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Mixed Response in Britain to Cameron’s North Africa Trip Cameron Shows Grit in North Africa, but Stirs Concerns About New Entanglements
(about 2 hours later)
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron emerged Thursday from hurried visits to two North African capitals boasting a sheaf of commitments to new partnerships in the fields of defense, counterterrorism, intelligence-sharing and military training, including for special forces.LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron emerged Thursday from hurried visits to two North African capitals boasting a sheaf of commitments to new partnerships in the fields of defense, counterterrorism, intelligence-sharing and military training, including for special forces.
He also won plaudits for courage. In Algiers on Wednesday, he became the first British prime minister to visit since Winston Churchill wallowed in warm Mediterranean dips during stopovers to and from Egypt in World War II. Postwar British leaders shunned Algeria through its bloody war against the colonial French and, after 1962, for the appalling human rights record of the country’s post-independence rulers, mostly involving the torture and killing of Islamist opponents.He also won plaudits for courage. In Algiers on Wednesday, he became the first British prime minister to visit since Winston Churchill wallowed in warm Mediterranean dips during stopovers to and from Egypt in World War II. Postwar British leaders shunned Algeria through its bloody war against the colonial French and, after 1962, for the appalling human rights record of the country’s post-independence rulers, mostly involving the torture and killing of Islamist opponents.
In Tripoli, Libya, on Thursday, Mr. Cameron braved the warnings issued by his own Foreign Office, which acknowledged only days ago that it had received threats against the British Embassy there and urged British citizens to leave Benghazi, Libya’s second city. Mr. Cameron entered Tripoli in a cavalcade of armored cars and mingled with ordinary Libyans in Martyrs’ Square as a military helicopter hovered overhead and sharpshooters stood watch on neighboring rooftops.In Tripoli, Libya, on Thursday, Mr. Cameron braved the warnings issued by his own Foreign Office, which acknowledged only days ago that it had received threats against the British Embassy there and urged British citizens to leave Benghazi, Libya’s second city. Mr. Cameron entered Tripoli in a cavalcade of armored cars and mingled with ordinary Libyans in Martyrs’ Square as a military helicopter hovered overhead and sharpshooters stood watch on neighboring rooftops.
Still, skeptics have taken to Britain’s airwaves and news columns to ask whether Mr. Cameron’s focus on marshaling a concerted Western response to security threats in North Africa is based on an overreaction to the Islamist threat, and whether he is dragging Britain relentlessly into another foreign quagmire just as it is heading for an end to combat in Afghanistan later this year.Still, skeptics have taken to Britain’s airwaves and news columns to ask whether Mr. Cameron’s focus on marshaling a concerted Western response to security threats in North Africa is based on an overreaction to the Islamist threat, and whether he is dragging Britain relentlessly into another foreign quagmire just as it is heading for an end to combat in Afghanistan later this year.
Adrian Hamilton, writing in The Independent newspaper, observed, “There is a real danger for Europe and the wider world from the threat posed by insurgent groups invading states too weak to defend themselves.” But he cautioned that grappling with the survival of such states will not be helped by “muddling it up with all sorts of ill-defined nightmares about religious terrorism.”Adrian Hamilton, writing in The Independent newspaper, observed, “There is a real danger for Europe and the wider world from the threat posed by insurgent groups invading states too weak to defend themselves.” But he cautioned that grappling with the survival of such states will not be helped by “muddling it up with all sorts of ill-defined nightmares about religious terrorism.”
“Yet that,” he wrote, “is what the prime minister is doing.”“Yet that,” he wrote, “is what the prime minister is doing.”
Some of the more positive commentators here have suggested that Mr. Cameron’s language has had Churchillian overtones that are ill measured to the nature of the threat. In the wake of the French military intervention in Mali, and the seizure of a remote gas plant in the Algerian desert that ended with scores of dead hostages and militants, including six Britons, the prime minister has spoken of the challenge in North Africa being a particularly menacing component of a global threat from Islamist militants that demands a “response that is about years, even decades, rather than months,” that is “patient and painstaking,” and that is characterized by “an absolutely iron resolve.”Some of the more positive commentators here have suggested that Mr. Cameron’s language has had Churchillian overtones that are ill measured to the nature of the threat. In the wake of the French military intervention in Mali, and the seizure of a remote gas plant in the Algerian desert that ended with scores of dead hostages and militants, including six Britons, the prime minister has spoken of the challenge in North Africa being a particularly menacing component of a global threat from Islamist militants that demands a “response that is about years, even decades, rather than months,” that is “patient and painstaking,” and that is characterized by “an absolutely iron resolve.”
While vowing that Britain “has no intention” of getting involved in combat, he has sent 330 British service members to assist the French in Mali, with transport aircraft to help airlift French troops and equipment, a top-secret surveillance aircraft to provide the French with intelligence about the Islamist fighters, and 200 “advisers” — most of them, for now at least, to be based in Nigeria and Ghana — to assist in training Malian troops. Newspaper reports have said that British special forces units, some transferred from Afghanistan, have also been deployed.While vowing that Britain “has no intention” of getting involved in combat, he has sent 330 British service members to assist the French in Mali, with transport aircraft to help airlift French troops and equipment, a top-secret surveillance aircraft to provide the French with intelligence about the Islamist fighters, and 200 “advisers” — most of them, for now at least, to be based in Nigeria and Ghana — to assist in training Malian troops. Newspaper reports have said that British special forces units, some transferred from Afghanistan, have also been deployed.
But many in Mr. Cameron’s own party and beyond have asked whether the prime minister has followed in the footsteps that a predecessor, Tony Blair, left in Iraq and Afghanistan, succumbing to the desire to break free from the draining compromises forced on him by the convolutions of domestic politics, and seeking renown for tough, statesmanlike action abroad.But many in Mr. Cameron’s own party and beyond have asked whether the prime minister has followed in the footsteps that a predecessor, Tony Blair, left in Iraq and Afghanistan, succumbing to the desire to break free from the draining compromises forced on him by the convolutions of domestic politics, and seeking renown for tough, statesmanlike action abroad.
And they have questioned Mr. Cameron’s judgment in his choice of Algeria and Libya as partners for his venture into the eddying waters of North African politics.And they have questioned Mr. Cameron’s judgment in his choice of Algeria and Libya as partners for his venture into the eddying waters of North African politics.
On his visit to Tripoli on Thursday, Mr. Cameron won a renewed Libyan commitment to cooperate in investigating Libya’s role in the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans — a pledge Mr. Blair also secured on a visit in 2007. In the years since, there has been little concrete Libyan assistance.On his visit to Tripoli on Thursday, Mr. Cameron won a renewed Libyan commitment to cooperate in investigating Libya’s role in the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans — a pledge Mr. Blair also secured on a visit in 2007. In the years since, there has been little concrete Libyan assistance.
While Algeria’s current leaders and the repressive government they oversee seem to have an iron grip on the country, one that has so far shown little sign of descending into the chaos the Arab Spring has brought elsewhere, the same could hardly be said of Libya’s current leaders.While Algeria’s current leaders and the repressive government they oversee seem to have an iron grip on the country, one that has so far shown little sign of descending into the chaos the Arab Spring has brought elsewhere, the same could hardly be said of Libya’s current leaders.
They have shown little sign of establishing a stable government in the face of the challenges of tribal militias, remnants of the Qaddafi era and, perhaps most ominously, from militant Islamist groups like the one believed to have led the fatal attacks on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi last September.They have shown little sign of establishing a stable government in the face of the challenges of tribal militias, remnants of the Qaddafi era and, perhaps most ominously, from militant Islamist groups like the one believed to have led the fatal attacks on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi last September.