Ian Birrell: Like Afghanistan, Mali is a victim of our 'war on terror'

Al-Qa'ida in the Maghreb is increasingly active, while even Nigeria's Islamist Boko Haram is involved

So now we know that Nato will bring its misguided campaign in Afghanistan to a close by the end of 2014, although even Barack Obama admits that the country will remain highly insecure and a hotbed of terrorist activity. A war in which 414 British service personnel have died and which has cost the country £17.3bn will turn out to have been one of depressing futility, our troops possibly having to fight their way out and our government doing dodgy deals with central Asian despots to release our equipment.

If nothing else, the closing of this tragic chapter should serve as a warning that the world needs to be on guard against the failure of nations. But even as Nato leaders slapped backs in Chicago this week, there is little attention being given to the rapid collapse of another country – an event that could have devastating global implications.

For 20 years, the west African nation of Mali has been a model of stability – a tranquil, beautiful country famed for its mangos, music and mud buildings. But following a coup – an increasingly rare event in modern Africa – two months ago, it has descended from beacon of democracy to basket case with shocking speed.

Mali: the fastest blowback yet in this disastrous war on terror

French intervention in Mali will fuel terrorism, but the west's buildup in Africa is also driven by the struggle for resources

To listen to David Cameron's rhetoric this week, it could be 2001 all over again. Eleven years into the war on terror, it might have been Tony Blair speaking after 9/11. As the bloody siege of the part BP-operated In Amenas gas plant in Algeria came to an end, the British prime minister claimed, like George Bush and Blair before him, that the country faced an "existential" and "global threat" to "our interests and way of life".

While British RAF aircraft backed French military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali, and troops were reported to be on alert for deployment to the west African state, Cameron promised that a "generational struggle" would be pursued with "iron resolve". The fight over the new front in the terror war in North Africa and the Sahel region, he warned, could go on for decades.

So in austerity-blighted Britain, just as thousands of soldiers are being made redundant, while Barack Obama has declared that "a decade of war is now ending", armed intervention is being ratcheted up in yet another part of the Muslim world. Of course, it's French troops in action this time. But even in Britain the talk is of escalating drone attacks and special forces, and Cameron has refused to rule out troops on the ground.

You'd think the war on terror had been a huge success, the way the western powers keep at it, Groundhog Day-style. In reality, it has been a disastrous failure, even in its own terms – which is why the Obama administration felt it had to change its name to "overseas contingency operations", until US defence secretary Leon Panetta revived the old title this week.

Instead of fighting terror, it has fuelled it everywhere it's been unleashed: from Afghanistan to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen, spreading it from Osama bin Laden's Afghan lairs eastwards to central Asia and westwards to North Africa – as US, British and other western forces have invaded, bombed, tortured and kidnapped their way across the Arab and Muslim world for over a decade.

So a violent jihadist movement that grew out of western intervention, occupation and support for dictatorship was countered with more of the same. And the law of unintended consequences has meanwhile been played out in spectacular fashion: from the original incubation of al-Qaida in the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union, to the spread of terror from western-occupied Afghanistan to Pakistan, to the strategic boost to Iran delivered by the US-British invasion of Iraq.

When it came to Libya, the blowback was much faster – and Mali took the impact. Nato's intervention in Libya's civil war nearly two years ago escalated the killing and ethnic cleansing, and played the decisive role in the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime. In the ensuing maelstrom, Tuareg people who had fought for Gaddafi went home to Mali and weapons caches flooded over the border.

Within a couple of months this had tipped longstanding demands for self-determination into armed rebellion – and then the takeover of northern Mali by Islamist fighters, some linked to al-Qaida. Foreign secretary William Hague acknowledged this week that Nato's Libyan intervention had "contributed" to Mali's war, but claimed the problem would have been worse without it.

In fact, the spillover might have been contained if the western powers had supported a negotiated settlement in Libya, just as all-out war in Mali might have been avoided if the Malian government's French and US sponsors had backed a political instead of a military solution to the country's divisions.

