Zimbabwe is a disgrace, a shame upon humanity in general, and the rich powerful nations in particular. Whilst we wallow in our post-colonial guilt, intimidated by cries of "Imperialism!", unmanned by our errors in Iraq, seeking excuses for our cowardly indolence in the futile and racist doctrine of "African solutions for African problems", Mugabe's thugs have impoverished his country, subverted his constitution, murdered his political opponents, starved his enemies, and now add plague to their list of heroic revolutionary achievements.
Here is the truth - and it's a tough one: Britain fights too few wars.
We are too happy to let the months slip by, for the most terrible of images of starving children, brutalised women, and mutilated men only infect our television screens for a few days before the news agenda moves on. Eventually, far too late and with inadequate effect even then, the forces of Nigeria, India, Canada or some other "politically acceptable" nation arrive in the man-made disaster zones, long after much of the slaughter is complete and the disease has taken hold, and we congratulate ourselves that "a peaceful multilateral solution was achieved". The souls of the starved babies, the raped girls, the murdered fathers, the grandmothers that died for lack of simple medical treatment - these cry out for justice, but we block our ears, shouting over the noise of their blood-wrath "WE ARE NO BETTER! Our millions died in two world wars! We have nothing to teach, no truth to offer! You will be happier left to yourselves than ruled by us. We are the problem, not the solution. SOLVE YOUR OWN DISASTERS! AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?"
The time to invade Zimbabwe was in late 2003, just after initial victory in Iraq. Indeed, it would probably not even have been necessary to invade - a credible threat from the British alone would have led to the Zimbabwe army toppling Mugabe. Few British troops would have been needed, and Zimbabwe might have recovered relatively swiftly - it took a long time of continuous misrule to bring Zimbabwe to its current debacle, for there is a lot of ruin in a nation. By 2007 I had become sceptical of intervention by Britain alone, for the number of troops needed had escalated - after Mugabe's fall there will surely now be hideous widespread reprisals upon his supporters and those that collaborated with him. Surely now everyone must act.
I fear we may learn a bad lesson. At last, far far too late, African leaders (e.g. the Kenyan Prime Minister) are turning against Mugabe publicly. If this happens enough, some misguided people may take this as vindication of the strategy of seeking "African solutions for African problems". It is not. What it shows is that, once again, "African solutions" are far too late and deeply ineffective.
Whence this "African solutions" doctrine? It is not applied in Israel, or South America, or the Gulf. The "African solutions" doctrine is a version of the US self-determination doctrine. It exists because America sees no strategic advantage of its own in being involved in Africa, but objects to the idea of other developed powers gaining material influence there. It is a deeply flawed concept, like all self-determination doctrines, and we should reject it.
Americans must see that it is unacceptable for the European nations to look on, enfeebled by their collective moral insecurities and nihilistic relativism. To be sure, if we had tried to assist the situation in Sudan or Zimbabwe with military force, there would have been those at home and abroad that would have condemned us as "neo-colonial oppressors" and asked "what gives you the right to dictate to other nations"? And to be sure, if one takes a front-foot posture in these matters and intervenes when the time seems right, occasionally one will make mistakes even bigger than those we made in Iraq. But I say: So be it! Suck it up! Take it on the chin! For the alternatives in this world are to have a posture that delivers Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur, Zimbabwe, or a posture that delivers Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Fallujah and Kabul. And when we accept that this is our choice, I hope that most us us will see that it is really no choice at all.
