Is Ferguson Our Future?

Is Ferguson Our Future?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

“America is on trial,” said Rev. Al Sharpton from the pulpit of Greater St Mark’s Family Church in Ferguson, Missouri.

At issue, the shooting death of Michael Brown, Saturday a week ago, on the main street of that city of 22,000, a neighbor community to Jennings, where this writer lived in the mid-1960s.

Brown, an 18-year-old African-American, was shot multiple times by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white police officer with an unblemished record in six years on the force in Jennings and Ferguson.

From his patrol car, Wilson ordered Brown out of the street where he was walking and blocking traffic. A fight followed. Wilson appears to have been punched in the face. One police report says that there was a struggle for the officer’s gun.

According to Brown’s companion, however, after he was first shot, he threw up his hands and yelled, “Don’t shoot. I surrender.” Then Wilson gunned him down.

According to one of three autopsies, Brown was shot six times, once in the top of the head, which may suggest he was charging the officer when gunned down. A second St. Louis County autopsy found marijuana in Brown’s body.

What we are witnessing in Ferguson today, and nationally, is not only a collision of reported facts, but also a clash of visions about America.

In Sharpton’s vision, America is a country where white racist cops harass, assault and gun down young black males, and Brown’s execution is the latest outrage. Many media echo his indictment and accent the facts that support this preconceived narrative.

Disrupting this portrait and particularly outrageous to Sharpton was the release by the Ferguson police chief of a videotape of Brown stealing a $44 box of cigars, 15 minutes before he was shot dead, and manhandling and menacing the store clerk trying to stop him.

Brown was 6’4″ and 292 pounds.

Sharpton contends that officer Wilson did not know of the “shoplifting” that was irrelevant to the shooting, and that release of the tape was a moral atrocity to smear the character of the dead teenager.

But while that tape may be unrelated to the shooting, it does testify to the mindset of Michael Brown that morning and to his respect for the rule of law. Ought we not know that?

Then there is the rival vision of America rooted in a separate reality. It is that in America today, police, like Darren Wilson, are the first responders and last line of defense, willing to risk their lives battling the criminal elements that threaten us and our free society.

Moreover, violent crime in America — assault, murder, robbery, rape — emanates disproportionately from the black community, and especially the young male members of that community.

Crime rates, conviction rates, incarceration rates all testify to this truth. If cops are more on guard when encountering black males, is it not because, given the crime statistics, they have more to fear from them?

Do not the weekly news reports from Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago, where black-on-black violence is pandemic, also testify to this?

Decades ago, U.S. newspapers, which used to publish the race of both victims of crime and perpetrators, decided to stop doing so. They felt that this was the kind of news people have no need to know.

These conflicting visions are not exclusive to race. Many liberals share Sharpton’s vision, while many black folks move out of home communities to escape the scourge of crime.

Indeed, if Ferguson in the North County is a racist enclave, why did so many African-Americans move there from overwhelmingly black North St. Louis?

And if only three of the 53 cops on the Ferguson force are black, is that due to race discrimination? The chief says he has sought to recruit blacks and asked the Justice Department for help. Is this untrue?

We are told that of six members of the Ferguson city council only one is black, while two-thirds of Ferguson’s population is black. Yet, last week, we learned that the black voter turnout in local elections in Ferguson in 2013 was 6 percent.

When St. Louis County, to stop the violence and looting last week, sent cops into Ferguson with armored personnel carriers and assault rifles, they were denounced for militarizing law enforcement.

“Tell them to remove the damn tanks,” ordered Eric Holder. The county complied and a kinder, gentler law enforcement ensued.

And the looters and rioters went on a three-night tear over the weekend forcing Gov. Jay Nixon to call out the National Guard.

Nevertheless, the violence in Ferguson is child’s play compared to Watts in ’65, Newark and Detroit in ’67, and 100 U.S. cities including Washington, D.C., after Dr. King’s assassination in ’68. In those riots, great cities were gutted, dozens were killed, and thousands arrested.

Detroit never recovered. And that is the future that beckons us all if our first demand today is not for peace and order, and then for justice for Brown’s family and Darren Wilson, according to the rule of law.