French intervention in Mali has now produced the fastest blowback yet in the war on terror. The groups that seized the In Imenas gas plant last week – reportedly with weapons supplied to Libya by France and Britain – insisted their action was taken in response to France's operation, Algeria's decision to open its airspace to the French and western looting of the country's natural resources.

It may well be that the attack had in fact been planned for months. And the Algerian government has its own history of bloody conflict with Islamist movements. But it clearly can't be separated from the growing western involvement across the region.

France is in any case the last country to sort out Mali's problems, having created quite a few of them in the first place as the former colonial power, including the legacy of ethnic schism within artificial borders – as Britain did elsewhere. The French may have been invited in by the Malian government. But it's a government brought to power by military coup last year, not one elected by Malians – and whose troops are now trading atrocities and human rights abuses with the rebels.

Only a political settlement, guaranteed by regional African forces, can end the conflict. Meanwhile, French president François Hollande says his country will be in Mali as long as it takes to "defeat terrorism in that part of Africa". All the experience of the past decade suggests that could be indefinitely – as western intervention is likely to boost jihadist recruitment and turn groups with a regional focus towards western targets.

All this is anyway about a good deal more than terrorism. Underlying the growing western military involvement in Africa – from the spread of American bases under the US Africa Command to France's resumption of its post-colonial habit of routine armed intervention – is a struggle for resources and strategic control, in the face of China's expanding economic role in the continent. In north and west Africa, that's not just about oil and gas, but also uranium in countries like Niger – and Mali. Terrorism has long since become a catch-all cover for legitimising aggressive war.

The idea that jihadists in Mali, or Somalia for that matter, pose an existential threat to Britain, France, the US or the wider world is utter nonsense. But the opening of a new front in the war on terror in north Africa and the Sahel, accompanied by another murderous drone campaign, is a potential disaster for the region and risks a new blowback beyond it.

The past decade has demonstrated beyond doubt that such interventions don't solve crises, let alone deal with the causes of terrorism, but deepen them and generate new conflicts. More military intervention will bolster authoritarian regimes – and its rhetoric further poison community relations in the intervening states. It seems the price has to be paid over and over again.

Mali: France’s New Afghanistan

New Military Interventionism. France's President Hollande has set a Dangerous Precedent

Since France launched military strikes against Mali rebels on January 11, the little-known West African country, which has been mired in a crisis for over a year, suddenly came under the media spotlight and made headlines around the world.In view of the developing situation on the ground, the high-profile move by French forces has directly turned the tables and objectively enhanced France’s influence in Africa while at the same time boosting its international status.
Mali was one of the first sub-Saharan countries to establish diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, and Sino-Malian relations have been good. In addition to this, China has certain interests in Mali through its investment projects.

[T]here is one possible cause for alarm – French forces’ involvement in Mali will provide the case for legalization of a new interventionism in Africa.

Although France became involved in Mali under the banner of anti-terrorism, it is not entirely accurate to say that Malian rebels are terrorists. The nature of the Mali issue is more akin to that of a civil war among different political groups.

Compared with other regions across the world, Africa is a special continent where a majority of nations gained independence after World War II, and the borders of each nation were mostly demarcated by its former colonial masters.

Therefore, Africans’ sense of national identity and concept of sovereignty is quite weak, while their sense of ethnic and religious identity is much stronger. This creates opportunities for Western and other outside forces to intervene in the internal affairs of African countries.

Africa is a region where France has had the deepest impact and operated for the longest period of time. Former president Charles de Gaulle and successive governments have all seen Africa as a “forward base” to support France’s leadership, regard maintaining France’s special interests in French-speaking African countries as a core of African policy, and stress that France would become a second-rate country without Africa.

Moreover, France’s direct economic interests in Mali cannot be underestimated. That’s why President François Hollande, who is said to have “the least interest in Africa,” reversed his low-key image and decided to actively intervene in the continent.

