Les animaux répondent aux menaces de beaucoup de manières complexes. Les rats, par exemple, essayent de s’échapper une fois menacés, mais combattront une fois acculés. Certains animaux vont s’immobiliser sur place de sorte que les prédateurs ne les voient pas. Beaucoup se figent ou font le mort une fois touchés dans l’espoir que le prédateur se désintéresse d’eux. D’autres ont des méthodes plus exotiques d’autoprotection. Certaines espèces de poissons changent instantanément de couleur pour se camoufler. Wikipedia
Un canard boiteux est [dans le système politique américain] un élu en fin de dernier mandat et tout particulièrement celui dont le successeur a déjà été nommé. Wikipedia
Longtemps considéré comme politiquement agile et habile comme une gazelle, le Président Obama ressemble maintenant de plus en plus à un chevreuil aveuglé par les phares. The Washington Times
Dans l’entourage de Poutine, certains responsables auraient récemment ironisé sur le peu d’importance de parvenir à un accord avec les Américains, au motif que d’ici à trois ans, le président Obama pourrait bien « ne plus être là. » Le Figaro
On peut dire beaucoup de choses, en bien ou en mal, sur les années de George W. Bush à la Maison-Blanche, mais il n’a jamais péché par excès d’ambiguïté. En revanche, les principales caractéristiques de la politique de son successeur au Moyen-Orient, après un an de pouvoir, sont l’ambivalence et la désorientation.
La réalité, c’est que, ces derniers temps, le gouvernement Obama suscite peu de confiance chez ses alliés et encore moins de crainte chez ses adversaires. Si le but ultime de Barack Obama est de se différencier de son prédécesseur, il ne l’a même pas atteint. Mais, au moins, George Bush savait ce qu’il défendait. Barack Obama, lui, a seulement l’air perdu. Michael Young (The Daily Star, 10.03.10)
Intéressant bilan de Bambi, dans le Daily Star la semaine dernière.
Et confirmation qu’après un an de pouvoir et une chute libre dans les sondages (à 54% défavorables), personne, sur aucun des grands sujets qui agitent le Moyen-Orient, n’est capable de dire ce que défend réellement l’Administration Obama.
Et donc encore moins de mentionner les moindres avancées de quelqu’un qui, dans les faits sur le terrain, n’a même pas réussi à se distinguer de son prédécesseur.
Jusqu’à se voir déjà considéré par certains, un an à peine après son accession au pouvoir, comme un incroyablement précoce « canard boiteux » …
Just what does Barack Obama stand for?
Michael Young
The Daily Star
March 04, 2010
Why is it that only days before Iraq’s parliamentary elections, we’re getting no sense of what they mean for the United States? Barack Obama’s White House and the American public seem strangely detached from the event, the mental door having been closed on Iraq some time ago. This begs a larger question: What does the US stand for in the Middle East?
Judging from the Obama administration’s performance recently, it’s hard to tell. If we take a random selection of values or principles that might be guiding the US in the region, we enter a policy fog, the frequent over-reliance on style at the expense of substance. One can say many things about George W. Bush’s years in office, positive and negative, but he never sinned through ambiguity. A year into Obama’s term, however, ambiguity and disorientation are presidential trademarks in the Middle East.
Does the administration stand for democracy, for example, or more broadly has it made human rights principles a centerpiece of its policy? Not really. During his campaign Obama consciously played down that trope by accepting that he would talk to the region’s rogues without condition. He tried with the Iranian regime, which ignored his overtures, and when the Green Movement took to the streets last summer, the president for a time studiously avoided encouraging the demonstrators. In his Cairo speech, Obama only paid lip service to democracy and human rights, showing that they were really not what preoccupied him.
Now Washington has sent an ambassador back to Damascus – without conditions. Syria’s responsibility for the assassination of Rafik Hariri has been quietly played down (though to be fair, no less so than it has been in Beirut), and the Assad regime’s abuse of its own population is of utter disinterest to the Americans. Syrian involvement in the myriad bomb attacks in Iraq, its support for Iraqi Baathists, and its permissiveness toward Al-Qaeda in Iraq have not made the administration reconsider its Syrian opening. Violence works, and Obama has not proven otherwise.
