Les us et coutumes de Michael Ledeen

Un article du site RAW Story en date du 15 juin rapporte que de nouvelles rumeurs et analyses font envisager qu’une attaque US contre l’Iran pourrait tout de même avoir lieu. Ces analyses s’appuient notamment sur un fait qui paraîtrait somme toute comme assez anecdotique, qui est présenté comme ne l’étant pas du tout, qui l’est peut-être finalement mais qui n’empêche pas, — qui sait, — un fond de vérité…

Il s’agit d’un déplacement en Italie de Michael Ledeen, l’une des figures les plus controversées et les plus furieuses des néo-conservateurs US, et notamment un avocat persistant d’une intervention armée contre l’Iran. Voici comment RAW Story présente cette affaire :

« A recent trip by Michael Ledeen to Rome has raised red flags among those concerned about a potential war with Iran. Some believe that Ledeen — a long-time advocate of Iranian regime change — was involved in the Niger forgeries scandal.

» In late 2001, Ledeen, mid-east expert Harold Rhode and Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin (who later pleaded guilty to passing classified information to a Washington pro-Israel lobbying group) traveled to Rome to meet with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and various Italian, Iranian, and Egyptian intelligence agents. Not long after, documents falsely purporting that Iraq had attempted to buy yellowcake uranium surfaced in the international intelligence community, ending up at an Italian magazine, Panorama, for which Ledeen wrote periodic articles.

» Ghorbanifar and Ledeen were directly involved in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, which implicated then-President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George H. W. Bush and the highest ranking members of the Reagan administration in the illegal sales of weapons to Iran.

» Ledeen’s recent visit to Rome and meeting with Ghorbanifar have created new concern that something is developing with regard to US plans for Iran. Ledeen, however, denies that his visit to Italy was anything other than a personal trip with his wife Barbara.

» “I did not ‘go to Rome.’ I went to Naples to see the San Gennaro celebration and the opening of the Fontanelle cemetery after more than twenty years of closure,” Ledeen wrote in an email to RAW STORY. “You'll be able to read descriptions in my forthcoming book, Virgil's Golden Egg and Other Neapolitan Miracles,” he added.

» Ledeen, who has spent the last year working on a book about Naples, confirmed traveling to Rome as part of a visit to meet with friends. When asked if he had met with Ghorbanifar while in Rome, Ledeen confirmed the allegation by intelligence sources, but said that this visit was of a personal nature, unlike his previous visit.

» “We visited various friends in Rome and Florence,” Ledeen said. “[Ghorbanifar] is a friend of mine, and so, as it has been for more than twenty years, I talk to him from time to time and I meet with him when our schedules intersect,” Ledeen added.

» Ledeen characterized the meeting as part of a “normal friendship.” “I would say on average I see him twice a year for a day or half a day,” he said. “And it's not just him, it's sometimes his wife, his daughter... imagine! A normal friendship.” »

Effectivement, le déplacement de Ledeen a été considéré comme un signal d’alarme. Il est fort possible que cela ne soit pas précisément justifié. Ledeen est un spécialiste de l’Italie, dans tous les sens du mot, y compris le plus innocent (c’est un spécialiste de Machiavel et de la Renaissance). L’explication de son voyage et de ses liens d’amitié avec Ghorbanifar a aussi une incontestable réalité.

A côté de cela, — et assez curieusement, — il pourrait y avoir effectivement de la part de Ledeen une pression pour relancer une hostilité radicale contre l’OTAN. Ledeen a été un des rares commentateurs à chercher à lier directement Zarqaoui, — récemment abattu par les forces irako-US, — et le régime de Téhéran, au contraire de la plupart des analyses indépendantes qui font de Zarqaoui un adversaire radical des Chiites et des Iraniens. Pour Ledeen, c’est effectivement un argument pour relancer une pression en faveur d’une attaque contre l’Iran. On peut voir développée la thèse des liens Zarqaoui-Iran dans un article qu’il publie le 9 juin :

« Despite his intonations against the Shiites, and his manifest efforts to promote civil war in Iraq, Zarqawi was happy to work with the radical Shiite regime in Tehran, and they were happy to work with him. It is quite wrong to view him as a leader of one faction in a religious war; his promotion of religious conflict was simply a tactic designed to destabilize Iraq and drive out the Coalition. He and his Iranian backers/masters were desperate to promote all manner of internal Iraqi conflict: Kurds against Arabs, Turkamen against Kurds, anything that worked. It's The Godfather all over again: the terror masters put aside their differences, sat down around the table, and made a war plan in which Sunni and Shia, Syrian and Saudi, Iranian and Iraqi cooperated against their common satanic enemy, the United States. »

Après cette démonstration et une longue réflexion sur “la plus grande opération contre-terroriste de tous les temps” que représente la liquidation de Zarqaoui, Ledeen termine par une exhortation à liquider le régime iranien.

« The intelligence community was savaged after 9/11 for its failure to connect the dots, and it would be truly embarrassing, and very dangerous, to leave the Iranian dot out there apart from the rest of the network we have uncovered and shattered. A week ago Director of National Intelligence Negroponte gave a very interesting interview to the BBC in which he reiterated what everybody knows: “(the Iranians) are the principal state sponsor of terrorism in the world.”

» So how come we're not going after them?

» And for those who think the recent “we'll-talk-if-you-stop-enrichment” gambit was some sort of master diplomatic stroke, consider this: it turns out that the Iranians have actually increased their enrichment program.

» There is no escape from the necessity of bringing down the mullahcracy, for they will keep killing our people and our friends.

» Faster, please. »

Mis en ligne le 18 juin 2006 à 14H28