The Next Front

“The Sahel” is the term used to describe the area immediately south of the Sahara that extends from Senegal in the west to Sudan in the east, six countries in all. When I was a kid most the Sahel was a French colony referred to as “French Equatorial Africa”. If someone were to ask you where the most terrorism in the world was you probably wouldn’t answer “in Africa south of the Sahara” but you’d be wrong. Nearly half of all of the world’s terrorism is there an DAESH has affiliates throughout the region. France has had an operation there fighting terrorism for the last eight years. It began to withdraw its forces from Mali earlier this year.

All of this and more are described in Walter Pincus’s piece at The Cipher Brief, “The Problem With the Sahel”. Here’s a relevant snippet:

The US dilemma when dealing with the Sahel countries was illustrated by an exchange between Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and Blyden over what to do with Chad’s Transitional Military Council. The Military Council seized power unconstitutionally in April 2021, when Chad’s former President, Idriss Deby Itno was killed while fighting rebels.

The former President ruled Chad with an iron fist but at the same time, worked with the French and Americans in the fight against terrorists operating within the Sahel region.

Complicating today’s situation is that the Military Council then installed the former president’s 38-year-old son, Gen. Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, as head of government.

The Military Council suspended the country’s constitution, postponed negotiations for new elections, harshly put down demonstrators, and then ended security cooperation with the US. Promised elections have been put off until a future time.

Menendez asked Blyden, “Are you suggesting we engage in business as usual with the [Chad] military junta? How would doing so reflect US values in your view and what message would that send in that region and for that matter, throughout the world?”

Blyden responded, “I would not suggest that we support a junta. I would say in our pulling back and not engaging regularly with the military – and many in the [Chad] government – we are absent. And our ability to be able to provide influence, whether it be at the government sector or training where we emphasize human rights values, where we emphasize a democratic approach has eliminated our ability to have access.”

She continued, “While I don’t necessarily propose that we should continue to work with juntas, I do think having an ability to be able to work and talk to them is thus able to support our influence.”

Menendez responded, “Our engagement with the military entities that are not under civilian control ultimately continues and perpetuates them. That’s a problem.”

The reality is that it’s been a practical US problem for decades and will remain so in regions such as the Sahel.

I understand why the French were interested and why they spent eight futile years trying to reduce terrorist activities in Mali, Niger, and Chad.

What I don’t understand is why the United States should be interested. There is a strained argument that, since some of the biggest troublemakers in Mali are mercenaries formerly in the employ of the late Moammar Qaddaffi and we were complicit if not proximallyo responsible for his overthrow, that we bear some responsibility for the situation.

Wasn’t the lesson we spent 20 years learning in Afghanistan that there isn’t much we can do short of genocide to put down terrorism if the countries involved are committed to promoting it?