Somalilandsun -After agreements from two meetings between president Muse Bihi Abdi and Opposition parties Wadani and UCID leaders Abdirahman Irro and Eng. Feisal Ali respectively, the fate of parliamentary and local council elections remains in the dark.
The darkness emanates from the still in office new national elections commission NEC that has been disputed by the opposition parties leading to an agreement that the former NEC commissioners be returned to office thence elections sometimes in 2020 as pursued by the international community with a stake in the Somaliland democratization process.
Following the two meetings between the three principle politicians in the country it was agreed that president Bihi shall uphold the agreements to reinstate the former NEC as per elders mediation that had garnered support from the international community.
But despite all arrangements more the 10 January date in which the president promised to finalize the issue nothing has been done and the status remain the same notwithstanding numerous visits and meets with senior IC diplomats the latest being the UN SRSG to Somaliland and Somalia Amb James Swan.
While the commitment to 10 January was hailed as a conclusive decision failure to implement anything returns the country to the days of political tensions.
A statement released this week from the Minister of Information states that the Government concluded following the agreement among the parties that legal authority was lacking for either the President or Parliament to effect the negotiated agreement and replace the existing membership of the National Election Council. The Government argues the only way to proceed would be to call for voluntary resignations which is reportedly not acceptable to the other parties.
Somaliland has now been functionally independent almost as long as it was part of the independent Republic of Somalia following independence from the UK and joinder with the former Italian Somalia. I agree that once parliamentary elections are finally held it would be wise for the US and the UK to step up a concerted diplomatic effort to facilitate with the UN and AU a durable resolution of Somaliland’s status and relationship with the federal Somali government in Mogadishu and the regional government in Puntland. This will have to include resolution of the Suul and Sonaag borders and at least a mechanism to address mineral rights issues.
The diplomatic task will never be easy with the passions involved but I think the effort is timely now with a balance of progress in the South and the risk of some unexpected disruption to the status quo from waiting too long. The move of the Gulf Cooperation Council to establish a Red Sea security initiative without reference to Somaliland, while others have supported national maritime security efforts by Somaliland is an example highlighting the growing potential for international misunderstandings as the Horn region attracts growing outside interest.
In a nutshell, the current chapter of war in Somalia has been underway since December 2006 with the Ethiopian invasion to restore the Transitional Federal Government which had been forced out of Mogadishu and was under threat of complete collapse in the face of fighters supporting the Islamic Courts Unions. There is a fair bit of fog on the details of the U.S. role. Secretary Condoleezza Rice wrote in one of her memoirs, No Higher Honor, that Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi, already having expressed concern about spillover effects in Ethiopia from an extremist takeover in Somalia, called her on December 29 to let her know that his military was going in and, “Frankly, I did not try to dissuade him”. While there seems to be no surfaced evidence that we initiated the idea and some Americans involved in dealing with the Ethiopians could have been more discouraging at some prior point–clarity will await the historians–we nonetheless got directly involved without any public debate or disclosure to the American public. By the “go date” –just prior to December 29–we ended up providing air support and special forces hunting terrorists, at least, as well as coordinating with Kenya in the south as reported.
Rice’s memoir indicates she had no high regard or expectation regarding the TFG. She also writes that the Ethiopians were supposedly intending to be quickly in and out. Given these two factors, it is hard to understand exactly what was hoped for or expected (one has to be at least reminded of Libya or Afghanistan or Iraq where we were supposedly intervening militarily to prevent bad behavior without having a clear plan for the aftermath).
There has been some argument from commentators that we opposed the Islamic Courts Union because it was “Islamist”. The United States has close and supportive relations with a variety of Islamist governments, most conspicuously of course the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself which has had such a big ideological footprint in re-shaping education and worship among Muslims in Kenya, Somalia and throughout East Africa (and globally) so it does not make any sense to think that the U.S. supported a military ouster of the ICU just because they were Islamist rather than either tolerant or secular.
