Tribune. Disons-le, froidement, mais tant pis. La fuite éperdue des Français d’Algérie avait été autrement plus atroce que ces moments d’horreur à Kaboul. A Saïgon, c’est devant le bloc communiste que les Etats-Unis perdaient la bataille et on ne compte plus les attentats comme ceux de jeudi depuis le 11-Septembre. Il n’y a rien de vraiment neuf dans la capitale afghane, sauf que le monde voit soudain là ce qu’il savait déjà sans avoir voulu le réaliser.
Article réservé à nos abonnés Lire aussi James F. Jeffrey : « L’armée américaine a fait un boulot catastrophique en Afghanistan »
Chacun savait que les temps de la toute-puissance américaine s’étaient achevés, qu’ils n’avaient sans doute été qu’illusion et qu’au regard du défi chinois, tout semblait désormais secondaire aux Etats-Unis. On le savait depuis que Barack Obama avait fermé les yeux sur les crimes de Bachar Al-Assad. On avait eu du mal à ne pas l’entendre dans l’« America first » de Donald Trump, mais c’était Trump, voulait-on se dire, alors que là c’est un vieux routier des affaires du monde, Joe Biden, un homme formé dans la guerre froide, qui met officiellement fin au siècle américain en abandonnant l’Afghanistan à l’obscurantisme des talibans et au djihadisme de Daech.
Article réservé à nos abonnés Lire aussi « Les dirigeants chinois voient l’Afghanistan comme un signe d’affaiblissement des Etats-Unis »
Alors oui, devant ces foules de Kaboul déchiquetées par les bombes et ravagées par le désespoir, devant la détermination avec laquelle la première puissance du monde se retire d’un pays qu’elle avait prétendu rebâtir depuis vingt ans, le monde est pris de vertige, car il ne peut pas ne pas entendre le message que lui envoie ce moment.
Bon ou mauvais, il n’y a plus de gendarme. Il n’y a plus de parapluie, plus de protection assurée, plus d’alliances en béton, mais une Amérique qui se détourne du monde pour se tourner sur elle-même, investir à tour de bras dans sa modernisation, économiser les dollars et les hommes dont elle aura besoin pour ne pas céder la première place à la Chine et laisse l’Europe, l’Afrique et le Proche-Orient à l’incertitude d’équilibres et de rapports de force à repenser entièrement.
Plutôt que de perdre notre temps à nous disputer sur l’accueil des réfugiés afghans, demandons-nous, nous les Européens, si nous sommes vraiment certains de la réaction des Etats-Unis au cas où Vladimir Poutine marcherait sur Kiev ou annexerait l’Ukraine orientale dans l’espoir de se refaire une popularité.
Interrogeons-nous et nous devrons nous avouer que nous ne sommes certains de rien après que George W. Bush se fut mis aux abonnés absents, en 2008, lorsque la Russie envahissait la Géorgie, que Barack Obama n’eut pas bougé, en 2013, face à l’emploi d’armes chimiques par le régime syrien et que Joe Biden brave maintenant l’humiliation nationale pour se retirer de Kaboul à tout prix.
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Pastor--of-Muppets on August 31st, 2021 at 01:10 UTC »
As an American I agree with this. This isn't the 90's/00's where the US can act unopposed anywhere and everywhere at once. In the worst case scenario, if China moves on Taiwan and Russia attacks eastern euope at the same time, the US is going to have pick one or lose both, and I hate to say it but Taiwan and Japan are more important economically to the US than Poland or the baltic states A stronger, more united Europe would relieve some of the American burden in eastern europe, allowing it to focus more in the pacific. It's becoming even more pressing as continued meetings between Russia and China announce more and more cooperation between the countries.
Kreol1q1q on August 31st, 2021 at 01:03 UTC »
Great. But Germany is the problem here. And one I don’t see anyone capable of solving it.
seoulite87 on August 31st, 2021 at 00:09 UTC »
This is an op-ed piece written by an MP of the European parliament. He was a leading journalist for Le Monde and is prominent figure among French opinion leaders.