In that case, can we say that the administration stands for stability and balance in the Middle East? Syria may have a nasty regime, defenders of that argument might say, but at least it can help the US counter-balance its other regional rivals, above all Iran. If so, then nothing indicates that Obama’s team is close to achieving that premise. The Syrians have made it amply clear that they will not turn against Iran, nor do they see any advantages in doing so, and Damascus’ propensity for exporting conflict to Iraq, the Palestinian areas, and Lebanon, hardly enhances stability.
One country where the balancing game might be played against Iran is Iraq, but there the US has managed in the past year to greatly undermine its own effectiveness. The administration’s focus on a military pullout has reduced its leverage in Baghdad (recall Vice President Joe Biden’s failed mission recently to get the Iraqi government to reverse a decision to ban Sunni candidates). There is also the fact that Obama, from the beginning, never clearly defined what role Iraq would play in American regional strategy. The president has neither highlighted the country as a model of Arab pluralism and democracy (albeit an imperfect one), nor as an essential front line in the containment of Iranian regional influence.
So, if the US priority in the Middle East is not advancing democratic ideals or enforcing human rights principles, and if its ambition to impose stability and balance is sorely lacking, then what else defines its behavior? Is it to enhance American power regionally? Power was at the center of the neoconservative worldview, so when Obama entered office he tried to portray his administration in less stark a light. Yes, power was important, for example in Afghanistan, but America would also seek dialogue, consensus, peace between Arabs and Israelis, and would generally put on a kinder, friendlier face than the Bush administration.
That kinder, friendlier face was shown two weeks ago, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly declared that the US would not use force against Iran. An attack on Iran would doubtless be a terrible idea, but for Clinton to rule out such an action so bluntly was not the best use she could have made of American military superiority. Indeed, it clarified a situation that the Obama administration should not have clarified, and the statement may ensure that the hardest of the hardliners in Tehran will win all future domestic debates on the best way to deal with international efforts to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
American power has been equally absent elsewhere. Nothing has been done to make Syria pay for undermining Iraqi stability, which presumably is a vital American interest. Iran has been more effective than the US in building networks of alliances in Iraq, even though the Americans have spent seven years in the country. Nothing has been done to make Israel more pliant on a settlement with the Palestinians, though administration spokespersons have described Palestinian-Israeli peace as a vital US interest. And Washington has, similarly, been incapable of persuading Arab states to implement even limited normalization with Israel as a prerequisite to regional talks, which Obama promised he would restart.
The reality is that the Obama administration these days provokes little confidence in its allies and even less fear in its adversaries. The US remains the dominant actor in the Middle East, but to what end? If Obama’s ultimate goal is to be different than George W. Bush, he hasn’t even managed that. As setback follows setback, he is increasingly finding himself constrained by the same dynamics that Bush faced. But at least Bush knew what he was supposed to be about. Obama just seems lost.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR
Voir aussi:
Le doute grandit dans le camp Obama
Laure Mandeville
Le Figaro
10/03/2010
Sa méthode du compromis à tout prix est de plus en plus critiquée.
En politique, la loi des séries noires ne pardonne pas. En pleine bataille sur le dossier de la santé, dont le succès est désormais perçu comme la seule chance pour Obama de ne pas «perdre définitivement sa présidence», le camouflet essuyé au Proche-Orient par Joe Biden tombe au plus mal. Car il vient s’ajouter aux interrogations et aux doutes d’un camp démocrate, de plus en plus divisé, qui n’avait certainement pas besoin de cela.
«Crachat au visage.» «Coup de poignard dans le dos.» Commentateurs et diplomates ne trouvaient pas de mots assez durs, ce mercredi, pour décrire la gifle diplomatique infligée mardi soir par ses hôtes au vice-président américain Joe Biden au deuxième jour de sa visite en Israël.
Pied de nez israélien
Venu réaffirmer l’importance cruciale de la relation israélo-américaine, notamment face au défi iranien, et amorcer une phase de pourparlers indirects entre Palestiniens et Israéliens pour relancer le processus de paix, ce dernier a appris le lancement officiel, le même jour, par le ministre du Logement du gouvernement de Benyamin Nétanyahou, de la construction de 1 600 nouveaux logements à Ramat Shlomo, un quartier de colons habité par des juifs ultraorthodoxes à Jérusalem-Est.