 

The Best of Patrick J. Buchanan

The Global Elites Plan for a “Middle Eastern Union”

 

Author: Steven MacMillan

Ex: http://journal-neo.org  

Order Out of Chaos: The Global Elites Plan for a “Middle Eastern Union”

The Middle East has been engulfed in a state of chaos for decades now, with the region becoming increasingly unstable in recent years largely due to western sponsored proxy wars. The current map of the Middle East was created in 1916 through the surreptitious Sykes-Picot agreement, a deal which divided the Ottoman-ruled territories of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, into areas controlled by either Britain or France. Today the chaos we see in the Middle East is the creation of Anglo-American-Israeli power, which is attempting to redraw the map to meet their present strategic and imperial objectives.

Islamic State: A Creation of US Intelligence 

The Islamic State (IS) has hit the headlines in recent months due to their latest terror campaign in Iraq, which has led to US airstrikes in the North of the country. What has been omitted from mainstream circles though is the intimate relationship between US intelligence agencies and IS, as they have trained, armed and funded the group for years. Back in 2012, World Net Daily received leaks by Jordanian officials who reported that the US military was training ISIL (as it was then known) in Jordan, before being deployed into Syria to fight against Bashar al-Assad. Francis Boyle, a Law professor at the University of Illinois, has described IS as a “covert US intelligence operation” whose objective is to “destroy Iraq as a state”.

The strategy in the Middle East is the creation of a perpetual condition of instability and a policy of “constructive chaos”, where nation states are to be destroyed so that the map of the Middle East can be redrawn. IS provided the pretext to intervene in Iraq once again, with the intervention ensuring the oil fields in Erbil are safely in the hands of multi-national corporations – as oppose to chaotic and dysfunctional mercenaries. As well as providing the justification for the US, Britain and France to “bolster” the Kurds in the North of the country, which furthers the agenda of destroying “Iraq as a state”. As the President of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Former Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, Richard Hass, wrote in an Op Ed for Project Syndicate last month:

“It is time to recognize the inevitability of Iraq’s break-up (the country is now more a vehicle for Iran’s influence than a bulwark against it) and bolster an independent Kurdistan within Iraq’s former borders.”

As I reported in June, the policy in Iraq is to split the country into 3 separate religious and ethnic mini-states: a Sunni Iraq to the West, an Arab Shia State in the East and a Free Kurdistan in the North. The objective of dividing Iraq into 3 has been discussed in neo-imperial policy circles since as far back as 1982, when Israeli journalist – who also had close connections to the Foreign Ministry in Israel – Oded Yinon, wrote an article which was published in a journal of the World Zionist Organisation, titled: “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”. Yinon discusses the plan for a Greater Israel and pinpoints Iraq in particular as the major obstacle in the Middle East which threatens Israel’s expansion:

“Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel (p.12)……….The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.” (p.11.)

Yinon continues:

“In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.”(p.12)

Israel is merely an extension of Anglo-American power and has been since its creation in 1948, so any expansion of Israeli territory is synonymous with an increase in Anglo-American hegemony in the region. Arthur James Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary from 1916 to 1919 and author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration – which declared British support for the creation of a Jewish state (Israel) in Palestine – was also a member of the Milner Group, according to CFR historian Carroll Quigley in his book the Anglo-American Establishment (p.311). The Milner Group was the precursor to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) or Chatham House; the British arm of the CFR, with both organisations sharing the collective objective of creating an Anglo-American global empire.

The Plan for a “Middle Eastern Union”

After funding and being directly responsible for much of the chaos and instability that has been unleashed in the Middle East, western think tank strategists are proposing a centralised, sovereignty-usurping union as the solution to the problem they have created, in a classic deployment of the order out of chaos doctrine. As The New American reported last month, Ed Husain, an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the CFR, compared today’s Middle East to Europe before the EU was created, and he asserted that the only solution to the ongoing violence is the creation of a “Middle Eastern Union”.  This sentiment was echoed by Hass, who compared the Middle East of today to 17th century Europe, in his article “The New Thirty Years War”. Hass proclaims that the future will likely be as turbulent unless a “new local order” emerges:

“For now and for the foreseeable future – until a new local order emerges or exhaustion sets in – the Middle East will be less a problem to be solved than a condition to be managed.”