The translation of the article is as follows (per google translate) :
Tribune. Let's say it, coldly, but too bad. The frantic flight of the French from Algeria had been far more atrocious than those moments of horror in Kabul. In Saigon, it is in front of the communist bloc that the United States lost the battle and one does not count any more the attacks like those of Thursday since September 11th. There is nothing really new in the Afghan capital, except that the world suddenly sees what they already knew without having wanted to realize it.
Everyone knew that the days of American omnipotence had ended, that they had undoubtedly been only an illusion and that in view of the Chinese challenge, everything now seemed secondary in the United States. We have known since that Barack Obama had turned a blind eye to the crimes of Bashar Al-Assad. We had a hard time not hearing him in Donald Trump's "America first", but it was Trump, we wanted to say to each other, while there he is an old man in world affairs, Joe Biden , a man trained in the Cold War, who officially ends the American century by abandoning Afghanistan to the obscurantism of the Taliban and the jihadism of Daesh .
So yes, before these crowds of Kabul torn apart by bombs and ravaged by despair, before the determination with which the world's leading power is withdrawing from a country it had claimed to be rebuilding for twenty years, the world is seized with vertigo. , because he cannot but hear the message sent to him by this moment.
Power relations to rethink Good or bad, there is no longer a policeman. There are no more umbrellas, no more guaranteed protection, no more concrete alliances, but an America that turns away from the world to turn on itself, invest heavily in its modernization, save dollars and the men it will need so as not to cede the first place to China and leaves Europe, Africa and the Middle East to the uncertainty of balances and power relations to be completely rethought.
So, let's wake up!
Rather than wasting our time arguing over the reception of Afghan refugees, let us Europeans ask ourselves if we are really certain of the reaction of the United States in the event that Vladimir Putin marches on Kiev or annex Ukraine. oriental in the hope of regaining popularity. Let’s ask ourselves and we will have to admit that we are not certain of anything after George W. Bush began to have absent subscribers, in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, which Barack Obama did not budge, in 2013, in the face of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime and that Joe Biden now braves national humiliation to withdraw from Kabul at any cost.
But what we know, Vladimir Putin also knows.
Let's face the realities The Kremlin is today justified in saying that there would be no American reaction either if it engaged its mercenaries in the Balkans, manifested itself even more in the Baltic zone, in Libya and in sub-Saharan Africa, or made a front, tomorrow, with the Algerian generals, as he did with "the butcher of Damascus".
All of these assumptions are possible and what could we do then?
Nothing. We could hardly do anything, because the only real army remaining in the European Union is that of France and it is already present on too many fronts.
This means that there is no more time for disarray, not a second to waste.
In four months, France will take over the presidency of the Union, but it is now that she must sound the alarm, fuel the debate, mobilize our partners. Let's wake up, she must tell them, before discovering ourselves naked in the face of Russian, Chinese or even Turkish dictatorships. Before having to relearn that impotence is a subjection, must she hammer, before not seeing the American cavalry arrive a third time to the rescue of Europe, let's face the realities of this century and leave no one say that the European Union could not have a defense.
She can, because she has to.
It can, because it would obviously not be a question of merging into a single twenty-seven armies with different political traditions and historical cultures, but of jointly developing the weapons of the future and preparing together for the new battles, space and digital.
Make Europe a strategic player
It can, since the taboo that had been common defense for so long was broken by Donald Trump, when he declared that before going to defend the Europeans, the United States should ensure that they are up-to-date with their financial contributions to NATO.
She can, since Joe Biden has now made the Twenty-Seven understand what they hadn't yet really admitted.
The Union can, since it would thus only have to accelerate an evolution that has been underway for six years, and the Union must do so, because if its capitals were unable to equip themselves with a real defense , the United States would have no reason to come to the aid of such allies.
Let us wake up, France must say, because the Americans could one day prefer, against China, a strong Russia to a non-existent Union, spare the Kremlin and come to an understanding with it rather than going to die for Tbilisi, Vilnius or Kiev.
“Let’s exist! ", Emmanuel Macron must say to the twenty-six other member states, not because the Atlantic Alliance would have become useless, but because we need it more than ever and the only way to make it sustainable is to Europe a strategic player. Let us wake up, does he say, because it is in Kabul in August 2021, the XXI e began as surely as the XX th century was opened in June 1914 in Sarajevo.