West African nations prepare to send troops to Niger - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)
a deadline that came and went with no action
Oh, Africa. Never change.
The catch is that by essentially acquiescing to the coup in Niger, not to mention those in Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali, it is betraying its own rhetoric regarding democracy promotion.
It really is sad watching this endless turnover of arseholes, incompetents, and military dictators in Africa, but “democracy” doesn’t magically fix everything, and American-style democracy seems to have lost its magic wand anyway. Why don’t aliens ever land in Africa and spread a bit of peace and enlightenment there, instead of just crashing in Arizona?
The United States, however, has broken from France to advocate for a more pacifist response. Washington’s stance has come as a surprise. The United States has generally been content to follow France’s lead in the Sahel in exchange for support for U.S. endeavors in the Middle East. But the United States has stopped short of calling the situation a “coup”—a declaration that, by U.S. law, would require it to sever military assistance to Niger. A full three weeks after the junta took power, the Pentagon was still describing the crisis as an “attempted coup.”
According to a top African diplomat, who spoke anonymously because he is not authorized to comment formally on the matter, the memory of Libya’s collapse weighed heavily on the AU ruling. “Now, you have a bad government” in Niger, he said. “But if you bomb them, you get no government. Just jihadis and factions.” He pointed out that 12 years after NATO’s intervention into the Libyan uprising, there is still no formal government in Tripoli.
Pragmatic fingers in the ears lalalalala Biden-diplomacy.