La Navy veille dans le Golfe

L’“incident du Golfe Persique” suscite beaucoup plus de commentaires qu’il n’alimente de réelles tensions. Il semblerait bien, et ce depuis la NIE 2007, que l’heure de l’attaque-surprise imminente soit passée. Jim Lobe nous donne, sur son site, hier, quelques précisions intéressantes.

D’une part, Lobe note le silence complet des néo-conservateurs sur cette affaire. En temps normal, si l’affaire était “normale” dans le sens où elle impliquerait la possibilité d’une prolongation dans une montée aux extrêmes et une possibilité d'affrontement, nous aurions été noyés sous une avalanche d’imprécations furieuses et vengeresses. Ce n’est pas le cas. Au contraire, le silence radio est complet et sans la moindre friture. C’est un élément intéressant.

L’autre facteur que développe Jim Lobe est centré autour de la présence de l’U.S. Navy comme acteur central de l’affaire, – la Navy dont on sait qu’elle n’est nullement va-t’en-guerre dans la région. Jim Lobe présente donc une thèse dont nous ne serions pas étonnés qu’elle ait été alimentée par l’une ou l’autre source proche de la même U.S. Navy. Il s’agirait alors d’un montage, soit complet soit partiel, pour obtenir l’assentiment de la direction civile washingtonienne pour établir un accord de “bon voisinage” entre la flotte US et la marine iranienne. L’U.S. Navy aurait saisi cette occasion du voyage de Bush dans la région pour mettre en évidence les dangers de tels incidents et laisser aux divers interlocuteurs arabes du président le soin de faire pression sur lui pour effectivement renforcer l’idée d’un tel accord.

«It’s been no secret for some time now that the Pentagon, and the head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Adm. William Fallon, in particular, have been pressing the White House — without success — for negotiating a new “incidents at sea” agreement with Iran that would reduce the risk of a an accidental confrontation in the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf itself. As pointed out in an important Washington Post column by David Ignatius last September, ‘’(t)he big problem isn’t the regular Iranian navy but the naval forces of the Revolutionary Guard.” Ignatius went on to report that in early September, CENTCOM’s naval chief, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff — who, of course, was the first to brief the press on last Sunday’s incident — “appeared on a panel with the brother of the commander of the Revolutionary Guard” in Geneva the week before.

»“This chance encounter …should be pursued,” wrote Ignatius, who noted that “America’s top military commanders in the Gulf (that would include Cosgriff) were lobbying for a new “incidents-at-sea” agreement. “The United States and Iran,” Ignatius went on, “are playing a game of ‘chicken’ in the Middle East. A collision would be ruinous for both. Each side needs to be careful to avoid miscalculation.” Interestingly, during an NPR interview Friday, Harlan Ullman, a Washington Times columnist and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (who also commanded a destroyer deployed to the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s), stressed that Sunday’s incident underlined the importance of a new incidents-at-sea accord with Iran, noting that such an agreement was very successful in preventing maritime confrontations between the Soviet Union and the U.S. during the Cold War.

»Within that context, the timing of the Pentagon’s decision to publicize what really an apparently not-particularly-threatening incident involving Revolutionary Guard speedboats is particularly intriguing as I suspect there have been more serious incidents in the recent past. Frustrated until now in their efforts to get the White House to authorize negotiations over a new agreement, could it be that Fallon (who worked very hard to improve military ties — sometimes over the objections of Donald Rumsfeld — with China as the commander of the Ninth Fleet), Cosgriff, and other Pentagon and Navy officials decided to dramatize the danger just as Bush was embarking on his trip, anticipating that the president would get an earful from his Gulf state hosts about their fears that a naval confrontation could quickly escalate into a real war in which they would suffer significant collateral damage?»

Mis en ligne le 12 janvier 2008 à 11H55