OPINION
By Ali O. Amar
Most mornings when I take my 3-year-old son to his day care center, I drive by the American Embassy in Rabat, Morocco. The embassy is a massive complex of unremarkable structures sitting atop a beautiful hill and occupying several blocks of the historic Hassan District, once the center of France’s power and elite in Morocco.
Most mornings Old Glory greets me and my child with gentle swings and mild movements from its place high above the embassy building. Most mornings, the American flag leaves my heart stirring with pride and nostalgia. Today, Old Glory is flying slow and sad, sending waves of grief and sorrow, mourning four American deaths in Libya.
The killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three of his colleagues in the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is a frightening confirmation that the Middle East remains a very unpredictable and highly volatile region of the world.
It is a sobering reminder that along with change and democracy, the Arab Spring brought to the surface all the grievances that decades of brutal authoritarian regimes at once suppressed and promoted. The death of American officials is a powerful warning that the U.S. government must proceed with extreme caution in dealing with a new regional order marked with more uncertainty and more instability.
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North Africa and the Sahel, or the Islamic Maghreb, saw more impact of the Arab Spring than any other part of the greater Middle East. Long-serving dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya were overthrown, Mali is in a shambles, and the regime in Algeria is lavishly spending its oil and natural-gas windfalls to buy time and tranquility.
More than a year after the violent end of the Gadhafi regime, Libya is a fragile state despite the success of its election and the overwhelming support of the international community. Egypt has gone through a long and tedious electoral process only to come out with an Islamist government still undecided about which way to go: to govern and lead Egypt or to propagate and promote the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tunisia — the incubator of the Arab Spring and so far its best narrative — is struggling with immense economic challenges, unfriendly and unstable neighbors, and a small but threatening Salafist movement determined to change by all means the secular and largely westernized Tunisian way of life.
In the heart of sub-Saharan Africa unfolds the Arab Spring’s most unintended consequence and least told story: Mali is poor and almost without any resources. It survived years of military rule and managed in the recent past to have a successful experiment in democracy.
But the war in neighboring Libya and the end of the Gadhafi rule had dire consequence for Mali and put an effective end to its political stability and may threaten its existence as a state.
The illegal flow of arms, fighters and funds energized long-dormant ethnic, tribal and regional conflicts. Thriving smuggling roads and lucrative caravans of contraband — cigarettes, cannabis, cocaine and heroin — added fuel to fire.
Religious extremists belonging to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), based in Algeria, and smaller local jihadist groups knew that Mali was a crisis in waiting and a major opportunity in the making.
A military coup d’état in the spring of 2012 was the straw that broke Mali’s back. The country is almost a failed state, and comparisons to Somalia and Afghanistan are not without basis.
Northern Mali is ruled by religious extremists with close ties to al-Qaida who aspire to become Africa’s Taliban. In the name of their Islam, the Malian jihadists destroyed historic monuments, vandalized old places of worship, organized collective public amputations and whippings, and banned women from public places.
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At the western end of this turbulent region spreads Morocco, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the sands of Mauritania. By default or by design, Morocco managed to come out safe and stable from the storms of the Arab Spring.
In fact, U.S. and Moroccan officials met in Washington this month in the first of a series of strategic dialogs aimed at strengthening ties between the two countries in business, security, education and diplomacy. In inviting Morocco to such talks, the U.S. government is recognizing and rewarding the progress and reforms undertaken by Morocco’s leadership in these difficult and uncertain times.
The greatest tribute to Ambassador Stevens and the other fallen diplomats is for the U.S. government to develop and follow a clear vision for its role and place in North Africa. Washington should work to strengthen democracy, encourage economic development and assist with political transition in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.
Washington should work with its European and African allies to prevent Mali from becoming a failed state. Washington should become more proactive in ending local conflicts such as the one in the western Sahara, a major obstacle to regional political and economic integration, a source of friction, resentment and discontent, and a fertile ground for AQIM recruiters.
Ambassador Stevens was a strong and resilient believer in the American presence in North Africa. He began his international experience as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching American English in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and he died defending American interests in Benghazi, Libya. Leaving North Africa is not an option.
Ali O. Amar, a democracy and governance consultant from Alexandria, is on assignment in North Africa. He can be reached at onecasea@gmail.com.
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