Sunset in the Sahel: Biden’s Surrender of a Base in Niger Will End Up as a Gift to President Putin

As Washington insists on endlessly meddling in internal affairs of other countries, leaders in Africa’s resource-rich Sahel region are turning to Russia, preferring its hard-edged, interest-driven foreign policy. Following this week’s ouster of America’s base in Niger, the West will find it hard to find a crucial foothold on the continent. Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali were once allied with America and their former colonial power, France. After 10 years of fighting jihadists in the region with mixed results, 12,000 French-led United Nations peacekeepers were pushed out by Mali’s military leaders. President Macron withdrew his troops, and last summer the UN Security Council, in a rare move, ended the mission’s mandate. It was left to the Pentagon’s Africa Command to fill the void. A 2012 agreement with Niger facilitated an impressive $110 million drone base housing 1,000 U.S. troops. The powers-that-be at Niamey announced their intent to limit cooperation with Africom last October, and this week the American troops were told to leave. The friction between America and Niger dates back to last July, when a military junta overthrew the Western-backed president, Mohammed Bazoum. Attempts by France to reinstall the ousted leader were unsuccessful. Washington, meanwhile, was hesitant, as many of the generals that participated in the coup are Pentagon-trained and have good relations with America. Also, the Africom base is the West’s only remaining eyes and ears in the strategic region where various jihadist groups are growing in influence and numbers. Much to the chagrin of human rights advocates, President Biden at first declined to characterize the Niger military takeover as a coup. By October Mr. Biden relented, and the Department of State officially declared it a coup, a designation that automatically triggers American sanctions. Over the weekend a delegation led by the state department’s Molly Phee and Africom’s commander, Micheal Langley, traveled to Niger in a last-ditch attempt to salvage relations. It did not go well. The American visitors conducted the conversation in a “condescending attitude,” a spokesman for the Niger military, Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane, complained in a statement. The U.S. delegation attempted to convince the junta to prevent a Russian takeover of the base in Niger. It also tried to deter the generals from cooperating with Russia over the mining of Niger’s vast uranium resources, and, even more worrisome, from selling the raw material to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Russia has long seen the Sahel region’s growing frustration with the Americans and French as an opportunity to enter the void. With Moscow’s backing, three Sahel countries, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso — all now controlled by military juntas — split from the Western-backed Economic Community of West African States, and formed their own bloc, the Alliance of Sahel States.“In the Sahel, the West traditionally relies on a United Nations that is impotent, on Ecowas that is divided, and on the African Union, which is ineffective,” the chairman of a think tank concentrating on Africa and the Arab world, the International Center for Dialog Initiative, Jamal Benomar, tells the Sun.Leaders in the Sahel and in other parts of Africa are increasingly frustrated with the moralistic tone that underlines meetings with American, French, and other Western officials. Instead, they increasingly look for help from Russia, Communist China, and now also the Islamic Republic of Iran. “Every time I speak to Africans, they say that the Americans and Europeans lecture them, while the Russians and Chinese are more straightforward and transactional, no strings attached,” Mr. Benomar, who is a former UN envoy in Africa, says. “Niger regrets the willingness of the American delegation to deny the sovereign people of Niger the right to choose its partners,” the junta’s spokesman, Major Abdramane, said in his statement, adding that America “unilaterally decided to suspend all cooperation between our two countries.” As America was contemplating how to punish an African ally for a coup that undermined a shaky commitment to democratic values, Russia’s Rosatom erected nuclear energy facilities, supplying the Sahel with much-needed sources of electricity. The mercenary group Wagner has taken over gold and other mining across a region where extreme poverty meets rich reserves of minerals. As Moscow’s disinformation machine stoked anti-American and anti-French sentiment across the Sahel, Beijing entered agreements with African regimes that could last for decades, and Tehran found a new source of uranium for its ever-growing nuclear arms development. At the same time, France is increasingly blamed for all the Sahel ills, and America all but forked over a crucial base to its nemesis, Russia.

Sunset in the Sahel: Biden’s Surrender of a Base in Niger Will End Up as a Gift to President Putin

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