The idea of an EU-style governing body over the Middle East is not a new concept. In 2008, the Iraqi government called for anEU-style trading bloc in the Middle East that would encompass Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Turkey and later perhaps the Gulf states, in an address to the US think tank the Institute of Peace.  The President of Turkey, Abdullah Gül, was in attendance at the second meeting in 2011 along with Egemen Bağış, the ‘Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator’ at the time, who gave a speech where he described the EU as the model for the Middle East:

“We all know that the EU emerged as the most successful peace and development project of the history after a bloody war. Today, we have the very same expectations for the Middle East.’”

Whether a “Middle Eastern Union” will be created is difficult to determine at this point in history, but there is no question that the process of redrawing the map of the Middle East is well under way.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Author: Yuriy Zinin

Ex: http://journal-neo.org

Al-Sisi’s visit to Russia: Promotion of Bilateral Cooperation

A recent visit of Egyptian President Al-Sisi to Russia – the first foreign visit beyond the borders of the Arab world, triggered an avid reaction from political circles and media outlets in Egypt.

Egyptian news agencies and TV channels stressed the respectful reception Al-Sisi got during his stay in Sochi. The majority of them empathized the range of topics that was discussed by the leaders of the two countries.

Most Egyptian observers in tune with Al-Sisi’s spokespersons believe that this visit was a success. A number of opinion makers and businessmen stressed the positive dynamics of bilateral trade and improving economic ties. They welcomed the growing export of their agricultural products to Russia and the decision to establish an Egyptian logistics center on the Black Sea coast. Egypt is the second largest supplier of fruits and vegetables to Russia, agricultural goods account for 70% of Egyptian export volumes to Russia.

According to one of the leaders of the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce, the decision of the Russian authorities to purchase more agricultural products from Egypt – is a good chance for local farmers and traders. He said that this is a rare luck in the competitive environment of the today’s agricultural markets which are being supplied by goods from the East and the West. It was noted that the last year’s supply volume of agricultural products to the Russian Federation increased by 30% in comparison to 2012.

A lot of Egyptian hopes are associated with the  further increase in Russian tourists visiting Egypt.

According to some experts, the latest visit can not be separated from the implementation of major national projects, today’s agenda between the two countries. One of such projects is the recently announced construction of a second Suez Canal. To create the infrastructure needed for this project Egypt would be participating in the development of Russian industrial zones.

The Egyptian oil and gas production capacities are in the focus of the bilateral cooperation as well and the world’s largest company Gazprom is willing to provide assistance in this field. Russia will also be helping in developing peaceful nuclear energy projects in Egypt.

Egyptian media outlets are paying particular attention to the demand for modernization of giant projects that were built in the Soviet era but they “continue to be the backbone of the industrial sector of Egypt.” The country is now trying to improve its legislation in order to attract foreign investors, including Russian.

An article in the Al-Ahram newspaper states that the Egyptian president is concerned with achieving progress in relations with Russia – an influential world’s power. Al-Ahram columnist says that the former cases of cooperation with Moscow left a lasting mark in the history of bilateral relationships.

Political analysts and experts perceive the visit of President Al-Sisi through the prism of the turbulent events in the Middle East where different forces are gaining the upper hand, new players emerge, and the extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are posing a real threat to regional stability, Libya has been destabilized and the bloodshed in Syria continues. International terrorism has once again shown its ugly face in the Middle East.

In this regard, the press noted the similarity or even identity of the positions of the two countries in the respect of the today’s challenges and threats in the Middle East.

Many Egyptian writers and columnists have commented on the actions and policies of Washington and the West in general in the region, accusing western policy makers of duality, the support they had been showing to different extremist organizations, and the desire to push Cairo aside.

Most of them agree that Cairo needed greater independence in its foreign policy but without spontaneous turns or jumps. The former Egyptian ambassador to the Russian Federation Izzat Saad believes that the visit of President Al-Sisi shows hope that the country of the Nile has its own common interests with Moscow and that it is not willing to yield to any kind of pressure from the outside.

Egyptian newspaper “Al-Tahrir” says that the recent visit is placing a corner stone in the construction of new relations between the two countries, that will only become more profound in various fields and aspects. The influential newspaper “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” has called the agreements reached in Sochi “ambitious”.

