Une leçon de logique des neocons

Personne ne s’est privé d’attaquer et de dénoncer les néo-conservateurs. Aujourd’hui, ils sont partout sur la défensive. Pour autant, ils n’ont pas nécessairement tort dans leurs ripostes.

L’opposition des neocons au rapport de l’ISG est furieuse. Elle n’en est pas moins argumentée et, finalement, empreinte d’un certain bon sens. Principalement, disent-ils, le rapport de l’ISG ne fait que reprendre tout ce qui a été précédemment proposé, et qui fut soit refusé, soit confronté à l’échec ou à l’incapacité.

Cette critique mérite d’être citée assez longuement, extraite de l’édito (de William Kristoll et Robert Kagan) du numéro du Weekly Standard à paraître le 11 décembre :

«… [A]fter nine months of deliberation and an unprecedented build-up of expectations that these sages [the members of ISG] would produce some brilliant, original answer to the Iraq conundrum, the study group's recommendations turn out to be a pallid and muddled reiteration of what most Democrats, many Republicans, and even Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officials have been saying for almost two years. Thus, according to at least six separate commission sources sent out to pre-spin the press, the Baker-Hamilton report will call for a gradual and partial withdrawal of American forces in Iraq, to begin at a time unspecified and to be completed by a time unspecified. The goal will be to hand over responsibility for security in Iraq to the Iraqis themselves as soon as this is feasible, and to shift the American role to training rather than fighting the insurgency and providing security. The decision of how far, how fast, and even whether to withdraw will rest with military commanders in Iraq, who will base their determination on how well prepared the Iraqis are to take over. Even after the withdrawal, the study group envisions keeping at least 70,000 American troops in Iraq for years to come.

»To say that this is not a new idea is an understatement. Donald Rumsfeld and top military officials have from the beginning of the occupation three years ago aimed to do precisely what the Baker-Hamilton group now recommends. In 2003, the Pentagon set a goal of reducing the forces from 130,000 to 30,000 by the end of the year, handing responsibility for Iraq to the newly formed Iraqi army. Every year since, the Pentagon has aimed to reduce U.S. forces substantially. This time last year, defense officials announced their intention to reduce the force of 150,000 to well under 100,000 by the end of 2006.

»So now here comes the Iraq Study Group suggesting that the present force of about 140,000 should be reduced to around 70,000 by early 2008. But as with all similar plans previously devised by the Pentagon, the timing, according to the Washington Post's sources, ''would be more a conditional goal than a firm timetable, predicated on the assumption that circumstances on the ground would permit it.'' As Democratic senator Jack Reed noted, the group's recommendations repeat ''what some of us have been saying for a while.'' But, of course, the Baker plan will face the same challenges as all previous such suggestions. In the past, Pentagon desires to draw down the force foundered precisely because ''circumstances on the ground'' did not permit a reduction of American forces. Despite efforts to make it appear otherwise, then, the real recommendation of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group is ''stay the course.'' For this we waited nine months?

»One of the more striking aspects of the Iraq Study Group's report is that these recommendations are clearly not anyone's idea of the right plan. As the New York Times put it, they represent ''a compromise between distinct paths that the group has debated since March.'' One commission source declared, ''We reached a consensus, which in itself is remarkable.'' ''Everyone felt good about where we ended up,'' said another. We're happy for them. But reaching consensus among the 10 members of the group was presumably not the primary goal of this exercise. The idea was to provide usable advice for the Bush administration that would help it move toward an acceptable outcome in Iraq. In that, the commission has failed.»

Mis en ligne le 2 décembre 2006 à 16H44