Publications /
Policy Brief

Back
Iran/Etats-Unis : L’assassinat de Soulaimani, pas de quoi générer une guerre
Authors
January 17, 2020

Ce papier tente, aux vues de l’état actuel des relations entre les Etats-Unis et l’Iran et des conjonctures qui traversent la région et le monde d’aujourd’hui, de prospecter les pistes d’évolution de la tension ambiante. S’achemine-t-on vers une guerre ? Quels en seront les acteurs ? Quelle en seraient la nature et les limites et, surtout, quels en seraient les impacts, sur la région et sur le monde ?

Les réactions sont jusqu’à présent mitigées et se limitent aux formules diplomatiques consacrées, appelant à la maîtrise de soi et à la modération. De Moscou à Berlin, on appelle à la temporisation avec un timide parti pris pour l’un ou l’autre des antagonistes. Certaines parties du monde gardent le silence. Mais, si les événements venaient à se précipiter et si le conflit prenait des allures plus dangereuses, les neutralités résisteraient-elles ? Irait-on vers un conflit plus généralisé ? Qui soutiendrait l’Iran ? Qui soutiendrait les Etats-Unis?

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    October 2, 2026
    L’incident du vol FZ1073 entre Dubaï et Tel-Aviv ne permet encore aucune attribution définitive. Il constitue en revanche un révélateur utile : à mesure que la sûreté aérienne ferme les voies classiques d’intrusion, la menace cherche à emprunter des voies alternatives en exploitant les personnes, les prestataires et les systèmes auxquels l’écosystème aéronautique doit nécessairement accorder sa confiance. ...
  • Authors
    September 30, 2026
    On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Défense Agreement, a collective-defense pact widely compared to NATO’s Article 5. This essay argues that the comparison is misleading. Mecca borrows NATO’s language of solidarity without yet possessing NATO’s institutional machinery, and the Houthi offensive against Saudi Arabia in September 2026 provided an early and revealing test of what the agreement actually means in practice. Neither Pakistan nor Turk ...
  • September 25, 2026
    In this episode, Senior Fellow Ian Lesser examines the United States’ longstanding ties with the Mediterranean as the country marks its 250th anniversary. He discusses how a possible shif ...
  • Authors
    August 13, 2026
    Cuando estalla una crisis, esta da lugar a la activación de reflejos para su gestión y la limitación de sus efectos. Comienzan, entonces, los análisis y las suposiciones sobre las disfunciones, los incumplimientos y las fallas que la ocasionaron. En algunos casos, la teoría de la conspiración se inmiscuye y las hipótesis buscan a los autores que provocaron la crisis, sus designios y sus objetivos. Sin embargo, la teoría de la gestión de crisis nos enseña que una crisis surge según ...
  • Authors
    August 12, 2026
    When a crisis erupts, it sets crisis-management reflexes in motion and prompts efforts to contain its effects. Analysts then begin looking for the malfunctions, oversights, and failures that caused it. In some cases, conspiracy theories creep in, and speculation turns to who engineered the crisis, and to what end. Crisis-management theory teaches us, however, that a crisis unfolds under conditions that favor its emergence. Crises take shape in an environment where latent vulnerabil ...
  • Authors
    August 11, 2026
    Lorsqu’une crise éclate, elle donne lieu à l’actionnement des réflexes pour sa gestion et la limitation de ses effets. Commencent, alors, les analyses et les suppositions sur les dysfonctionnements, les manquements et les défaillances ayant entrainé ladite crise. Dans certains cas, la théorie du complot s’ingère et les hypothèses cherchent les auteurs ayant provoqué la crise, leurs desseins et leurs buts.Cependant, la théorie de gestion des crises nous apprend qu’une crise inte ...
  • Authors
    August 11, 2026
    The Mecca Agreement: A First Step Towards a New Regional Security Architecture? On 7 August, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Agreement, a trilateral defense pact aimed at strengthening collective security and defense cooperation between the three countries. At its core lies a collective defense commitment under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all three. While many details concerning its practical implementation remain unclear, the agreeme ...
  • Authors
    August 7, 2026
    THE END OF AN ERAThe US-Israeli war on Iran, a 'little excursion' envisaged to be over within a matter of weeks, has entered its fourth month. Shock waves ripple across the globe. This war is just one in a series of recent crises which have fractured the international community, making the decades of the 2020's among the most disruptive in recent history. Each crisis compounds the deleterious effects of those which came before. The war in Iran is no exception. It abruptly stalled ec ...
  • Authors
    August 6, 2026
    With America's 250th anniversary, there will be many analyses of the country's history from domestic and international perspectives. But the meaning of the American story should also be assessed in key regional settings, from Asia to Latin America, and in transatlantic terms. In this vein, it is worth exploring the U.S. engagement in and with the Mediterranean world, one of the first places of U.S. international activism, and a setting where diverse aspects of U.S. foreign policy ha ...
  • Authors
    July 17, 2026
    The close relationship between energy and geopolitics is well established. The same holds true for several armed conflicts. In recent years, however, the conflict most closely intertwined with energy has been the 2026 Iran War, which began on February 28. A ceasefire has been in effect since April 8, and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by Iran and the United States on June 17. Nevertheless, as demonstrated by Iran's attacks on commercial vessels and recent U.S. strike ...