De defensa

La machine qui rugissait

29 janvier 2010 — Leon T. Hadar, journaliste et auteur, spécialisé dans les questions de politique extérieure, notamment sur le Moyen-Orient, publie un article intéressant le 25 janvier 2010, sur HuffingtonPost. Cet article pose la question: pourquoi le mouvement populiste, indiscutablement impressionnant avec en son cœur le mouvement Tea Party, n’inclue-t-il pas dans ses revendications une composante anti-guerre, une critique de l’expansionnisme belliciste qui pèse d’un poids formidable sur les USA, et empêche littéralement un mouvement sérieux de restructuration de ce pays ravagé? (Alors que, souligne justement Hadar, le public US est majoritairement hostile à ces aventures.)

Hadar tente de répondre à cette question en conclusion de son article.

»It is possible that one of the main reasons why foreign policy issues, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not dominated the tea Party events has to do with the fact that new populists may have strong disagreements over the role that the United States should play in the world as well as over immigration and trade and social-cultural issues. Hence, my sense (which is based more on anecdotal evidence than on the results of any major opinion poll) is that while most of the new insurgents project a Lou Dobbs-kind of attitude on immigration, the Perot-type populists among them have been supportive of a more economist nationalist approach on global trade issues – like many progressive populists on the political left – and of a less interventionist foreign policy, not unlike the followers of Ron Paul among the Tea Party members (On social-cultural issues, “Peroites” and “Paulites"” very much like left-wing progressives tend to embrace a more liberal/libertarian perspective in contrast to the Sara Palin wing of the Tea Party that includes members of the religious right).

»If we apply the foreign policy typology proposed by diplomatic scholar Walter Russell Mead it would be safe to argue that there are very few Wilsonians aka neoconservatives fantasizing about the democratization of the Middle East or Hamiltonians seeking to promote U.S. business interests abroad among the Tea Partiers. Instead, one could suggest that most of the new populists are either nationalist Jacksonians – who have no problem using force in defense of the country but are opposed to launching ideological global crusades – or the more isolationist Jeffersonians – who are worried about the negative effects that foreign interventions would have on America's political and economic freedoms.

»While the non-interventionist/ Jeffersonian approach represented by Paul and other libertarian figures and outlets and the populist/Jacksonian position advocated by the Peroites and Pat Buchanan may be popular among the new populists, the main reason that they have failed to have more of an impact on the right-wing populist insurgents has to do with the strong influence of the elites controlling the Republican Party and the official conservative movement – as opposed to, say, the views represented in The American Conservative magazine (I write for it) – which continue to promote the interventionist foreign policy principles advocated by the neocons and the religious right with their emphasis on the need to escalate the war against “Islamofascism,” That explains why the majority of the Republicans and conservatives are still in favor of an interventionist U.S. foreign policy, a reality that is not going to change until the Jacksonians and the Jeffersonians start using their intellectual and political resources to advance their agenda.

»Unfortunately for President Obama and the Democrats, the White House's decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan and to pursue a Bush/neoconservative-Lite foreign policy makes it difficult for them to try to exploit the populist sentiments by trying to project a less interventionist foreign policy.»

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