Nonetheless, Ethiopia had become a military ally of perceived importance and the invasion made sense for Meles Zenawi as head of a EPRDF regime that had its own reasons be concerned about a consolidating Islamist government regime next door, in an environment in which it had cracked down on political expression following a strong opposition showing and protests from the May 2005 election. For the U.S. I suspect that the motivator, in addition to supporting Meles, was the notion of the ICU as providing a “safe haven” for al Qaeda figures, including especially suspects in the Kenya and Tanzanian Embassy bombings, rather than issues more specific to the civil war or otherwise of internal governance. Al-Shabab has a long history with al Qaeda connected foreign fighters in leadership, and al Qaeda’s involvement in Somalia predated the ICUs by many years, although al-Shabaab it did not publicly and formally declare allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri and become an open affiliate until 2012.
In 2002 the United States Central Command had established its base in Djibouti for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. In December 2006 the new “Africa Command”–AFRICOM–had been announced but did not become operational and take over the Somalia war in its Area of Responsibility until late 2008, or almost two years into the war. AFRICOM has continued to be headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany for ten years now and relies on the CJTF-HOA as its only formal “base” on the continent, although in layman’s terms it has many small “base-like facilities” with various “MILSPEAK” labels across the north and central parts of the continent. Journalist Nick Turse in particular has identified facilities for American readers who do not have the opportunity to see these locations for themselves by seeking records and public sources, while sparring with the AFRICOM public affairs function who seem to have orders to make sure only skeptics will report most of what AFRICOM does. Several of these facilities, such as Camp Simba at Manda Bay near the Somali border in Kenya, are particularly relevant to the warfighting in Somalia. See “Africa is a Command: from Bush to Obama to Trump“.
Following the Ethiopian action, in early 2007 the African Union AMISOM “peacekeeping” force was established to continue to defend the restored TFG and it’s internationally sponsored “transition”, with the EU funding the AU to pay for troops from Burundi, Uganda and other providers. In October 2011 Kenya entered the war with a land invasion from the south and roughly nine months later in June 2012 formally enrolled their Kenya Defense Forces fighters in the AMISOM mission for reimbursement. In September of 2012 Kenya AMISIM conducted a successful amphibious landing and joint attack with the Somali National Army and local militia, taking over the lucrative port at Kismayo, a regional charcoal and sugar smuggling venue that was controlled by al Shabaab and had been their key urban center since they were replaced from Mogadishu in 2011. Kismayo is capital of the Jubaland region that Kenya has long seen as a potential buffer beyond its own underdeveloped and ethnic Somali frontier. At present, Jubaland’s nascent regional government, led by former local warlord, is negotiating the possibility of resuming cooperation with the nascent Somali Federal Government, successor to the TFG, and is to hold a presidential election in August. Kenyan forces over the years have suffered significant, but officially obscured, losses in major attacks on two of their positions, but have generally avoided any sustained pace of conflict in supporting the regional Jubaland administration. Smuggling reportedly continues to be lucrative and shared by the KDF with al-Shabaab and non-al-Shabaab Jubaland Somalis. Kenyans at home have suffered high profile terrorist attacks from al-Shabaab and its supporters from both countries and the Kenyan “frontier region” seems to be more contested than at any time in the last 40 years, although political devolution seems to provide some examples of integration-supportive development progress. See “Now to that next step: evaluating the Kenya Defense Forces role in Somalia and Kenya’s security needs“.
Over the years since 2007 the war has ebbed and flowed on a seemingly sustainable, semi-permanent footing. Both the recognized government and al-Shabaab have territory and funding and some resilient will even if leadership seem frequently fluid. AMISOM expert and George Washington University Professor Paul Williams has suggested that AMISOM could reasonably hope to pass off to a Somali defense in as little as ten more years, which would mean we are slightly more than half-way through a 22-year mission.
