Pourquoi un conflit avec l’Iran ne devrait pas avoir lieu

Pourquoi un conflit avec l’Iran ne devrait pas avoir lieu

Le 5 juillet 2010, sur le site World Tribune, il y a eu une longue analyse de Gregory R. Copley, de Global Information System, pour argumenter contre une attaque de l’Iran. Deux choses sont à signaler : Copley est un adversaire de l’Iran et du régime islamiste, dont il est partisan de la chute ; simplement il explique pourquoi le choix d’une attaque serait catastrophique alors qu’il y aurait, selon lui, la voix de favoriser une “démocratisation” du régime. La deuxième chose est la publication de cette analyse sur le site World Tribune, en général très proche des thèses israéliennes.

Copley fait une longue analyse de stratégie nucléaire et de stratégie tout court tendant à montrer qu’une attaque serait préjudiciable à toutes les parties. S’il note que cela n’empêcherait peut-être pas cette attaque («Of course, it is entirely possible that the “war hysteria” could drive political actions which are, in fact, irrational….»), Copley juge en général que les parties impliquées, y compris les Israéliens et les Américains, y compris les Iraniens eux-mêmes, sont conscients des aspects catastrophique d’une attaque qui se prolongerait en une guerre incontrôlable. Il termine en proposant la seule alternative acceptable selon lui…

«Israel’s best policy, then, is to deter “irrational” Iranian actions which could spill over into a full Iranian missile (and therefore possibly nuclear) attack, even bearing in mind the limited number of heavy strategic missiles of the Shahab-3 type available to Iran. Thus, even Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has been constrained to undertaking a saber-rattling campaign while trying to bolster the credibility of Iran to operate militarily at a regional strategic level.

»Equally, the U.S. is in no position to sustain a new and wider conflict environment, even supporting a potential Israeli military strike at Iran. Washington has run out of political will, political allies, and, finally, it has run out of ordnance. Its arsenal is in grave need of restocking, and there is little chance for such budgetary surges in the present economic and political environment to rebuild its weapons, let alone its manpower.

»And if Iran was to initiate such a conflict, it would seriously jeopardize the framework for energy and political influence which Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been striving to compile from Central Asia through the Caucasus to the Middle East and Europe. So there are serious constraints against Iran, as well.

»Beneath all of this hyperbole-ridden sky there are U.S.- and UK-led groups which favor the dismemberment of Iran as a means of resolving the issue. However, again with the long-term view, any further reduction of the historical Persian landmass — which has already shrunk by two-thirds over the past two centuries — would only benefit the strategic growth of Russia and the PRC, and possibly Turkey (although there are many other factors which gather around Turkey).

»Little consideration has been given to mounting a classic psychological strategy to support the Iranian people in transforming the situation in Iran while keeping the state intact. Indeed, so “politically correct” has the U.S. Defense Dept. become that the “psychological warfare” function of the U.S. Army and Air Force — as tactical as these capabilities have been — has now become re-worded as “information management” and “information dominance” (specifically, military information support and/to operations [MISO]), etc.

»The race, then, with the most chance of benefiting the great powers, the Iranian and Israeli people, and the region, would be for a “bloodless victory” of the type so favored by Sun-tzu, based around a popular and modernist approach to reshaping the governance of Iran. The strategic competition, then, would be between foreign sponsors to shape the outcome of such a bloodless revolution to the best interests of the sponsoring power.

»But this, by its nature a covert and deniable process, lacks appeal in the technology-driven mindsets of the cyber-geeks who now dominate Western policy processes. Even absent their technology fixation, the corridors of power in the West do not resound to the footsteps of historians and grand strategists.»

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