France in trouble

France knew it was stirring a hornets’ nest when it invaded Mali earlier this year. So did the USA and the EU. Yet they pushed through and eventually, together with several African nations’ troops, managed to achieve victory. François Hollande even went to Mali to get a photo-op on the trail of that moment.

But that photo and that victory are as close to reality as George W. Bush’s photo aboard a US carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him. To be honest, the difference is that this time they know it. And they fear it.

Winning is easy. Keeping the spoils of war is much more difficult. Ask the Americans in Iraq. That is precisely what France is trying to avoid, getting into another Vietnam -yes, they have the same example in their history books too.

Even for the invasion, France had to stretch its forces. It needed the support of the USA and other European allies if only to fill auxiliary roles. Holding the ground, even just leading a coalition of African forces, is proving more challenging.

The land to patrol is vast -as demonstrated by the attack on the gas refinery in Algeria. The Islamists are also well armed; these are not Syrian rebels. They have powerful friends and some of them were armed by Gadaffi to fight against the same French and Americans they are fighting now just a few months ago.

Even the fighting is not over yet, as demonstrated by the recent deaths of African and French soldiers in combat missions. Not in ambushes, combat missions. And even a really weak al-Qaeda is being able to maintain a guerrilla war.

French convoy in Mali/Reuters

That is why France wants out. And they want it fast. Hollande’s Government is pushing the UN to create a rapid reaction 10,000-strong multinational force, heavy armed and under French leadership if needed. But under the UN flag and with bigger contributions from other nations.

However, those other nations are likely to be African or Asian. The US, the UK and other European countries pledged only support aid. Canada has already ruled out combat roles for its forces. A picture that sounds all too familiar.

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Syria and the diplomacy game

Syria has become a broken toy no one wants to get their hands on. Truth be told, the situation has escalated and it is way more complicated now. What used to be black or white has now dozens of shades of gray in between. The Balkanization of the conflict has derived in a war with dozens of splinter cells with targets too different between themselves.

There is no more a homogeneous opposition. Some groups want to oust Assad. Others just want to defend their neighborhoods. The Kurds are happy taking care of their own business watching the rest killing themselves. And then there are the ones looking for a Yihad. For those ones, the -theoretically- socialist and laic regime of Assad is as good as a target as anything else.

That is why steps are given carefully. Slow and shy attempts on all sides. Take for example Russia, who started championing Assad. Now they are rather looking for a golden retirement for him and his family in a third country.

We have as well the Arab states of the Gulf. They are between a rock and a hard place. On one hand they would love nothing more than getting rid of Iran’s friend in the region. On the other hand, they are frightened a revolution like that could caught them at home.

In a similar place is Israel, whose is irritated by Assad but fears who could come after him. They have the bad experience of Egypt, where Mubarak was a manageable leader that didn’t give them too many problems. Things have changed with Morsi, if only on the public arena.

Photo: Facebook group

The last one to risk a move has been the USA, announcing they will help directly the Syrian opposition. With a clear red line: no weapons or training. Just medicines and food to avoid future problems.

The Americans don’t want another Afghanistan or Libya. In the former they helped the Taliban; in the later they helped the Gadaffi opposition. Both groups turned their backs on America, one of them in a war still going on, the other one with the attack on Bengazhi’s embassy and Mali.

The Syrian opposition however thinks that all that about food and medicines is good intentions but nothing more. A video uploaded to Facebook shows how much they esteem the help provided by Washington.

However, the lack of a pipeline of weapons from the West isn’t stopping Syrians of getting armed. Recently some images of what looks like Chinese surface-to-air missiles appeared online. How they got there is a mystery. But even without sponsors, Syrians have demonstrated a high dose of imagination. One of them is a Playstation-controlled tank they created out of scrap pieces. That is bringing the game of Libya to a whole new level.

France and the UK have been trying to solve that. They are the top supporters of lifting an EU-embargo on Syria. They are even considering going freelance and arm the rebels themselves, even if that means defying the European Union.

Several Gulf states, however, keep funding and arming rebel groups. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are among them. This, again, could turn counterproductive in the end for the Americans. Without a direct control on the arms pipeline, those weapons could end up in the hands of groups that aren’t so worrying for those Muslim states, like al-Nusra. And this would be the same problem all over again, only that way closer to strategic allies like Israel.

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Wasting Money

Over 12% of the Money spent in rebuilding Iraq has been wasted. That is the conclusion reached by the latest enquiry on the matter by the USA. And it could be worse.

Nothing is more painful for Americans than paying taxes. That is why the “taxpayer’s money” is scrutinised so closely. And the quantity wasted this time is considerable: more than $8b.

An estimation, by the way, that could be short. Stuart Bowen, head of the committee redacting the document, told Wired that the total could be much more because they only could audit superficially the account. An account that only includes money spent on reconstruction, not the overall military operation cost which ascends to $800b.

To the 12% of the $60b for rebuilding Iraq, we should add the unknown amount wasted in Afghanistan already. Last year an independent investigation by the BBC revealed that a “significant portion” of the $400m invested in 2011 alone was going to be lost.

Photo: US Army

One thing you can’t deny them is creativity when it comes to useless spending. Sometimes it was in the form of unfinished projects. Sometimes by paying contractors that then didn’t meet the requirements. There is even a case of a school that wanted $10,000 for refurbishment works and got $70,000 without knowing well why.

Probably the case of the “Sons of Iraq” program is especially relevant. It was seen as a expense to avoid expenses. Planned by the now villain Gen. Petraeus it focused on paying of Sunni groups in Iraq to work for the Americans instead of against them. Bribe them, one could say. Those bribes added up to $370m between 2007 and 2008. But worst of all, without being clear if it was a success, they exported the system to Afghanistan.

It is impossible not to think other uses that money could have had. $8b is a lot of money. Enough, for example, to pay for five more missions of the space shuttle. Or for almost a whole year of the Environmental Agency’s budget. Instead they are collecting dust in some warehouse in the middle of the desert.

Published first on Iniciativa Abierta in Spanish

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