For some reason, there seem to be disruptive elements in recent months aside from the continued high number of suicide bombings and the major January terror attack in Nairobi’s Westlands. First, there seems to be the strange notion that AMISOM should draw down troop numbers now because someone years ago guessed that something more like ten years rather than twenty would be adequate. This strikes me as quite irresponsible. Inertia is not a substitute for a strategy and tactics that adjust to interim successes and failures.
Second, the big increase in air strikes. The strikes are not explained other than announcements after each in which al-Shabaab fighters are said to have been killed and that the strikes were in support of operations of the Somali National Army and/or AMISOM or protecting our troops supporting same. Reportedly we only have around 500 “warfighters” of our own deployed so it is the volume of air strikes rather than personnel that represent a significant change and raise the question why?
Sometimes, the question of the deployment of 500 American warfighters can achieve major political resonance with the United States–such as the recent back and forth within the Administrations about residual deployment numbers for eastern Syria. Others, as in the case of Somalia seem nearly invisible.
Reading through the AFRICOM public communications, one gets the impression that the Command has a concern to re-assure our African “partners” (“partner” in this context means any government in the Area of Responsibility that is not off limits for reason of some egregious human rights situation or other policy matter that will agree to let us help them with training and capacity building in return for access and cooperation) that we are not going to abandon them to their “violent extremists” as we are calling the various Islamist guerrilla forces that use terrorism among their insurgency toolkits.
In the case of AFRICOM, the official “MILSPEAK” term for a ten percent drawdown in American forces in Africa associated with the new National Defense Strategy is “Optimization”. (One could suggest that this is the defense assistance analog to USAID’s “Self Reliance” focus coinciding with the Trump Administrations budget proposals to dramatically cut assistance budgets while increasing overall defense spending.) Of course we are all in favor of being optimal, and self-reliant, just like we all want to be best, but these kind of words mean different things to different people, especially when used as public diplomacy labels to win support for changes in policy.
Could increasing air strikes seem to someone in the process in Washington a way to “show commitment” to fighting al-Shabaab even as our global posture shifts? Could they indicate concerns of more al-Queda related transnational terrorists coming in with the territorial defeat of ISIS in Syria or otherwise? Or if AMISOM is going to be allowed to draw down is there a desire to substitute air strikes or expedite the pace of fighting to keep al-Shabaab from waiting out AMISOM before the Somalia National Army is capable? These are all just hypotheticals for me as an American not employed or contracted by my government to be personally involved beyond paying the taxes and preparing my children for the debt load.
Part of the challenge with Somalia is that we are not ready, at least yet, to acknowledge being “at war” even though there is not any serious factual debate about the fact that we are and have been. The fact that we are fighting is not officially secret, but neither are we open about it. We are not seeking public support in either the United States or in East Africa for what we are doing since we are willing to talk about it only in a way that is patently condescending rather than inviting engagement.
I have always wondered to what extent the war effort on Somalia, and the decision not to talk about it, hamstrung Ambassador Ranneberger and others who were supervising our democracy assistance and election preparation in Kenya. And once I eventually saw recently through FOIA that by April 2017 the Ambassador was describing a new approach of “building capital” with Kibaki rather than pushing reforms as per the older USAID program I would inherit within a few weeks, I am left with the heightened collaboration with Kenya during those initial months after the Ethiopian invasion as the most obvious change in facts that could explain the Kenya policy change. Was our failure in election assistance in Kenya with its devastating consequences facilitated by an unwillingness to discuss and account for Ethiopia and Somalia policy overlaps? If so, are we facing this kind of risk again as we escalate an air campaign without discussing why?