Obviously, their implementation will take time, but a carte blanche has already been given

Yuri Zinin is a Senior Research Fellow at MGIMO and a columnist for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Peter Sloterdijk: Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit

Peter Sloterdijk: Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit – eine Rezension

Götz Kubitschek ^[1]

Ex: http://www.sezession.de

(Rezension aus Sezession 61 / August 2014)

Vorbemerkung: Ich las Sloterdijks Buch in Abschnitten unter dem Druck, ein ertragreiches Buch auf einer knappen Seite darzustellen. Nun lese ich noch einmal und in die Verästelungen hinein. Außerdem stelle ich allen Lesern folgende Aufgabe: Bis Ende August sind unter redaktion(at) sezession.de Rezensionen dieses Buchs einzureichen, die beiden besten werden hier veröffentlicht (wenn gewünscht auch unter Pseudonym) und honoriert, jede weitere gelungene wird mit einem der neuen Antaios-Notizbücher ^[2] bedacht. Ich halte Sloterdijks Buch für sehr wichtig. Nun meine Rezension:

Die Neuzeit ist jene Epoche, die auf das vermeintlich dunkle Mittelalter folgte. Sie dauert als »Moderne« an, und ihr Kennzeichen ist die Emanzipation des einzelnen hin zu dem, was zu einem Allerweltswort verkommen ist: hin zum Individualismus, dessen vornehmliches Tun die Infragestellung von Schicksal, Bindung, Erbe und vorgegebener Hierarchie, kurz von jeglicher Form ererbter und vorgesetzter Fremdbestimmung ist.

Der Kulturphilosoph Peter Sloterdijk stellt dieser großen Loslösung von zweifellos welterschütternder Bedeutung in seinem neuen Buch (Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit – hier bestellen ^[3]) eine teure Rechnung aus: kein Fortschritt ohne Abbruch, keine Selbstermächtigung ohne Einmündung in einen Brei aus letzten Menschen. Diese Generaltendenz ist banal für jeden, der das Jahr 1789 nicht als den Beginn von allem, sondern als das Ende von etwas wertet. Banal ist auch, auf eine grundsätzliche Stärke des vorliegenden Buches hinzuweisen: Sloterdijk ist einer jener seltenen Philosophen, die zu erzählen wissen, und sein Schwung, seine atemberaubende Belesenheit, sein enzyklopädisches Gedächtnis oder jedenfalls seine perfekte Exzerpt-Kartei machen die Lektüre seiner Bücher fruchtbar. Systematisch sind sie nicht unbedingt, manchmal sogar heillos assoziativ in ihrem Versuch, Phänomene und Begebenheiten aneinanderzuknüpfen, und dies hat Sloterdijk unter seinen Fachkollegen unter anderem den Ruf eingebracht, kein Philosoph, sondern ein philosophischer Bestsellerautor zu sein.

Jedoch rührt von der Fähigkeit zur Quer-Schneise Sloterdijks Mut, mit dem er typisch konservative oder sogar reaktionäre Denkmuster aufgreift: Irgendwie verzeiht ihm die Zunft derlei, es ist, als ob er auf seinen Erntefahrten zuviel auf einmal einbrächte, ein bißchen unsortiert, aber manisch kräftig. Besonders augenscheinlich wird dieser Mut im vierten von sechs Großkapiteln: Es ist elegant mit »Leçons d’histoire« überschrieben und interpretiert »Sieben Episoden aus der Geschichte der Drift ins Bodenlose.« Sloterdijk schildert Szenen und destilliert aus ihnen das, was seine Theorie der neuzeitlichen Selbstüberhebung stützt.

Die Lektüre ist ein Gang durch sieben Kammern einer sich steigernden Rücksichtslosigkeit im Wortsinne: einer brachialen Abnabelung von allem Überkommenen, dem die Konstrukteure eines »Neuen Menschen« jede Legitimität abzusprechen bereit sind – mit der Konsequenz rücksichtsloser Experimente am lebenden Objekt Mensch. Paris 1793, Paris 1804, Zürich 1916, Jekaterinburg 1918, Moskau 1938, Posen 1943 und Bretton Woods 1944: Man ahnt die Struktur hinter diesem Gewebe, die immer hybridere Ablösung vom Halt einer Erdung, zuletzt (Bretton Woods) die von den Wirtschaftsprinzipien des Alten Europas. Jeden Linken und Liberalen muß die Reihung empören, jeden Rechten bestätigen. Ja, wir profitieren davon!

