Que peut l’ISG contre le désordre de Washington ?

Ray McGovern, ancien analyste de la CIA devenu commentateur de la scène politique washingtonienne, estime que l’impulsion donnée par l’Iraq Study Group (ISG) de James Baker (qui veut un désengagement d’Irak) ne donnera rien. Nous ne sommes pas loin du tout de partager son avis, — jusqu’à le faire nôtre.

L’ISG va se heurter, se heurte déjà au chaos washingtonien, au désordre des initiatives en tous sens, où la faiblesse de l’administration est compensée par l’entêtement et l’aveuglement de GW et les manœuvres dilatoires des derniers partisans du groupe Cheney-Bush. La nomination d’une commission interne, une sorte d’“ISG de la Maison-Blanche”, soi-disant pour aider l’ISG de Baker, est une manœuvre de cette sorte, une façon d’“encommissionner” la commission.

Quant à l’entêtement de GW, sa rencontre avec Olmert dit tout à ce sujet.

McGovern écrit le 14 novembre : «President George W. Bush conferred yesterday with members of the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group came against a background of chaos in Baghdad, a quisling government demonstrably incapable of stemming the violence, and an Iraqi resistance emboldened by the vote of no confidence given to the president’s Iraq policy. As expected, yesterday’s meeting was primarily photo-op.

»The important question is: Can the Iran Study Group be expected to come up with constructive suggestions for alternative policy on Iraq. The answer is no.

(…)

»Yesterday’s White House photo-op reminded me of the one orchestrated in early January with a dozen former secretaries of state and defense, who were given all of ten minutes (that would be 50 seconds a piece) to “advise” the president on Iraq. It was not just serendipitous but quite telling that the president’s other main visitor was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, because, if past is precedent, Bush is likely to be give as much weight to Olmert’s views as to those of the Iraq Study Group.

»Who has the president’s open ear was made abundantly clear by the circumstances surrounding the benching of the person far better equipped to lead such a group—national security adviser to former president George H. W. Bush, Gen. Brent Scowcroft. Chairman from 2001 to 2004 of the prestigious President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-04), Scowcroft took the highly unusual step of complaining publicly that Olmert’s predecessor, Ariel Sharon, had our current president “mesmerized” and “wrapped around his little finger.” For that unforgivably candid remark, Scowcroft was sent packing and told never again to darken the White House doorstep.

»It remains to be seen whether Olmert and the Israel lobby will still have as much hold on the president in the light of the fiasco in Iraq—not to mention in Lebanon—and the mid-term election outcome. But the entreaties of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to do the sensible thing and include the core problem of Israel-Palestine in any discussions of a solution to the Iraq imbroglio are likely to hit the president’s deaf ear—no matter the pleading by Blair to the study group by video-conference today. And, while Baker has shown some sensible flexibility on Israel-Palestine in the past (in the process winning the enmity of hardliners in Tel Aviv), it is unlikely that he can impart wise balance to the group on this question—due in part to its very intentional “bipartisan” composition.»

Mis en ligne le 15 novembre 2006 à 07H46