The humanitarian reasons for intervention in Liberia are rather more urgent than those produced by the US and Britain for intervention in Iraq. The suffering of the civilian population caught up in the violent conflict between two rebel groups and forces loyal to President Charles Taylor is increasing by the day. Without some sort of military intervention the situation is bound to deteriorate.
Under Charles Taylor, Liberia has become a source of instability for the whole sub-region. Taylor’s involvement in the civil war in Sierra Leone has already earned him an indictment from the Special Court investigating war crimes in that country. The US itself has called on Taylor to step down and hand himself in to the Court. More recently Taylor has been implicated in a conflict in another of Liberia’s neighbors, Ivory Coast. There have even been reports that Al-Qaeda has been taking advantage of the instability and conflicts in the region to make money through illegal trafficking in diamonds and guns.
There is little doubt that unlike in Iraq, a US military intervention in Liberia would be welcomed by the majority of Liberians and by the region as a whole. It would also be welcomed by the French and British whose peace-building efforts in West Africa are being undermined by the continuing conflict in Liberia. The US would not need to commit more than a battalion of well-armed troops to make a real difference to any regional peacekeeping mission in Liberia. So why is the US hesitating? Why is the administration saying that it is still weighing a decision even while there are reports that between 500 and 2,000 troops may be sent on a peacekeeping mission?
Unlike Iraq, neither Liberia nor its immediate region is high on the list of US strategic priorities. Ever since the fatal US intervention in Somalia ten years ago, Washington’s foreign and military policy-makers have understandably fought shy of sending combat troops to sort out humanitarian problems in sub-Saharan Africa.
Furthermore those same policy-makers know from the British experience in Sierra Leone that military intervention is just the beginning. After decades of misrule and civil war Liberia, like Iraq, needs a long-term commitment to a complex and costly process of nation building. And nation building is something the present US administration is wary of. Judging by its performance in Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s not particularly good at it either.
It is likely that the US will be pressured into playing some sort of role in international efforts to tackle the crisis in Liberia. But the White House will have a hard time selling a full-scale US military action to a domestic public that probably knows and cares little about Liberia and is already confused about the deteriorating situation faced by US troops in Iraq.