Wer im vorliegenden Buch Sloterdijks Urteil über den in der Breite eines Konsum-Schwemmfächers angekommenen Massenmenschen liest, darf das ohne weiteres als klassisch konservative Kulturkritik bezeichnen. Die Beschreibung der Stufen hin zum »letzten Menschen« unserer Tage beispielsweise ist bereits als bloße Beschreibung wertend genug. Eine der Wegmarken ist auch für Sloterdijk die Formulierung der Menschenrechte (»zeitgemäß, unumgänglich, hochherzig und uneinlösbar«), in denen »von Abstammung kein Wort mehr« fällt. Diese grundsätzliche Loslösung von allem Erbe habe sich in Amerika geradezu in ein Credo hinein gesteigert: Jede Art Bindung an eine Vergangenheit werde aufgebrochen, Gegenwart oder gar Vergangenheit im Vergleich zur Zukunft abgewertet. Sloterdijk macht das an Erwägungen Thomas Jeffersons fest, der von 1801 bis 1809 Präsident der USA war, und springt dann zurück nach Europa, um in Max Stirners Der Einzige und sein Eigentum ^[4] jenes Denken zu benennen, das bereits 1845 den äußersten Rand der Bindungslosigkeit markierte: Das »Ich« werde unanklagbar, werde zum »Selbstbesitz«, sei niemandem mehr etwas schuldig und könne Ansprüche jeder Art formulieren.

Was Stirner noch nicht wissen konnte, weiß Sloterdijk: Erst in den letzten fünf Jahrzehnten ist es der Masse unserer Hemisphäre ermöglicht worden, das theoretisch längst bestellte Feld praktisch zu erobern und eine Anspruchshaltung einzunehmen, die keinen Aufschub mehr hinzunehmen bereit ist und das dringende Bedürfnis hat, niemandem mehr zu Dank verpflichtet zu sein: »Zu realen und pragmatisch Letzten werden Individuen in der Konsum- und Erwerbsgesellschaft von dem Augenblick an, in welchem sie in die Daseinsweise von herkunftsschwachen und nachkommenslosen Selbstverzehrern einwilligen.«

Hierarchielos, breitflächig, ein »Konformismus des Anders-Seins«: Sloterdijks Ausblick ist mit »Im Delta« überschrieben, dort sieht er uns – irgendwie geronnen (dies erinnert nicht ohne Grund an die kristallisierte Gesellschaft, die Gehlen mit nüchternem Grauen beschrieb). Die beiden Wege, die er andeutet, sind jämmerlich: »Wille zur mittelfristigen Fortsetzung« dieses Endzustands lautet der eine, »feuerwerkartiger Endverbrauch im Hier und Jetzt« der andere. Daß unbesehen davon das Projekt einer Rettung der wenigen gewagt werden könnte, vermag er nicht zu formulieren.

(Peter Sloterdijk: Die schrecklichen Kinder der Neuzeit, Berlin: Suhrkamp 2014. 489 S., 26.95 € – hier bestellen ^[3].)

Article printed from Sezession im Netz: http://www.sezession.de

URL to article: http://www.sezession.de/46001/peter-sloterdijk-die-schrecklichen-kinder-der-neuzeit-eine-rezension.html

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://www.sezession.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/petersloterdijk_kinderderneuzeit_720x600.jpg

[2] Antaios-Notizbücher: http://antaios.de/buecher-anderer-verlage/aus-dem-aktuellen-prospekt/2930/notizbuecher-viererpaket.-juenger-benn-montag-scholl

[3] hier bestellen: http://antaios.de/buecher-anderer-verlage/aus-dem-aktuellen-prospekt/2477/die-schrecklichen-kinder-der-neuzeit

[4] Max Stirners Der Einzige und sein Eigentum: http://antaios.de/detail/index/sArticle/3100

[5] : http://bereitschaftsfront.blogspot.com/2014/08/die-vier-haltungen-im-falschen.html

