Mired in Mogadishu
Two weeks ago a "national reconciliation congress" that Somalia's ineffectual "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG), under pressure from international donors who are its only means of supp...
James Madison University
Give War a Chance!
Two items in the batch of international news and commentary at the end of last week strike us as particularly noteworthy, justifying our recall in a new context of the title of P.J. O'Rourke...
Op-eds
The Indian Tiger’s African Safari
While the African travels of Chinese leaders and their troubling arms sales to regimes on the continent, have caused increasing concern in Washington and other Western capitals, India's grow...
Op-eds
The Security Challenge of West Africa’s New Drug Depots
Last week, gendarmes in the Senegal seaside resort of Nianing seized fifty-one 24-kilogram sacks containing a record 1.25 metric tons of cocaine with a street value of over $100 million....
Op-eds
Cabinda: The “Forgotten Conflict” America Can’t Afford to Forget
Because of the sense of urgency repeatedly communicated by this column as well as the parallel efforts of other "Africa hands," the precarious situation of Nigeria – which I have described...
Op-eds
Hu’s Selling Guns to Africa
In recent years, United States policy makers and analysts as well as American businesses and non-governmental organizations have begun paying closer attention to the already significant – a...
Op-eds
Hezbollah, Hamas, and Humanitarians
While most Middle East watchers know about the takeover of Gaza by Hamas and its transformation into the terrorist enclave of "Hamastan," readers of the mainstream press might be surprised to lea...
Op-eds
Al Qaeda’s Franchise in Africa
More than a year ago, I inaugurated this column with an essay whose title – "The War on Terrorism's Forgotten Front" – laid out what has been one of the recurring themes of this...
Op-eds
Nigeria: Flailing State
On the final day of their summit last week at the German Baltic seaside resort of Heiligendamm, as they are nowadays wont to do, the leaders of the G8 received a select delegation of their Africa...
Op-eds
Conservative Columnist
Next week, President George W. Bush will welcome Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet to the White House, the first Vietnamese head of state to be received there since Nguyen Van Thieu of South...
Op-eds
Securing the New Strategic Gulf
In his 2006 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush issued a call for the United States to "replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025" and to "make...
Op-eds
Next Year in Jerusalem
Forty years ago this week, on the third day of the Six-Day War, Israel entered the Old City of Jerusalem. Returning to the Western Wall from which he and all other Jews had, in blatant violation...
Op-eds
Building Security by Ending Impunity: The Trial of Charles Taylor
This being a column devoted to terrorism and other security issues affecting Africa, it regrettably must devote most of its coverage to the bad news of which the continent is all too familiar: po...
Op-eds
Smokin’ on Somalia
Last week, my colleague at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), Andrew McCarthy; the former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York who led the pros...
Op-eds
Vulnerability of Nigerian Oil Infrastructure Threatens U.S. Interests
Last Friday, oil prices climbed toward $67.00 a barrel as supply disruptions in Nigeria compounded concerns about insufficient gasoline inventory levels in the United States; which have been decl...
Op-eds
Additional Sparks Fly in the Horn of Africa
A little less than year ago, I appeared before a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations and the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and...
Op-eds
Nigeria Teeters Back from the Brink — For Now
Two weeks ago in this column space I observed that free, fair, and credible elections in Nigeria "would lead to the inauguration of a legitimate political order;[which] would not only consolidate...
Op-eds
New Fronts Call for New Capacities
As a longtime advocate for the creation of a unified regional combatant command for Africa; an idea for which, in a column published in this very space last year, I argued "the time is now"; I wa...
Op-eds
Nigeria: Crisis of Legitimacy
Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Monday that Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the candidate of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), the winner in last...
Op-eds
Decision Time in Nigeria
Over the course of the last year, this column has regularly chronicled developments in Nigeria; including Islamist activism in the north, evidence of growing connections to international terroris...