Big Victory for Powell's Soft Underbelly Strategy - Maybe?
By Franz Schurmann, PNS, May 31, 2001

Images of Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to Africa this week reflected his concern over AIDS and pride of being Black. But under the surface, one can see the skeleton of a strategic plan that appears to borrow from Churchill's call for confronting German armies through Europe's "soft underbelly." Washington, D.C., needs new friends and may be seeking them in Middle Africa's soft underbelly. PNS Editor Franz Schurmann, professor emeritus of history and sociology at UC-Berkeley, is author of numerous books on foreign affairs.

In Africa, Secretary of State Colin Powell was able to show both his humanity toward the afflicted and his pride as an African American. But that was the apple's rosy skin. Its core was geopolitics.

The biggest challenge now facing solo superpower America comes from the Middle East, a region in such a political shambles that it threatens an America that is lopsidedly dependent on imported oil and natural gas.

Powell's trip to Africa reflects, most immediately, former President Clinton's unprecedented visit to six African countries in March, 1998. Clinton's visit marked Ghana in the west and Uganda in the east, both English-speaking, as staunch friends of the U.S.

But Powell's trip had a more specific purpose. Though the media emphasized his concern with AIDS, his main mandate in Uganda and Kenya was to launch a process to end the Sudan's bloody civil war, raging since l959.

This new turn in American geopolitical strategy has not been named -- probably because if it dies stillborn, it would be better if it had no name.

But history offers a possible analogy in Churchill's call, during World War II, for confronting German armies not across the channel, where they were well dug in, but through Europe's "soft underbelly" -- northward from the Mediterranean, through Italy into Austria.

Powell may be looking at the band of states between northern and southern Africa as the soft underbelly for any armed moves into the Middle East.

Such a strategy must be focused on a well-defined enemy. The Clinton administration singled out a Middle Eastern enemy -- "terrorism" -- led by Osama Bin Laden. The Bush administration has had little to say on terrorism or Bin Laden but does appear to be at least looking at a strategy that involves the Middle African band of states.

This strategy cannot work without the Sudan. The Sudan, like many African states, is rich in key resources, with great reserves of oil, natural gas and water. China National Petroleum Corp in July, 1999, finished a major oil pipeline and refinery.

Powell's visit to Mali may well have shown U.S. approval of the work of South Korea's giant automobile maker, Hyundai, in one of the largest finds of gold in recent history.

But the main reason for his stops in the region is simply that Powell seeks a victory in the war against Osama Bin Laden.

Washington branded the Sudan a rogue state until recently. A key reason for this was to punish it for giving Bin Laden sanctuary when the Saudis revoked his passport in the aftermath of the bombing of U.S. military housing in Saudi Arabia.

The four defendants just convicted of complicity in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar as-Salaam allegedly worked with Bin Laden's "Qa'eda" organization, then based in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

There are good reasons to believe that the Sudan's strongman, General Omar al-Bashir, wants nothing more than to liberate the Sudan from its isolation in the world community. Earlier this year, he jailed his rival, Dr. Hassan at-Turabi -- the heart and soul of the Islamic revolution of 1989 -- who generated Bashir's current power.

Bashir knows that the only telling cards he has to play against Turabi are some real economic benefits that can only flow if he comes to terms with America.

And no one is more eager to help Bashir than an even greater ex-rogue, Libya's Col. Muammer Qadhafi. In May, 1999, he was active in peace-making efforts in the Sudan civil war. The effort went nowhere, most likely because the Clinton administration was still hostile to the Sudan and two of America's good friends in the region -- Ethiopia and Eritrea -- were tearing each other to pieces.

The chances of success are better this time. Even days before he left office, Clinton hoped for a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Now, not only has violence reached new highs in the Holy Land, but stability in most of the Middle East appears shakier than in recent history. Washington is looking for new friends and may be seeking them in Middle Africa's soft underbelly.

The Saudi-based Arabic-language newspaper has reported that there will soon be a triple summit in the Libyan city of Tripoli, involving Ugandan president Museveni as well as Bashir and Qadhafi. Uganda and the Sudan hold the keys to peace, because each has harassed the other with armed opponents for some 15 years. But if this summit succeeds, it will be because this time it has the full support of the U.S.

Qadhafi is clearly eager to re-enter the international tent. Both Qadhafi and Bashir have close relations with Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, who has developed a new passion for Africa. Just before Powell's departure, Mubarak hosted a big conference in Cairo attended by 21 African heads of state. The subject was economic integration of the entire African continent -- Qadhafi's dream for many years now.

If two notorious ex-rogues (Qadhafi and Bashir) and one authoritarian general (Mubarak) suddenly become American allies, it will rouse eyebrows in liberal Western circles. But most likely these anti-Islamicist eyebrows will quickly come down. Qadhafi and Mubarak fear and hate Islamic fundamentalists and Bashir has just imprisoned one of the most admired Islamic leaders in the one-billion-strong Muslim world.

If Libya and the Sudan both defect to the American side, it will mean a big victory for Powell's soft underbelly strategy. But in World War II, the surrender of Italy did not guarantee Germany's surrender.

Now, powerful Islamicist groups are proliferating throughout the Muslim world. A short list includes the Algerian GIA (Armed Islamic Group), the Palestinian Hamas (Movement of Islamic Resistance), the Lebanese Hizbullah (Party of God), the Central Asian Hizb-at-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), and the Wahhabi (Salafi or Fundamentalist) Chechens. Iran and Afghanistan are already under Islamic governance. The winner could still be Osama Bin Laden or his ghost.