SG20132437 FRANCE IN MALI: PUNCHING ABOVE ITS WEIGHT IN QUAGMIRE

Résumé

Paris has set a timetable of withdrawal from Mali by year-end 2013 and the process of clearing pathways has begun. It is unlikely that Mali will be fully secure and politically stable at that time, although it might be less vulnerable to a takeover by Islamic terrorists. Optimists may see that as a glass half full. Pessimists would call it a glass half empty. An appropriate remark might be “a glass too big”, which means overreach. There is a precedent. America and NATO, the world’s greatest-ever powers, overreached in backward Afghanistan and weak Iraq.