Seul contre tout et contre tous, GW ira jusqu’au bout

Il doit nous apparaître de plus en plus évident que le président GW Bush est déterminé à aller jusqu’au bout dans la guerre en Irak, — c’est-à-dire jusqu’au bout de sa présidence, sans plus vraiment s’inquiéter du résultat, des conséquences et des réalités de cette guerre. Un article de commentaire de Joseph L. Galloway, datant du 3 mai et mis en ligne par McClatchy Newspapers, présente l’image d’une extraordinaire détermination chez ce président des Etats-Unis.

«The time for bumper-sticker bombast, sound-bite strategizing and gotcha politics as practiced by the politicians who infest the nation's capital needs to end right now, at least where it intersects with the disaster that is the Iraq War.

»There's no high ground left to capture by either a stubborn president who won't see or hear the truth about where his path to “victory” in a lost war really leads, or the new Democratic majority in Congress, which is too timid and fearful of doing what they were elected to do — bring an end to the war as swiftly as possible.

»While the politicians — a pox on all of them — wrangled and dithered and bloviated American troops were dying at record numbers on the bomb-blasted roads and streets of Iraq. The month of April saw 104 American soldiers and Marines travel home in flag-draped coffins, out of sight of the cameras and the American people in whose name they died. It was the sixth highest monthly death toll of the war.

»This past week was a circus of the ridiculous as President Bush went on television every day threatening to veto a bill providing the billions needed to continue to prosecute his war — only the second veto The Decider has exercised in his six years in power — on grounds that the Democrats were trying to substitute the judgments of politicians for that of the military commanders on the ground.

»Bush's daily diatribe overlooked the fact that the politicians of his administration had shoved their own flawed judgments down the throats of our military commanders every day since planning of the invasion began early in 2002.

»The Democrats had already tinkered with their war-funding bill to remove mandatory guidelines for the beginning of troop withdrawals, making them more of a suggestion than an order. But that wasn't enough for the president, who demanded a “clean” bill with only the money he wanted to continue the war.

»The moveable deadline for some determination of whether the president's surge, or escalation, of U.S. troop strength in Iraq moved yet again as our commander Gen. David Petraeus told Congress that it would probably be September before we had a good idea whether the new-old strategy was working or not.

»And if that strategy is not working when September rolls around? That would not mean the war was over, administration officials hinted. They will think up something else to try.

»The president is determined to continue the war, no matter what, until he can safely hand over the whole mess to whoever succeeds him on Jan. 20, 2009, no matter the cost in American and Iraqi lives.»

Ce long extrait du texte de Galloway présente une image très surréaliste de la situation. Il apparaît clairement que l’enjeu, aujourd’hui, n’est plus vraiment l’issue de la guerre, l’issue de telle stratégie, etc., mais bien le seul fait de tenir. GW Bush veut tenir contre le Congrès, contre l’opinion publique, contre les experts, contre ses généraux, etc., comme si le simple fait de tenir jusqu’en janvier 2009 justifierait la guerre et constituerait une sorte de “victoire” symbolique remplaçant la vraie, et, au-delà, constituerait le fondement même de sa présidence.

C’est une situation fascinante car, aujourd’hui, on pourrait commencer à dire que la puissance US est toute entière tenue et paralysée par un seul homme, encore plus que par les événements d’Irak eux-mêmes. Même la violence de la guerre dans le pays n’exerce pas une pression aussi grande que la volonté presque absurde de cet homme, verrouillé dans ses prérogatives constitutionnelles et sourd à toute logique stratégique et politique.

Mis en ligne le 6 mai 2007 à 13H16