I am hoping that somewhere in my Government someone has come up with a new strategy for this war and that it went up the military and ultimately civilian chain-of-command before we started this escalated air campaign. The other possibility is pure self-perpetuating institutional “mission creep” which would be disturbing and irresponsible:
The escalation of airstrikes, as well as the introduction of manned gunships, has transformed the Defense Department’s Africa Command, based in Germany, into a war-fighting element akin to Central Command, which directs the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Africa Command, which was created only in 2007, has stressed that its role on the continent is to focus on training and equipping allied troops on the continent, but the rise in strikes points to a change in both posture and mission. Current and former American officialspreviously told The Timesthat there wasn’t one clear reason for the increase, but they noted that the drawdown of American military operations elsewhere in the world has given Africa Command more drones and gunships to use in Somalia. The loosening of regulations under the Trump administration on using force in the country has also contributed to the rise.
Four things can be and are true: 1) the announced presidential election results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not believed to be plausible by well informed and reasonably neutral/objective outsiders; 2) the Government of the DRC, including the CENI, had and continues to have ample means to persuade skeptics but has not shown serious interest (like in Kenya 2007); 3) the outcome was a fait accompli once announced and once the courts declined formally to overturn it nothing serious was going to be done about it; 4) the DRC/Zaire/Belgian Congo has never been a bona fide electoral democracy at a national/presidential level yet.
As far as the exercise of the proverbial “license to lie” by diplomats who saw Laurent and Felix on parade dressed in their new democratic finery, at least the Westerners among them were embarrassed enough to tell on themselves anonymously to the Western press. Not that this changes the substance of anything, but it makes me personally feel a little better as an American reading about all this. If I am going to be lied to by officials in my government, as an incident to their job of lying overseas to foreigners, at least I prefer that the lie not be intended to actually deceive. As The Economist says: “Calling Mr. Tshisekedi the winner fools no one.”
“Today we are gathered to honor the fresh air, green sky and blue grass of Governor Sonko’s Nairobi and dance with President Kenyatta and family who are truly shocked there is corruption going on here . . .”
But who knows? Maybe positive changes toward democracy will break out in Kinshasa in the future like they seem to have just lately in Addis. We can hope. And if not toward democracy, there are, God knows, many other things that have much room to change for the better in the DRC.
While AFRICOM has reached its tenth anniversary with talk of a drawdown of troop deployments on the Continent and HQ firmly in Stuttgart, Germany, China has used these years to grow out its African military and arm sales relationships, regional and international armed peacekeeping roles and to establish it’s first “overseas” military base in Djibouti.
The Crisis Group gives an overview of current Chinese defense/security/peacekeeping in Africa:
COMESA believes that elections play a pivotal role in societal transformation in the region and provide a footstall for entrenching democratic principles.
Premised on this critical role, Member States have continued holding periodic elections which have heralded a new dawn by signifying steady progress towards deepening and institutionalizing democracy in the 19-member bloc.
Nonetheless, COMESA is still dispatching teams of Election Observers to issue Preliminary Statements just after the upcoming elections in Rwanda on August 4 and Kenya on August 8, with further reports after 90 days.
Zimbabwean Ambassador Dr. Simbi Mubako will lead the team for Kenya to arrive 30 July.
Think I am too jaded? Enjoy this:
The presidential elections in Rwanda follows the 2015 referendum that unanimously approved a constitutional amendment that allowed President Kagame to run for office in 2017. The forthcoming elections are considered important in Rwanda’s socio-economic and political progress.
In the past years, Rwanda has made significant progress in consolidating its political stability, economic growth and development. Furthermore, Rwanda has recorded major milestones in consolidating democracy through holding periodic parliamentary and presidential elections as stipulated in its legal framework.
Since 2008, COMESA has continued to support the elections process in Rwanda. COMESA observed the parliamentary that were held in 2008, 2013 and the presidential elections held in 2010.
I am all for extra diplomats and elders from the region being in Kenya for the election to meet diplomatic needs that may arise. But let’s not confuse this type of “intramembership” diplomatic obsevation with an independent election observation.
AMISOM flickr photo- Burundian troops rotate home
The State Department issued this statement today, as Burundi’s long crisis drags:
On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, congratulations to the people of Burundi on the 55th anniversary of your independence.