Of course, France’s involvement in Mali is still a risky business. One of the drawbacks of this action is that it brings back memories of the “African gendarmerie” – France’s colonial status.

Although France explained its move as a request from the current government, the same request from the president of the Central African Republic, which also faced an offensive from rebels, failed to get help due to France’s own interests. France then bears the blame for acting with double standards in African affairs as an African gendarmerie. In addition, committing troops to Mali brings added burdens to the stagnant French economy.

As a result, international opinion is beginning to suspect that France may be repeating the missteps of the US in Afghanistan. Whether France can create long-term stability in Mali is far from certain.

Are we walking into another Afghanistan?

Two days ago, this paper warned that Britain risked being sucked into a bloody conflict in the former French possession of Mali. After yesterday’s revenge murder of a British national and the kidnapping of hostages in neighbouring Algeria, that danger grows greater by the hour.

Yes, it is understandable that France, with its colonial links and 30,000 citizens in West Africa, feels a strong national interest in checking the alarming spread of Islamist terrorism through the region.

But though Western governments will sympathise strongly with President Francois Hollande, it would surely be disastrous for Britain to commit more of our overstretched men and equipment to a cause not obviously our own.

Indeed, in the rapidly escalating conflict in Mali, where France will triple its troop deployment ‘within days’, aren’t there chilling echoes of Afghanistan?

There, too – where the bloodshed continues after more than a decade – Britain took arms against a tribal enemy as a gesture of solidarity with an ally.

In Mali, as in Afghanistan, the insurgents are proving a more formidable foe than expected, armed as they are with heavy machine guns, Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades.

Even Hollande’s three war aims have the horribly familiar ring of the Allies’ mission in Asia: to end terrorist attacks, secure the country’s capital and help the Malian authorities restore stability.

As France calls for more international support, is it too much to hope that David Cameron will remember the British lives lost and the sobering lessons of our oh-so-recent history – and just say No?

what right have the French got to storm into a country and start playing hero to the Western world ?

Do they think they are American or British?

Apologies if this has already been brought up in this thread, but the gold issue got me wondering.

Could the military intervention be tied into the whereabouts of Gadaffi's gold?

I read several reports in late 2011 that offered suggestions as to where it went. Some suggested that Barry had the gold airlifted out of Benghazi to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from using it to fund attacks on Israel, with it being shipped to Norway for safe keeping(??).

Another, the Telegraph I think, reported convoys of Gadaffi's revolutionary army heading toward the border with Niger taking with them hordes of cash and tonnes of gold. Once over the border the convey was said to have split up and head in different directions including Mali.
Now, talking with some people over the last couple of evenings with regard to the gold it was pointed out to me that a large portion of Gadaffi's army were highly paid soldiers from Mali - a great many hailing from the north of Mali, a region whose occupants have been seeking a seperate state for a number of years. The opinion seemed to be that the gold had succesfully been smuggled into Mali where it has been hidden.
What makes the whole thing really odd is that these soldiers were employed by Gadaffi to fight against the French/Brits/US & the islamist fighters in their employ. And now these same soldiers have had to fight on the run to get back to Mali where they have now been declared as islamists backed by Al Queda.
Hmmmmm

Whilst I don't doubt that the gold reserves are of interest to western countries could they be looking for the missing gold as well?

If the gold has been taken in to Mali why stop there? Go a bit further south and you're into countries with Chinese interests and I doubt that any western power would fuck about with the Chinese so maybe these countries could provide a good hiding place for the gold. They might even get a good price for it, a bit like one of those We Buy Any Gold websites.

korea?

khakis tan?

there can't be that many countries beginning with K ......it's worth 5 in scrabble

Cool, guessing game.

I want to say Kernow but I wont. Like dawn said, there aren't that many so I'm gonna go for Kenya!

By the way, if you say it's Knorway, that is cheating.

kuwait