[6] : http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/peter-sloterdijks-neues-buch-die-schrecklichen-kinder-der-neuzeit-a-974984.html

[7] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b23LYHxt1J8

[8] : http://www.literaturkritik.de/public/mails/rezbriefe.php?rid=19612#2834

[9] : http://www.lsr-projekt.de/juenger.html

[10] : http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/4220/2

Comment la géopolitique du pétrole explique la crise en Irak

 

Les sunnites veulent se réapproprier des richesses qui leur échappent au bénéfice des chiites. Mais les djihadistes de l’EIIL comme les Kurdes et le pouvoir de Bagdad ont intérêt à maintenir les installations pétrolières en état de fonctionner. Au moins aussi longtemps que chaque camp espère l’emporter…

Par Gilles Bridier

Ex: http://fortune.fdesouche.com

En Irak, les conflits religieux rallumés par l’insurrection des djihadistes sunnites de l’Etat islamique en Irak et au Levant (EIIL) ont de forts relents de pétrole. Dans un pays qui puise les neuf dixièmes de sa richesse nationale dans ses réserves d’or noir, le nerf de la guerre –l’argent– passe forcément par le contrôle des puits et des pipelines.

L’Irak est redevenu une grande puissance pétrolière. Avec  des réserves évaluées à plus de 144 milliards de barils contre 265 milliards pour l’Arabie saoudite et 157 milliards pour l’Iran, il est, selon les dernières statistiques de l’Opep, l’un des pays les plus richement dotés du Moyen-Orient. Et la production, qui fut longtemps désorganisée à cause du conflit avec l’Iran, de la première guerre du Golfe au Koweit, des sanctions de l’Onu puis de l’invasion américaine, retrouve ses records d’antan.

Après avoir frôlé les 3 millions de barils/jour en moyenne l’an dernier, elle a même atteint 3,6 millions de barils/jour en février 2014, un niveau jamais atteint depuis la fin des années 70. De sorte que les exportations d’or noir, de l’ordre de 2,4 millions de barils/jour, plaçaient le pays en troisième position parmi les grands pays producteurs de pétrole derrière l’Arabie saoudite et la Russie. Mais c’était avant l’offensive djihadiste.

Et la trajectoire ascendante ne devait pas s’arrêter là, Bagdad prévoyant de pousser la production à 4 millions de barils/jour à la fin de cette année et à 5 millions un an plus tard (et même 8 millions d’ici à 2035 selon l’Agence internationale de l’énergie), le pays assurant à lui seul plus de la moitié de la progression de la production des pays de l’Opep.

 

Le sud, région stratégique aux mains des chiites

Dans un pays déstabilisé par des décennies de guerre et d’occupation, de telles richesses peuvent se transformer en un baril de poudre lorsque, pour des motifs ethniques ou religieux, une part de la population se les accapare. C’est le cas en Irak, où le pouvoir chiite a monté contre lui la population sunnite, surtout installée dans le centre du pays, et la population kurde du nord.

Car les chiites, dans le sud, occupent la région la plus stratégique pour l’industrie pétrolière. C’est là, autour de Bassorah, que sont localisées les plus grosses réserves d’or noir, et que la production est la plus importante avec 90% de l’extraction. C’est là également que se trouve le plus important terminal pétrolier du pays, par où passent 80% des exportations irakiennes. Et, conséquence logique, c’est là que le réseau de pipelines est le plus dense.

En installant à Bagdad un pouvoir chiite après le régime sunnite de l’ex-président déchu Saddam Hussein, les Etats-Unis ont en quelque sorte permis aux anciennes victimes de prendre leur revanche en profitant de la manne pétrolière.

Mais l’Etat irakien est aujourd’hui d’autant plus fragilisé que même le camp chiite est divisé, comme en témoigne la mise à l’écart du Premier ministre Nouri-al-Maliki qui, bien que contesté, briguait un troisième mandat. Ce qui ajoute aux incertitudes sur l’avenir du pays.

Au nord, la clé de l’indépendance kurde

Dans le nord, le Kurdistan est moins richement doté. Mais même si cette région autonome ne produit pour l’instant que 10% du total extrait du sous-sol irakien, les gisements autour de Kirkouk et, dans une moindre mesure, de Mossoul, intéressent les Kurdes, regroupés dans leur province autour de leur capitale Erbil. Cette richesse serait un atout pour un état indépendant tel que les Kurdes d’Irak en rêvent.