We applaud Burundi’s ongoing commitment to international peacekeeping operations and recognize the positive impact its troops have had in Somalia.
The United States stands with all Burundians committed to peace and prosperity. As you reflect on your history and address the challenges of today, we send best wishes for a bright future.
I have no answer to this question, and I hope and pray it is just something to think about abstractly.
What I am getting at is that for purposes of public consumption at least the Western democracies were in denial in 1994 about the risk of mass slaughter and eventually genocide and failed to act to an extent that we all pretty well have acknowledged shame about. (No one bothers to suggest that China, Russia or other non-Western powers would be expected to be similarly troubled.) It seems to be recognized that the U.S. was the “indispensable” party that would have had to push forward to make intervention happen, but elected instead to pull back. There is regret that we did not take affirmative action.
Post-Rwanda 1994, of course, there has been over the years the notion that we learned a valuable lesson from that particular genocide and could now say “never again” with a newly “doctrinized” post-Cold War sense of purpose of a Responsibility to Protect.
Unfortunately the timing gets complicated by other events. We are in a presidential election year. Now the last major “humanitarian” intervention involving U.S. forces was Libya. While initially celebrated, it has become a politically dicey sore spot. The tragic loss of American lives later at Benghazi was fortunately not televised, but we now have a feature Hollywood movie coming anyway. While Washington collectively is not yet ready to examine the decision making process on intervening or not, the specics of the Benghazi incident have attracted more investigation than I recall from “Black Hawk Down” as such. The larger negative geopolitical fallout from the intervention in Libya has become much more apparent much sooner than in Somalia in the early ’90s and already appears to be a major concern of many facets and no easy solutions.
In that sense the factors supporting a cautionary holding back from acting are greater in 2016 than in 1994 (and of course I haven’t even mentioned Iraq/Syria and Afghanistan).
We have hoped that we would not be indispensable on Burundi, in particular that the (post-Gaddafi) African Union could find common purpose and means to act. That hasn’t happened. My perception is that there might be reason to hope for this sort of AU action many years in the future but that the capacity is really just not there now.
It has to be noted that governance in the region has continued to be dominated by what could be called a “league of extraordinary generals”–Kagame and Museveni as well as, in a sense, Nkurunziza. Nearby Mugabe remains and Kabila the younger. Who can really be an honest broker or claim with a straight face to be primarily acting on global “humanitarian” values without outside leadership?
Museveni and Nkurunziza are militarily allied with the West in the current AMISOM effort in Somalia which will need to continue for some long time yet. Museveni is involved with the US in our Lord’s Resistance Army operation which presumably is indefinite at this point. Kagame has apparently decided to postpone the transition to a postwar elected leadership by his constitutional referendum lifting term limits, like Museveni did long ago. He probably expects a relationship at least as good with the next U. S. administration for his re-election in 2017. He appears to continue to be a darling of Davos and to be working with a variety of endeavors involving commodities trade and related regionalization that enjoy quasi-official support around Washington aside from the public foreign aid.
If, God forbid, things turn sharply for the worse in Burundi, and there “isn’t anyone else,” would the U.S. seriously consider an emergency humanitarian intervention or not? If not, are we prepared to explain to our children why not, again, while living also with the consequences? I am in no way qualified to advocate for or against a particular course of action, nor do I know the backstory of the latest facts on the ground, I am just asking the questions as to our policy parameters as a taxpayer/citizen/ voter and a person of humanitarian concern.
Ambassador Mahboub Maalim, Executive Secretary of IGAD, extended his warmest congratulations to President Omar Al-Bashir for his re-election to the presidency of the Sudan. Ambassador Mahboub Maalim, noting the role of IGAD in observing the elections in Sudan, noted that the elections “were largely conducted in a peaceful and credible manner.” Ambassador Maalim said: “I congratulate you on your victory and wish to express IGAD’s confidence that your leadership will continue to make earnest efforts to achieve lasting peace as well as prosperity for the people of the Sudan.” the Executive Secretary added that “I also wish you every success in these efforts and wish to affirm that you can count on my continued support.”