Annoncé, en pleine visite américaine, ce plan de poursuite de la colonisation israélienne apparaît comme un pied de nez aux efforts de l’Administration américaine, qui plaide depuis son arrivée aux affaires pour l’arrêt de nouvelles implantations. Derrière la question des raisons de cet affront se profilent de sérieuses questions sur la méthode diplomatique Obama au Moyen-Orient ; et de manière plus générale sur le leadership dont il dispose encore dans un monde qui semble se jouer de ses ouvertures et de la faiblesse croissante de sa position intérieure.
Les Israéliens se seraient-ils permis d’agir ainsi il y a un an, quand le président américain était au faîte de sa popularité et paraissait capable de renverser des montagnes ? Ont-ils senti qu’ils pouvaient se permettre de déstabiliser leur meilleur allié au moment où celui-ci semble pris d’un vertige de faiblesse, voire d’impuissance ? Un nombre croissant d’analystes en viennent à se demander si ce regain de condescendance, qui fait écho à d’autres camouflets récents de politique étrangère essuyés par Washington, n’est pas le résultat de l’échec de la méthode de compromis à tout prix, qui caractérise l’approche Obama à la fois à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur. «C’est une vraie question. Il y a incontestablement toujours un lien entre la capacité à agir à l’extérieur et la position d’une équipe au plan intérieur», notait ce mercredi le chercheur Justin Vaïsse, de la Brookings Institution.
Les embrassades de la Syrie avec l’Iran en pleine réconciliation avec Washington, les rebuffades de la Chine, le jeu provocateur de l’Iran, mais aussi la manière désinvolte dont la Russie semble ralentir l’aboutissement des négociations Start, sont cités par les experts comme autant d’exemples de l’incapacité de l’Administration à arracher des succès au plan extérieur. Dans l’entourage de Poutine, certains responsables auraient récemment ironisé sur le peu d’importance de parvenir à un accord avec les Américains, au motif que d’ici à trois ans, le président Obama pourrait bien «ne plus être là».
Les Russes sont loin d’être les seuls à vouloir tirer parti de l’affaiblissement très net de la position de l’Administration actuelle, incapable d’avancer sur tous les grands dossiers de son agenda, et traversée de débats et de doutes. Dans le camp Obama, nombre d’activistes et d’observateurs estiment que le président, obsédé par l’idée d’un compromis avec les Républicains, a fini par paralyser les projets phares de son mandat. Le plan climat semble être passé aux oubliettes. Sous la pression, il est vrai, énorme du camp conservateur, le président pourrait être aussi tenté de renoncer à son projet initial de juger les terroristes devant des cours civiles.
Après avoir demandé la levée de la loi qui obligeait les homosexuels à cacher leur orientation dans l’armée, son Administration paraît, selon l’activiste blogueur John Aravosis, également «peu pressée de dépenser son capital politique au Congrès» dans une bataille à l’issue incertaine, préférant se concentrer sur la santé. Le pronostic le plus fréquemment avancé dans les think-tanks est que seul un passage de la réforme de l’Assurance-maladie est encore susceptible de redonner l’initiative à Obama, à six mois des élections de mi-mandat.
«Ici, les choses se retournent vite, cela s’est passé pour Clinton en 1995. Il a suffi d’un succès en Bosnie et de quelques réformes internes destinées à faire oublier son échec sur la santé», rappelle Justin Vaïsse. Mais à mi-voix, les ex-fervents partisans d’Obama commencent à parler d’un problème de fond et à s’interroger sur le ressort profond de la personnalité politique du président, cet homme qui, à l’intérieur comme en politique étrangère, semble toujours plus pressé de convaincre ses adversaires – (républicains, iraniens ou chinois) que de satisfaire ses propres alliés (démocrates ou européens).
Voir enfin:
Slipping into quicksand
Monica Crowley
The Washington Times
August 19, 2009
President Obama, once considered as politically agile and deft as a gazelle, is now looking increasingly like a deer caught in the headlights.
