My friend Jamie Kirchick published an op-ed in the New York Sun yesterday pointing out the cretinous rhetoric (and rhetoric is all it amounts to) of the U.N. with respect to Robert Mugabe:
"The Security Council regrets that the campaign of violence and the restrictions on the political opposition have made it impossible for a free and fair election to take place on 27 June," the proclamation read. A regret is something you send on nice stationary when you can't make a wedding. It hardly evokes the sentiment of free people toward the animalistic brutality the Harare junta has taken against the people of Zimbabwe. The strongest verb in U.N. nomenclature — the one that the Security Council ought to have used — is "demand." The Council should have demanded an end to the amputations, live burnings, and gunpoint executions that have now become an every day occurrence in Zimbabwe.
Damn right. However, Jamie believes that a military intervention is the only option for Zimbabwe now that the legitimately elected opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been bullied out of participating in the run-off election, which is really just a second chance for Zimbabweans to vote for Mugabe lest they require a third and fourth. Jamie knows far more about this wretched and luckless country than I do but I find Paul Wolfowitz's argument in the Wall Street Journal more compelling. He says that a swelling chorus of criticism by individual countries -- including those in Africa -- is or will be enough to force the Harare regime to recognize its people's right to self-determination:
The international community should commit – as publicly and urgently as possible – to provide substantial support if Mugabe relinquishes power. Even if Mr. Tsvangirai were to become president tomorrow he would still face a daunting set of problems: restoring an economy in which hyperinflation has effectively destroyed the currency and unemployment is a staggering 70%; getting emergency food aid to millions who are at risk of starvation and disease; promoting reconciliation after the terrible violence; and undoing Mugabe's damaging policies, without engendering a violent backlash.
The international community should also say it will move rapidly to remove the burden of debts accumulated by the Mugabe regime and not force a new government to spend many months and precious human resources on the issue (as Liberia was forced to do to deal with the debts of Samuel Doe).
Given the strength and ruthlessness of the regime, change will not come easily. Nevertheless, developing a concrete vision for the future would help to rally the people of Zimbabwe around a long-term effort to achieve a peaceful transition. It would give Mr. Tsvangirai important negotiating leverage. And it could attract disaffected members of the regime.
Two questions that must be asked of a dictatorship before committing to a policy of its removal by a foreign military are as follows: Does the country have a strong political opposition with enough popular support to topple -- if only with outside encouragement -- the criminal regime peaceably or by use of its own forces? Is the international community prepared to isolate the regime and rob it of its usual band of accomplices?
That there was even an election with an alternative candidate on the ballot makes Zimbabwe different from Iraq. There is still the chance that inducements to leave office quietly will have their effect on Mugabe, who has had an embarrassing spotlight trained on him for months and only because of his myriad human rights abuses ("But I don't even sponsor Islamic terrorists!" must be among his pathetic final thoughts in office). And although the prospect of seeing a murderous tyrant "retire" in lush surroundings in South Africa, which is an inducement Wolfowitz commends, should not sit well with any person of conscience, one can't really envision an international military invasion further galvanizing neighboring African countries against Mugabe. This is one case in which pointing a finger, screaming at the top of your lungs, and letting a growing scandal do its nasty work may yet produce the right result.
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