Here is the AU EOM preliminary statement as reported by the Sudan Vision. The AU’s pre-election assesment had noted that predicate conditions were not in place for a fair election.
The International Criminal Court has ruled that Kenya’s President Kenyatta must appear in the Hague for the status conference in his case on the confirmed charges relating to the Mungiki revenge attacks in the eastern Rift Valley during the post-election violence in early 2008. At the time in question he was KANU leader and Kibaki’s new Minster of Local Government following the January 8 appointment of the “upper half” of a new cabinet prior to the African Union sponsored mediation led by Kofi Annan.
The AU process as structured between ODM and PNU negotiating teams stalemated, with the active resistance of key Kibaki “hardliners” and parts of the PNU coalition, including KANU, but Annan was able to get a last minute deal signed off on by Kibaki and Odinga that ended the immediate crisis on February 28. The settlement led to a Government of National Unity, with the addition of more cabinet ministers and a new, and ultimately temporary position of Prime Minister for Odinga, along with the agreement to appoint commissions to investigate the election itself and the post election violence.
The “Waki Commission” investigating the violence, in an unprecedented display of independence, provided a sealed envelope of key suspects to Annan for potential referral to the International Criminal Court in the event local prosecutions were not forthcoming, along with its extensive public report and redacted annex of persons credibly identified as having a possible individual responsibility for investigation. (The “Kreigler Commission” followed the ordinary practice of presidential commissions from the Moi era and reported privately to the President, and then released a public report disclosing broad flaws in the overall administration of the election but ducking investigation of the central tally at the ECK headquarters in Nairobi as discussed in Ambassador Ranneberger’s cable here.)
Eventually, Annan turned the envelope over to the ICC, which authorized investigation. Charges were initiated by the Prosecutor against six and confirmed by the Court against four in January 2012, of which one was dismissed by the new Prosecutor. So how has the defense of the cases been conducted since, or perhaps more descriptively, the counterattack?
. . . The ICC began to examine the Kenya situation in 2008-09, well before the 2013 election. This constituted a potential risk that continued to increase once the ICC received permission to start a formal investigation and the cases progressed.
The election came into play when two of the ICC indictees — Uhuru Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, and William Ruto, a Kalenjin — decided to run for president and deputy president… It was an opportunistic alliance of convenience as the ICC had accused both individuals of masterminding the 2007-08 ethnically targeted violence against each other’s communities. Ironically, this union, the negative ethnicity that accompanied it, and the ICC’s involvement also may have partly deterred violence in the 2013 election.
Winning the election was part of a key defense strategy to undercut the ICC by seizing political power, flexing it to deflect the ICC, and opening up the possibility of not showing up for trial if all else failed. The strategy entailed using a series of delaying tactics to ensure that the ICC trials would not start until after the defendants had won the election and gained power at the highest level. The tactics ranged from mobilizing international organizations against the ICC, making numerous legal challenges designed to delay the court, and the intimidation of potential witnesses, allegedly by defense sympathizers and go betweens, to keep them from assisting the ICC.
The tactics were part of a larger design to undercut the ICC. Demonizing opponents, politicizing ethnicity, and attacking the ICC as a tool of the West both before and during the presidential campaign served this end and victory in the election. Once they won the 2013 election, Kenyatta and Ruto came up with another tactic: asking for concessions based on their political power, including pleas to drop their cases or not be physically present at trials.
Mueller suggests that understanding the interplay between law and politics in this situation, while very much business as usual in Kenya where “the rule of law is still weak, politicized and hard to enforce [and] individuals are often sanctioned for trying” raises serious questions of much broader international application as the Kenyatta, Ruto and Sang cases play out on a global stage in the arena of treaties, international organizations and international human rights norms.
