A world adrift in political crises

Global events and happenings nowadays show that the world is adrift politically like a small raft in a sea or ocean of ideas and world leaders are literally at sea on how to control the momentum or the direction. The drift hovers around not only unexpected geopolitical changes but it has also profoundly affected the focus of leaders and created great confusion on the diplomatic ground rules to apply to save the world from itself and preserve global peace .

I am not saying that we are living in a rudderless world . Yet I can not say confidently that the world , as we have seen events unraveling in the last few days is ,a safer place than it was, perhaps a year ago .With the daily aerial strikes of NATO forces into Libya with the stated aim of stopping Gaddafi from killing his own people after 42 years of his dictatorship, the dogs of war have been let loose again on the continent of Africa. Ironically those active in the present spate of Gaddafi bombing to the applause of a global audience that is sympathetic to the plight of the Libyan masses, were the former colonial masters of Africa namely France and Britain.

The fact that the US President Barak Obama has conceded the command of the Coalition forces to this NATO pair shows their new diplomatic clout aside from the fact that the US President may be losing stomach for a prolonged fight against the crazy Muammar Gaddafi probably because he is preparing for his reelection next year in 2012. Yet the same US president was instrumental to the ousting of former President Housni Mubarak in Egypt .

Barak Obama was relentlessly on the phone line to Mubarak and his key Egyptian and military officials warning them not to harm the flower of Egyptian youths camped in Tahrir Square in Cairo ,adamant to the delightful end that Mubarak must go as he inevitably did .So if Obama was so resolute about Mubarak, an ally of over 30 years ,why is he not willing to do the same to Muammar Gaddafi an irredeemable irritant of many years standing to US interests and foreign policy globally ? The answer to the lukewarm attitude of the US president to the Gaddafi ouster ,form the kernel of our discussion today.

We shall likewise look at the personalities of the EU leaders of the Coalition forces ranged against Gaddafi in N Africa as well the import and desperate effort of Gaddafi to turn the attack on him into a religious war in calling on Muslim armies to come to his aid by branding his attackers in the EU

as crusaders .We shall then look at the role of ECOWAS and the UN in the forgotten election of two presidents that the Ivory Coast election impasse of last year has become .*** It has been much publicized that the UN resolution on Libya only called for a no fly zone but did not ask for a regime change .Since the air strikes started however the Arab League which called feverishly for it has backtracked and has said that civilians have been targeted ; a fact that only Gaddafi government officials have been able to make without any independent corroboration. So what does the Arab League want ?My answer is that it does not know what it wants.

At the start of the Egyptian uprising the Secretary General of the League called on Arab Leaders to rescue their population from poverty and oppression as uprisings are imminent to redress the economic status quo in Arab countries.

This was in line with the mood of freedom first in Tunisia then Egypt ,Bahrain, Yemen and now Libya. Why is the Arab League behaving like the proverbial cat that would eat fish without getting its claws wet? Why is it supporting mass uprisings against tyranny in the Arab world and is backsliding in the case of the attack by the Coalition forces on Libya? Is the Libyan government more credible than the Coalition forces on the matter of civilian casualties ? I doubt .

***With regard to Obama’s prevarication on leadership of the Coalition forces I think the issue is more of a time and locational factor, than a fear or misgiving about 2012 presidential re -election fever or prospects. The passing of the UN resolution on the no fly zone met Obama on a tour of Latin America which took him to successful and prosperous democracies like Brazil and Chile. On the tour Obama literally apologized for past US diplomacy that treated such countries with arrogance and disdain . Indeed Obama pleaded that the US now regards these nations as partners and equals . This is a new US attitude borne more out of economic reality of the fact that the US economy needs to invest in these nouveau rich Latino economies to boost the earnings of US industries and reduce the huge government funding of a nation involved in the expensive war on terrorism on two fronts in the Middle East .

In the past the US spent a lot of money and resources through the CIA to prop up or bring down democracies and dictatorships in South America which it regards as its backyard. But now, Latin America but for Cuba ,is a blooming democracy of booming economies whilst Big Brother US is running broke from competing globally with emerging economies like China and India which have become new trade partners with Latin American nations like Brazil , Venezuela and Chile.So really in such a frame of Mind Obama could not have concentrated well on the issue of the no fly zone and the leadership of the Coalition in Libya.

***In looking at the personalities of the EU leaders involved in the Libyan war one cannot but compare them with their predecessors in office . In Britain Tony Blair lost his leadership of both government and party because of the Iraq invasion over which he said he had no regret.But he got the concensus of the opposition in Parliament before the invasion just as his successor David Cameron did last week over Libya. The interesting thing is that the opposition in Blair’s time was led by William Hague now Foreign Secretary and now the British spokesman on the Libyan War.

William Hague said the opposition stood shoulder to shoulder with Tony Blair’s government at the start of the Iraq war . Hague however later developed a hatred for Blair that culminated in his touring EU capitals before the Tories got to power to canvass that the new government will not be happy with any suggestion then to consider Tony Blair as a nominee for the job of EU President . If you recollect that Tony Blair towards the end of his premiership was one of the EU leaders that accommodated Gaddafi back into the economic comity of EU nations after years of ostracism, then you can appreciate William Hague’s excitement about his new assignment in Libya .

***With regard to the religious defense pictch of Gaddafi it was obvious he was trying to use the word, crusade’ to whip up sentiment like he used Al Qada unsuccessfully to stop the air strikes and the no fly zones. He again was trying to make the world remember former US President George Bush’s unfortunate use of that word after the 9/11 attack of 2001 on the twin towers of New York . The word crusade was used by the US enemies in the Arab world to whip up sentiment against the Afghan and Iraq invasion during the tenure of George Bush .

Gaddafi‘s aim is to create that sentiment again in the Arab world . As usual however Gaddafi has missed the bus on the issues at stake. Which are that the masses of the Arab world are fed up with tyranny and dictatorsips including his own and that of his family and no distraction or vituperations on religion, jihad, or crusades will hoodwink anybody stupidly any more.

***With regard to the French it would appear that the French President Nikola Sarkozy is trying to make up for the hostile attitude of his predecessor Jacques Chirac to the invasion of Iraq . France joined Russia then in literally tying the hand of Britain and France in getting a second UN resolution endorsing the invasion .Sarkozy who was French Interior Minister then grumbled aloud that France should not be treating its allies like enemies . This explains why France was the first EU nation to send its air force into Libya .In addition Sarkozy entertained Gaffafi on such a lavish scale on his visit to France that he has found it so embarrassing that his guest could now be doing what the Libyan leader is doing to his own unarmed citizens.

***Lastly the handling of the Ivorian election problem involving sit tight President Laurent Gbagbo and supposed winner Alasane Quattara by all mediators shows that even in the hot waters of world democracy charity begins at home .

First the UN which has its forces stationed in Ivory Coast turned tail and got busy with the Arab uprising and later UN resolution on the no fly zone in Libya where oil is the dominant factor and left the Ivorians to stew as it were in their own election urine. Nigeria , head of ECOWAS, is busy with an election in a few weeks time which President Goodluck Jonathan has to win to be relevant at all in resolving the Ivorian impasse .Meanwhile thousands of fleeing Ivorians are fleeing into Ghana and Liberia .Which shows that elections can be do or die or or run and flee matters if the electoral process is flawed or rigged to get power by all means .

Which is another lesson for Africa and its leaders to learn fast , as their Arab counterparts are already facing their nightmare and nemesis of staying in power for too long , outside the legal electoral process .