Africa: Where to Intervene?

Over the weekend, with the catalyst of the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the British media played up the possibility of a military intervention to free the country from the rule of Robert Mugabe. There was a consensus from The Observer, with the Archbishop of York's call for the toppling of Mugabe, to the BBC's headlining of Desmond Tutu's call for action to The Daily Telegraph's featuring of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's declaration, "Enough is enough." This morning, the BBC's Today programme ran the story in its prime slot after 8 a.m.

This coverage was absent, however, in the United States.



Apart from one editorial, I could not find a single story in The Washington Post or The New York Times. Shankar Vedantam, who writes the lofty-sounding Department of Human Behavior analysis for the Post, may want to sharpen his finding, "When nearly 600 people in Zimbabwe died in a cholera outbreak a week ago, the international response was far more muted," and look at his own newsroom.

Why the disparity? I suspect in part that it's because any immediate intervention against Mugabe would have to be a show of military force, and the US has no troops --- and, more pertinently, a priority to use any troops it might have --- in that effort.

In part, it may be the Obama Administration is selecting another African country for attention. The Post, while ignoring Zimbabwe, has a long Page One article today, "Sudan's Leaders Brace for U.S. Shift; Obama Team Seen As Tough on Darfur". A lot of the Post's piece is speculation, drawn from past statements of Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton and hanging its hat on a task force report which "recommends, among other things, that the Obama administration create a high-level forum in the White House to direct the government's response to threats of mass violence". Moreover, the paper notes cogently that Obama "has not called for direct U.S. intervention".

So it's not a safe bet to say that the US will be ratcheting up the pressure for a move, direct or indirect, against Khartoum. It is a pretty good wager, however, that the Obama folks will be even less inclined to join others in a march on Harare.

Meanwhile, there is a cautionary tale from the Bush Administration's interventions in Africa. Two years ago, Washington supported the overthrow of the Mogadishu Government, led by the Islamic Courts, through intervention by Ethiopian troops. On Sunday, The New York Times woke up to the outcome of that venture:

Somalia’s transitional government looks as if it is about to flatline. The Ethiopians who have been keeping it alive for two years say they are leaving the country, essentially pulling the plug.

For the past 17 years, Somalia has been ripped apart by anarchy, violence, famine and greed. It seems as though things there can never get worse. But then they do.