Une victime de l’Irak : le dépit et la colère de Niall Ferguson

Comme on l’a vu plusieurs fois, l’historien anglais et pro-impérialiste Niall Ferguson a connu des phases successives marquant le déclin de son enthousiasme pour la course impériale des USA. D’abord soutien enthousiaste de la guerre contre l’Irak, il est devenu de plus en plus sceptique, jusqu’à mettre profondément en cause le destin impérial de l’Amérique.

Son article d’hier dans le Sunday Telegraph marque une étape de plus dans ce processus. C’est une attaque à la fois méprisante et radicale contre la politique actuelle de l’administration. Ferguson pense que seul un Gladstone (« the only true genius among 19th century British politicians ») pourrait relever l’Amérique. Quoiqu’il en soit de ses spéculations politiques, c’est surtout la vigueur de l’attaque contre GW et son administration qui est remarquable.

« How I would love to hear someone say precisely those words to Mr Bush and his trusty sidekicks. And then all I would ask would be for that orator to repeat Gladstone's fifth, and for this purpose final, principle: “To acknowledge the equal rights of all nations”.

» “You have no right to set up a system under which one [nation] is to be placed under moral suspicion or espionage, or to be made the constant subject of invective. If you do that, but especially if you claim for yourself a superiority, a pharisaical superiority over the whole of them, then I say… [that] in undermining the basis of the esteem and respect of other people for your country you are in reality inflicting the severest injury upon it.”

» I defy you to name another president whose conduct has more closely resembled that which Gladstone condemned in those terms. Indeed, this administration has more than merely undermined “the basis of the esteem and respect of other people”. It has blown it apart.

» And yet it is highly unlikely that the next Democratic contender for the presidency will be in a position to deliver a modern version of Gladstone's Midlothian speech. Why? For the simple reason that, unless it is collectively stark raving mad, the Republican Party will select a candidate to replace President Bush who subscribes to every single one of Gladstone's principles. The challenge for those who aspire to the Republican nomination will be to create as great a distance between themselves and Mr Bush as it is possible to do without explicitly disavowing him.

» The Republicans would certainly be foolish to climb on to what is left of Bush's foreign policy. Nearly all its premises are crumbling before our eyes. The theory of a democratic peace is a chimera; give Muslims the vote and they vote for militants. Regime change in Iraq has not enhanced American security; its principal beneficiary has been Iran. As for the unipolar world, the reality is that the occupation of Iraq and its ramifications in the Greater Middle East now so dominate this administration's agenda that the truly world-shaking event of our times has all but vanished from view. The administration is in at least two minds about the resurgence of China, and the result is a dangerous diplomatic schizophrenia, with half the signals indicating a new Cold War strategy of ‘containment’ (why else help the Indians with their nukes?), and the other half continuing the older policy of conciliation.

» After recklessness, ineptitude was the greatest defect of Disraelian foreign policy. Too bad the 22nd amendment will likely prevent us ever hearing a Gladstonian critique of today's inept imperialism. »

Mis en ligne le 6 mars 2006 à 10H11