Within Kenya there have been two momentous court decisions since the 2007-08 election and ensuing violence. Both were decided at the High Court (the Kenyan trial court, not the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court). The first was the ruling that President Kibaki was not entitled to unilaterally nominate the new Attorney General and Chief Justice. This led to the compromise whereby President Kibaki agreed to obtain the consent of the Prime Minister for a new selection for the Chief Justice, paving the way for the litigation of the CORD petition over the IEBC’s administration of the election process and the 2013 version of the central presidential vote tally (with the new Attorney General as amicus on the other side of the case). The second was the lower court ruling that declined, eventually, shortly before the election date, to decide whether or not ICC crimes against humanity suspects were eligible to run for president under the integrity provisions of the new 2010 Kenyan constitution. Thus in one instance a High Court stood up, and in another one stood aside, and ultimately the larger questions of power and violence at the highest levels within Kenya have been preserved for politics rather than law.
How will the Attorney General and the Kenyan State conduct itself on the international legal stage at its October 7 status conference, and how will Uhruru Kenyatta, as defendant first, and then President, conduct himself on October 8 at his status conference? I suspect Kenyatta will go, in his own personal interest as a defendant, knowing that he remains a long way from actually facing trial so far, even though by attending he will be undermining some of the anti-ICC forces he has unleashed in his counterattack on the Court.
For me, one the biggest tart ironies of the whole saga is the recent role of the African Union in joining the attack on the Court. The crimes alleged arose out of a purely Kenyan election dispute. If the AU wanted to support the inviolate primacy of the Kenyan presidency, why did it not stay out of the matter in the first place in 2008? The involvement of the ICC is the result of the settlement brokered by Kofi Annan as AU-endorsed emissary, which was agreed to personally by Kenya’s sitting president at the time!
To me, perhaps the biggest question for American to achieve the positive results that we say we want is whether or not we have a serious capacity for learning. With news today of fighting by the so-called Libyan National Army of General Haftar, supported by various alleged allies of the United States, in an assault on Tripoli seeking to displace by force the internationally recognized government there, I want to quote from a post from the early stages of U.S. intervention through NATO in the Libyan civil war in 2011:
In the meantime, one of the most telling things I have read about how our actions in participating in the Libyan mission are viewed by others is from Bruce Reidel at Brookings:
The Indians are puzzled that some in the West who had embraced Qaddafi less than a hundred days ago are now so shocked by his cruelty. Qaddafi did not change in 2011. Some former Indian diplomats are quick to suggest that the Libyan war shows America’s “unreliability” and a tendency to over react to the last news broadcast. Who are the rebels in Benghazi, they ask, that are now your allies? Why do you rush to help them, and not the shia protesters in Manama?
As one Indian observer put it, “the U.S. is both promiscuous and flighty” with its relationships.
These observations on the Indian view were published almost a month ago. If the NATO effort in Libya bogs down, we may find ourselves asking more rigorously, “why exactly did we decide to do this?” and “what specifically were we trying to accomplish originally and what specifically are we trying to accomplish now?”. Those same questions that eventually became “known unknowns” in Iraq.
In the meantime, The Hill caries a piece by Paul O’Brian of OxFam America on potentially critical budget cuts for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. No one at the MCC could afford to make the comparison politically I am sure, but let me make it for them: look at the cost of the Libya action versus the cost of the MCC. The MCC would seem to have bipartisan support if any area of development can. A George W. Bush initiative originally, but very compatible with Democratic “soft power” thinking and led by Obama appointees now. A relatively small staff and bureaucratic footprint.
In geopolitics, and in longer term development, we need to pay some real attention to states, but if this is a humanitarian effort don’t we need to look also at the numbers of people involved: is this worth the cost relative to the cost of other “kinetic” or “non-kinetic” endeavors? Ivory Coast, for instance, is a much more populous country.
