explication vaut largement toutes celles des complots, des Grands Desseins, des neocons hystériques et des discours divers.

AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, you've also written about the U.S. rejecting overtures from Syria in dealing with the war on terror. Can you talk about that, as, of course, you can't talk about Lebanon or Iraq with this administration without talking about Syria and Iran?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, look, this is an administration that still refuses to deal with people it doesn't like. You know, I don't know. When my children were in pre-nursery, you know, little boys will get into a fight, and the nursery school teacher would take the two little boys who were fighting and say, “You two shake hands and go back to the sandbox,” and they would. And so we have a president that won't talk to the Iranians, although they’ve wanted to, and there’s been a lot of stories written about that. And they won't talk to the Syrians.

And I’ve obviously — maybe not so obviously, but I’ve interviewed the President of Syria, Bashar al-Asad, a couple of times. And one of the last times, with great pain he told me — I think he showed me, even showed me, he was — this was in 2005. He's written letters to George Bush, saying, “Let's get together. Let's talk. We have a lot in common. We can help you. We and Iran basically both have more — we can do more for you in Iraq than any other country. Why aren't you using us? We don't need a Somalia on our borders. We're not interested in chaos there.” And this White House doesn't believe it. And the letters weren't answered, he told me. His ambassador here in Washington, Imad Mustafa, is absolutely isolated. All this talk that the White House has made, Condoleezza Rice, about having openings to Iran, to Syria, are just, you know — they're not worth much. There's been some low-level talk. Nobody has made any efforts.

Syria has, as I’ve written in the New Yorker years ago, was one of the biggest helpers we had after al-Qaeda struck us, because Syria is — the old man Asad, the father of the current president, hated Jihadism. He did not like the Muslim Brotherhood. They were his opponents. And he kept the best books going on the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very closely connected to al-Qaeda. In fact, we learned more about al-Qaeda from Syria after 9/11 than from any other country. Asad, the president, gave us thousands access — agreed to give us access to thousands of files. And I wrote a story, I think in ’02 or ’03 for the New Yorker, in which I quoted a senior intelligence official of Syria saying, “We're willing to even talk about our support for Hezbollah with you. We want to see you win the war on terror.”

So it's been an amazingly horrific performance by this White House, which is of par. You know, I don't think any of us — I certainly won't breathe easy until we get to 2009, inauguration of a new president. But there's just no question that if we were to approach Syria right now, something else I didn't write at the time — that's because I wasn't writing about it — I don't think there's any question that Israel was interested in talking to Syria in ’03, even about the Golan Heights, which is a tough issue for them, and…

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, Sy…

SEYMOUR HERSH: Let me finish this. And we discouraged Israel from doing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

SEYMOUR HERSH: I don't know. I guess we didn't want our friends to talk to our enemies.

Mis en ligne le 16 août 2006 à 07H31