A better way to keep Islamists at bay in Mali

But there is no credible government in Bamako. Instead, there is an uneasy interaction between remnants of the discredited former political class and the military, with the latter seemingly the more popular and with the upper hand. Meanwhile, Western governments insist on elections as a means of restoring a legitimate government. But, elections have been a sham in the past, and are likely to be again in the future, especially while large, if mostly empty, parts of the country remain under Islamist control.

And northerners are unlikely to see elections as legitimate without some kind of agreement with Bamako. As Tuareg rebel leader Ag Assaleh said in reference to the planned July 31 elections, “Until there is a peace deal, we cannot hold national elections.”

Rather than beefing up American military presence in the region, the Obama administration should press the competing factions in Bamako to reach a credible accommodation and open negotiations with northern Tuaregs. Some Tuareg leaders have called for such talks and have expressed an openness in cooperating with French troops and tracking down any remaining Islamists in the region.

Such a dialogue would require the United States to set aside its self-inflicted prohibitions on dealings with a government brought to power by a coup. That, in turn, would require the administration to consult closely with Congress to secure the necessary waivers. US diplomats should also open up a dialogue with Tuareg moderates in the north to facilitate negotiations with Bamako.

The US should move rapidly to address the looming humanitarian disaster caused by the war and drought-induced food shortages by working through, and adequately funding, UN humanitarian agencies.

What about the African multinational peace keeping force? US policy has long supported “African solutions to African problems.” The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with UN Security Council authorization is putting together an African intervention force for Mali. It merits – and needs – Western support. Its troops need training and equipping, which the US and Western donors should provide.

As for US efforts to provide African states with the ability to counter international terrorism, the core of that strategy was military training of elite African units. Even before the Mali crisis, Africans widely criticized this strategy as the “militarization” of US policy, often with prescient predictions that it was future coup plotters who would benefit from the training.

In Mali, some of those trained were Tuaregs who later defected to the Islamic insurgents. It was also an American trained officer who led the coup in Bamako. As Mali has shown, there is criminality and jihadism in the Sahel, but it has little to do with Osama bin Laden and much to do with the pervasive pattern of bad and abusive governance, too much of which America supports. In Mali, as elsewhere in the Sahel and the Sahara, at root the issues are political, not about security. It would behoove American policy to be shaped by that reality. 

John Campbell is a senior Africa fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former US ambassador to Nigeria. He is author of the book “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink”, writes the blog “Africa in Transition,” and manages the Nigeria Security Tracker.

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