La stratégie de l’enchaînement automatique de l’attaque

La crise iranienne et la possibilité d’une attaque contre l’Iran sont désormais le pot commun et la rengaine de notre actualité. Le 13 février, Ken Silverstein, de Harper’s Magazine, a mis en ligne les avis de trois experts indépendants.

Nous retenons celui de A. Richard Norton, professeur de relations internationales à l’université de Boston. Il a été un des conseillers de l’Iraq Study Group. Il doit publier prochainement Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton University).

Norton présente la thèse de l’automatisme de la crise et de l’attaque. Pour lui, à partir du moment où des forces US sont rassemblées dans une position stratégique d’attaque face à l’Iran (dans le Golfe), il devient inconcevable de ne pas s’en servir, sous peine de se représenter qu’on subit ainsi une défaite diplomatique et stratégique majeure, — et d’ainsi la subir, par la perception elle-même. En un sens, on crée une situation d’obligation d’attaque, par le simple enchaînement de la disposition des forces sur place. C’est un remake postmoderne de “la mobilisation c’est la guerre”, constat paradoxal fameux, valant pour la Russie tsariste en 1914 (à partir du moment où le processus de mobilisation, très long et socialement et politiquement très déstabilisant, était lancé, une démobilisation n’était plus concevable à cause du chaos créé ; l’enchaînement vers la guerre était automatique).

«In recent weeks, the Bush Administration has dramatically improved its capacity for striking Iran. It is doubtful that a decision to go to war has been made, but in the weeks ahead officials and war advocates will describe an attack on Iran as both “feasible” and “necessary,” particularly if Iran persists in developing its isotope-enrichment program. Even born-again critics of the Iraq war, notably Hillary Clinton, go to pains to emphasize that a nuclear-capable Iran is intolerable and that all options must be kept open to deal with Iran. Israel's concerns weigh significantly in Washington decision-making as well, and the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capacity is understood in Israel to be an existential threat. Although a credible case may be made for deterring Iran's nuclear ambitions through non-military means, neither the Bush Administration nor the Israeli government has embraced that possibility.

»Remember that in 1990–91 and then again in 2003 the very fact that the United States assembled a formidable array of forces in the Gulf region became an argument for using those forces and launching wars. The United States will soon have two carrier task forces on station, and perhaps a third carrier task force will soon be deployed. It will be difficult for the United States to step down from its combative perch without Iran accepting some fairly significant concessions.

(…)

»The idea that the U.S. could bomb Iran “surgically,” gain Iranian compliance, and then bolster the American position in the Middle East is risky in the extreme. A U.S. attack would undermine pragmatic voices in Iran, revive Iranian nationalism, provide incentives for Iran to make life extremely difficult for the U.S. in Iraq and elsewhere, and probably impede the international trade in petroleum. Support for the United States is already weak among Iraq's Shiite community. The idea that America could align with a majority-Shiite government in Baghdad and simultaneously attack Iran is delusional. If America loses mass support among Iraqi Shiite, then the movie is over.»

La conclusion du professeur Norton est sans appel : «Surveying U.S. history, one is hard-pressed to find presidential decisions as monumentally ill-informed and counterproductive as the decision to invade and occupy Iraq; however, a decision to go to war against Iran would arguably surpass the Iraq war as the worst foreign policy decision ever made by an American president.»

Mis en ligne le 14 février 2007 à 15H19