C’est pourquoi, face à l’offensive des djihadistes, les peshmergas se sont portés aux avant-postes des combats pour contenir la percée d’EIIL, et empêcher toute annexion de l’outil pétrolier. Ce qui leur conférerait une certaine légitimité pour revendiquer cet outil à leur tour.

D’ailleurs, le Kurdistan a déjà exporté directement du pétrole en s’affranchissant de la tutelle de Bagdad, en passant par le port turc de Ceyhan en Méditerranée. Il a profité par là de l’incapacité de l’Etat irakien à réagir, affaibli qu’il est à la fois par la percée des islamistes et les luttes intestines.

Des sunnites en mal de revanche

On comprend mieux ainsi, avec en toile de fond la carte pétrolière de l’Irak, les motifs de la poussée des djihadistes sunnites et la rapidité de leur progression. Tenus écartés de la manne pétrolière et de toute maîtrise d’outils stratégiques tels que les oléoducs et les terminaux, les populations sunnites du centre du pays n’avaient guère de raison de vouloir s’opposer à la progression de ces islamistes qui ont joué sur leur sentiment de frustration.

En entamant leur offensive sur le nord, où ils ont notamment conquis la ville de Mossoul, les islamistes de l’EIIL ont cherché dans un premier temps à prendre les Kurdes de vitesse avant qu’ils aient le temps de se réarmer, pour les empêcher de mettre la main sur des richesses pétrolières –ce qui constituerait le premier pas vers l’indépendance de leur région. Il s’agissait, pour l’EIIL, d’une première étape avant de déployer son offensive vers Bagdad et le sud du pays.

Les djihadistes ont notamment procédé à des actes de sabotage du pipeline historique qui, au nord, relie l’Irak à la Turquie. Mais les islamistes ont montré aussi qu’ils ne cherchaient pas à détruire systématiquement les installations pétrolières.

Quant aux Kurdes, ils ont ouvert une nouvelle voie à travers leur territoire avec l’autorisation obtenue de la Turquie pour exporter le pétrole, allant même jusqu’à affréter des pétroliers en Méditerranée. Ainsi, ils démontrent pouvoir riposter à la percée d’EIIL. Ils défient aussi les autorités chiites de Bagdad, qui considèrent que le pouvoir a seul la haute main pour organiser l’exportation de pétrole, mais en fait n’a plus les moyens de faire respecter cette règle.

Jusqu’à présent, pas d’impact sur le prix du baril

L’attention portée par toutes les parties sur la scène irakienne à tout ce qui touche l’industrie pétrolière et l’intérêt des uns et des autres à conserver des installations en état de fonctionner explique que, malgré les combats, le cours du baril ne cesse de baisser.

D’autres facteurs interviennent également pour que le marché reste bien approvisionné, selon le constat de l’AIE. Les capacités de l’Arabie saoudite pour compenser tout éventuel recul de production d’un acteur majeur, l’arrivée des pétroles de schiste d’Amérique du nord et des prévisions de baisse de la demande mondiale justifient l’actuelle sérénité du marché.

Les récentes décisions des Etats-Unis et de la France d’envoyer des armes aux combattants peshmergas pour les aider à combattre les djihadistes démontrent que les puissances occidentales ne veulent pas laisser s’installer un pouvoir islamiste radical en Irak, d’autant plus dangereux qu’il disposerait de la manne pétrolière pour se renforcer et porter le djihad au-delà des frontières. Par ailleurs, Téhéran a déjà laissé entendre que l’Iran chiite réagirait si le retour d’un pouvoir sunnite à Bagdad devait se préciser.

Dans ces conditions, rien ne dit que, s’ils se trouvaient acculés, les djihadistes en rébellion ne décideraient pas alors de s’attaquer aux installations pétrolières, aussi bien au niveau de la production que des exportations.

Mais les marchés ne semblent pas craindre à ce jour ce genre d’anticipation, une chute des approvisionnements irakiens ne mettant pas en péril la possibilité d’assurer l’équilibre offre-demande par d’autres moyens.

slate.fr