The Coup in Mauritania and Lessons on Fighting Terrorists

By Douglas Farah

The recent military coup in the largely-desert West African nation of Mauritania should be wakeup call for EUCOM and others trying to forge a cohesive counter-terror strategy in the region. While deposed president Maouya Sidi Ahmed Taya was pro-American and led one of only two Islamic countries that recognize Israel, he was a totalitarian despot who brooked no dissent, allowed the slave trade to continue unabated and had used recent and real threats by radical Muslims to crack down on a broad range of opponents. The International Crisis Group, in its May report on the spread of radical Isalm in the Sahel region accurately predicted that Taya's over-reaching on the terror threat could prove to be a "very costly mistake." It was. No one knows if the new military junta plans to radically change policy, whether the new leaders are more supportive of Islamic activism, or whether the new leaders are any more democratic than the fallen regime. One thing is a relatively safe bet: the military regime will last longer than the two years it promises to transition to a democratic government. Power is seldom yielded in the region without the use of force.

The same dilema will be facing U.S. policymakers and counterterror strategists in many other countries in West Africa. How much support to give wretched regimes who support and embrace U.S. counter-terror efforts? Chad under Deby is similar, as are Guinea, Togo, and Burkina Faso. Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon pose some similar problems, but with the added complication of having vast oil reserves that has sparked a bidding war among countries seeking to exploit the wealth, including the United States and China. While Nigeria has an elected government it remains one of the most corrupt in Africa, and that is saying quite a bit.

The United States deperately needs to develop a working relationship on counter-terror efforts in all of those countries, all of which are close to becoming failed states, or are already partially failed. How to do that without fully embracing the current power structure that has led to rampant oppression and corruption is one of the bigger challenges facing the counter-terror efforts. Any aid bolsters the legitimacy of governments that are not legitimate. Failure to engage at all leaves wide and growing swaths of the globe open to terrorist and criminal organizations to flourish and exploit. To read more, go here.

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