His poll numbers on everything from job approval to his handling of the economy, health care, taxes and bailouts are dropping faster than a cement shoe in the Hudson River. Perhaps even more worrisome, Rasmussen Reports shows that fewer Americans consider him « trustworthy. »
His popular support is hemorrhaging because all of his major initiatives are either failing in execution or in the legislative process. According to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll, 57 percent of Americans say the $787 billion economic stimulus is having no effect on the economy or is making it worse.
An even higher percentage — 60 percent — doubt the stimulus will improve the economy in the years ahead. A new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows a whopping 72 percent of Democrats, Republicans and independents would like to see the balance of the unspent stimulus money — about $600 billion — returned to taxpayers.
The cap-and-trade legislation cleared the House (barely) but looks to die a timely death in the Senate. A majority of Americans now reject this scheme as they have learned it would be tantamount to the largest tax increase in the history of the world.
And now, Mr. Obama’s Orwellian health care vision is going down in a ball of flames, with Americans of every ideological stripe in revolt over some part of what’s being proposed, conceded and debated.
The president’s agenda is in deep trouble, and now it appears not even the silver-tongued, savvy political Merlin himself can salvage it.
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard for the Democrats: With control of the White House and huge majorities in the Congress, they were supposed to blow past whatever token resistance to their plans the Republicans and others might raise and easily implement their full-tilt liberal agenda.
But something funny happened on the way to far-left governance: The American people began to reject what was about to be inflicted on them. The Democrats did not anticipate that their constituents might like a say in how they were being governed. (That whole « government for, by, and of the people » is so 18th-century.)
Mr. Obama has been particularly perplexed by the revolt against his ideas, for two main reasons:
c First, he (like the rest of his party) misread November’s election results as a mandate to impose a far-left agenda without debate. The American people, however, still believe in the quaint idea of robust discussion before ideas are turned into law. They also make up a country that remains ideologically center-right. This week, Gallup released a poll showing that conservatives now outnumber liberals in all 50 states, and that 40 percent self-identify as conservative versus only 21 percent self-identifying as liberal.
No wonder a radical liberal agenda isn’t taking off like the Black Eyed Peas’ new CD.
c The second reason involves Mr. Obama’s lack of political combat experience. He has never been hit before. Until the health care blowup, none of his significant political opponents ever really landed a punch. During his early Chicago political career, he ran opponents off the ballot, but such community-organizing manipulation doesn’t translate well nationally. And now he finds himself in the presidency, never having known what it is to take a body blow.
The point of a presidential campaign is to put the candidate through the ringer: to force him to get banged up by his opponents and the press, and to have to answer the difficult and uncomfortable questions, be investigated, and learn the thrust and parry of political swordplay. By the time he becomes president, he has been roughed up enough to be better prepared for the job.
Mr. Obama never experienced that. His opponents — particularly Hillary Rodham Clinton — tried to go after him, but even she used kid gloves. Former President Bill Clinton tried, too, and nearly got booed off the national stage. And Sen. John McCain could muster only the weakest of attacks against his younger rival. The mainstream media, of course, played up to him intently.
The end result is a president who doesn’t know how to take a political hit or repel one without resorting to desperate and shameful attacks on the opposition.
This helps no one — not the president, not the American people, not the country. Having a president react like a child who has been picked on for the first time doesn’t telegraph « leadership. » If he’s flipping his wig about the health care revolt, imagine how he might react if there were another terrorist strike on the homeland or the Iranians moved to nuke New York or the North Koreans sailed a nuclear-tipped missile toward Hawaii or Alaska.
A president is always cosseted by his staff. But as a candidate, he should have experienced the rough-and-tumble. Without it, he stands puzzled before us, mystified by our resistance, stunned by the attacks, and paralyzed by growing insecurity and disbelief.
His agenda is sinking into quicksand, and it’s only a matter of time before he also grows overwhelmed and heavy from a battle to which he is unaccustomed.
Monica Crowley is a nationally syndicated radio host, a panelist on « The McLaughlin Group » and a Fox News contributor.
jcdurbant 