Africa

Steve Hayes, with Juan Williams and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

In late August, the world’s most high-profile development project celebrated another milestone. The Millennium Villages Project opened its newest site, in northern Ghana, with newly minted Ghanaian president John Mahama and the UK’s international development secretary on hand.

Last March the social--networking thickets caught fire, sparked by an online video called Kony 2012. Its creator, founder of the San Diego-based group Invisible Children Inc., was hoping to broadcast the misdeeds of the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. The short film was viewed tens of millions of times in just several days.

Following almost daily coups de théâtre after the Malian junior officers’ coup d’etat of March 22 led by Capt. Amadou Sanogo, indications of the political evolution of the shaken West African country and of the possible military repercussions of the past weeks’ events are being voiced in Bamako.

In the latest turn of events in the decade-long war on terror, U.S. counter-terrorism policy in Africa was dealt a blow – or an opportunity – with the declaration of independence of the Azawad, the territory claimed by the Tuareg tribes of northern Mali.

With the fall last weekend of the northern Mali garrison town of Tessalit, and its airstrip, to Tuareg secessionist forces, U.S. counter-terror policy in Africa is dealt a stunning setback.

Via Claire Berlinski, I see that things in the Ivory Coast are starting to get bad. Really, really bad:

White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday that the Obama administration is “actively considering” imposing a no-fly zone over Libya in response to the ongoing regime-backed attacks on the population there. Although the White House has consistently said that all options are on the table, including military contingencies, senior administration officials over the past week have expressed strong public skepticism about the efficacy and wisdom of a no-fly zone.

The opportunity to watch Washington graybeards at the Council on Foreign Relations jump over each other to take cell phone photos of George Clooney provided reason enough to attend Tuesday’s event on Sudan. But the discussion with Clooney and Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast offered little reason for enthusiasm regarding the international community’s ability to peacefully resolve the issues surrounding the January 2011 self-determination referendum and the eventual independence of the South.

“Greetings in the name of freedom,” proclaimed the newly minted prime minster, Robert Mugabe, during Zimbabwe’s independence celebration in 1980. His words marked one of the most brilliant transitions of power in recent history, as the last conflict of the post-colonial retreat faded into history. The white rulers of the renegade Rhodesia had ceded power to African nationalists, after assurances by British mediators that free markets and democracy would be preserved.

Jews and Power

by Ruth Wisse

Schocken, 256 pp., $19.95

This is a study in compression. In less than 200 pages Ruth Wisse chronicles the Jewish nation from antiquity to the struggles of today's Israeli state (or "the Zionist entity," as it is affectionately known around the neighborhood). She tells her story with authority and restrained passion. But her narrative is merely a foundation for the series of related theses that stand forth like pinnacles on a medieval castle, banners flying.

AMERICANS have been getting a crash course in French foreign policy lately. For further insight, it may be instructive to cast a glance at Ivory Coast, a charming and until recently peaceful country on Africa's west coast.