Arab Spring: Rising instability a cause for serious concern
Just before he was overthrown, former Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi warned the West that his ouster would result in chaos and holy war overtaking North Africa. His forebodings, now so accurate, were at that point in time dismissed by Western governments as the ranting of a megalomaniac. It is now admitted that “Qaddafi’s overthrow broke all kinds of local ethnic, tribal and commercial bargains and power broking arrangements that we never understood.”
Similar had been the warnings before President George W. Bush decided to intervene in Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003. Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser to the first President Bush, had warned in an article widely perceived to be written with the blessings of the elder Bush and published in the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 16, 2002, that “an attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken.”
George W. Bush did not pay heed to such sage advice, with horrendous consequences that all are too familiar now. The people of Iraq, in particular, are still paying a heavy price for that folly. What followed in Libya on the ouster and killing of Qaddafi was the inevitable outcome of lessons still unlearned. The fury of clan, ethnic and militant violence has been unleashed. The murder of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens has still not been solved nor have the perpetrators of that ghastly crime been apprehended.
But what has happened is that the lid that Qaddafi kept on Libya’s various ethnic and tribal factions has been removed without a corresponding firm alternative. The borders of most North African states, once controlled by forceful authority, are now open and porous to assorted militants of different denominations, including Al-Qaeda elements, which, together with criminal gangs, now terrorize the North African countryside.
Meanwhile, the ineffective government put in place by the Western powers looks on with utter helplessness. There is no administration, no army and no police force worth the name that the helpless government in Libya can seriously task for maintaining law and order. The French would dearly like to present their military action in Mali in altruistic terms as fighting the spread of terror-linked militants; but the origins of the French intervention are much deeper and by no means altruistic.
Poverty stricken Mali is a very poor country. What the French fear the most is the malaise of terror spreading to other West African countries, particularly Niger, a neighboring country to the east of Mali and immediately to the south of Libya. Niger is one of the main uranium producing countries in Africa with about 7.5 percent of the world’s output from two high grade mines at Azelik and Arlit, the bulk of which is exported to France.
France is a major producer of nuclear power and it requires about 10,500 tons of uranium per year. Its 58 operational nuclear power plants produce nearly 75 percent of the total power requirements of France, thus largely freeing it from dependency on imported fossil fuels. Areva, a French state owned nuclear power company, is perhaps the largest in the world. Consequently, France can ill afford to let Niger slip out of its orbit.
President Francois Hollande has also been egged on by relentless right-wing pressure at home that have let no opportunity pass to criticize him for letting France become “internationally isolated” and for “lack of preparedness.” But for France and other European countries the harshest blow has been the lack of US military involvement.
For the United States, the issue of securing oil and gas supplies from the Middle East and North Africa is no longer that important. As the United States moves toward becoming increasingly self-reliant with shale gas production and oil extracted by the new “fracking” technology, it will show less and less enthusiasm in getting involved in European military ‘adventurism’ in North Africa and the Middle East. For all of Prime Minister David Cameron’s verbal blustering, all that the United Kingdom has been able to cobble up to support the French effort have been two RAF transport planes; and one of these broke down at Paris airport!
What has happened in North Africa with the overthrow of Qaddafi and the fall of Mubarak in Egypt should induce re-thinking particularly in London and Paris. The strategy followed so far of effecting regime change in the garb of overthrow of dictators (no matter how odious) has been extremely shortsighted.
