Two Legs Better

In a world full of crises, one of the more neglected ones is that of Zimbabwe, where Mugabe's corrupt intransigence continues to keep an entire nation in tatters. Having completely ruined his country's ability to produce anything, by granting free pass to looters and gangs of thugs, so long as they repossessed white-owned farms, Comrade Bob has finally become precisely what he meant to rise up against a quarter-century ago.

Instead of replacing Ian Smith's brutal regime with a genuinely revolutionary one of his own, Mugabe decided to pass on becoming his country's George Washington, and settled for being its Kim Il Sung. Now, before he has decided on a trusted lieutenant or colonel to pass things off to, Morgan Tsvangirai has presented a real challenge to his power, albeit one without army backing (so far; if African armies have proven anything, it is that their loyalty is always open to negotiation).

Inexcusably, Mugabe has been enormously enabled by a neighbor who ought to know better, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki has made his sad priorities clear, that he would rather deal with a thug he knows, one who has utterly derailed Zimbabwe's economy and driven it to the brink of famine, than someone who might be on friendlier terms with western leaders. The message is clear: better to have black-on-black predation than (falsely) even the hint of yet another round of post-colonialist stooges. This was always the hallmark of the tinhorn despot, communist or otherwise -- they would rather let millions of their own people literally starve (while, of course, continuing to live large themselves) -- than to deal with their useful devils from abroad.

So, what role does a bumbling hegemon have in any sort of reconstructive process?

The Bush administration should quickly designate an envoy, a distinguished former official or public figure, to lead its efforts. It should help the envoy assemble a small team of prominent international figures from Africa, Europe, and the Commonwealth to travel to southern Africa for intensive consultations on ending the crisis in Zimbabwe. That team will need to be in the region for an extended period. Lacking internal consensus, neither the United Nations nor the African Union can mount such a mission. From its position in the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. should work in New York and in African capitals to demand more African involvement in solving the crisis in Zimbabwe.

The U.S. effort should be organized around four pillars.

First, it should create a shared consensus that Mugabe must leave office. This is the sine qua non to any solution. Restoring democracy, respecting human rights and rebuilding a shattered society and economy should be the highest priorities. These steps cannot begin until Mugabe has left the scene.

Second, it should create a shared determination to contain Mugabe's chief lieutenants. As Mugabe exits, some senior security officials may be tempted to replace him. Beginning with southern African states, support must be summoned for possible deployment of a modest African Union or U.N.-authorized monitoring force. Meanwhile, the Bush administration should disclose publicly details of the extensive corruption surrounding Mugabe's inner circle.

Third, it should press for resumed negotiations on constitutional reform, cut short by Mugabe last year, and for an early date for new presidential elections. Zimbabweans themselves will be quick to address these imperatives once Mugabe is gone. Freed of current threats, they are capable of establishing a workable framework for a democratic transition.

Last, if should accelerate international planning and support to rebuild Zimbabwe's shattered economic and social infrastructure. The United States and other donors should deploy credible, coordinated pledges of economic assistance to reinforce the diplomatic push to ease Mugabe out.

The pillars are actually pretty decent -- nothing beyond diplomatic and constitutionalist interference, offer emergency aid where needed, and step the hell back. We don't have any more legitimacy than that anymore. But the opening premise seems remote -- since when does anybody in this administration function past a purely limbic level of partisan ideology? When has there been an appointment that wasn't put there for their utility to the movementarians, people who have never done anything for anyone else without there being something in it for themselves? Seriously, everyone would be better off if we just went over there with a pallet of Franklins, got every inhabitant of the country in an enormous queue, and gave each person a nice crisp $100 bill, and sent them about their way.

Bellamy and Morrison also mention that "[o]nce the South African linchpin is removed, the other external props that sustain Mugabe -- Angola, Namibia, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, and China -- will cease to matter." While this may be true, this also elides past our own involvement with some of those very regimes, most notably Equatorial Guinea, an even more nightmarish despotism than Mugabe's. But they have oil, so we park our platforms out in the Gulf of Guinea, send the ships back and forth to Houston with the precious, and give the murderous Obiang family their cut of the action, which is then laundered through the monkey's uncle. You don't hear too much about that one, because people are making money from it.

So while this is about figuring the right course of moral action to literally save a nation from catastrophe, this is also about the studied hypocrisies undertaken to avoid those same actions. Africa and its resources are rapidly becoming proxies for us and China; regional powers such as India and Brazil may also become involved in the continent. That any data or strategy remotely than comprehensive might be on the head blitherer's radar -- at all -- is something even the most blindered optimist could not realistically hope for.