Zimbabwe

The Western powers went into Iraq with all guns blazing, so why the kid gloves approach with Zimbabwe?

The best article of the week was written by The Times' David Aaronovitch, someone we hadn’t been too kind to in the past. Writing last Tuesday on the subject of Zimbabwe, the columnist displayed some intellectual honesty and admirable coherence. He advocated foreign military intervention as the sole hope left in order to free the Zimbabwean population from Mugabe's horrendous grip. In the wake of yet more rigged elections, all hints suggest the dictator has no intention to step down.

Aaronovitch has been one of the most fervent pro-Iraq war zealots, turning a blind eye and a half towards the repercussions of Bush and Blair's military gamble. This time, however, we're on his side. If only those who were suddenly so anxious to bring democracy to Iraq, out of all places, showed Aaronovitch's same genuine concern for human rights across the world, things may be slightly better. Zimbabwe is being suffocated to death but you don’t hear the neo-cons priests and Blairite souls reciting that "you can't appease a dangerous dictator", "do nothing in front of genocide" and "those pacifists against-wars-come-what-may are all a bunch of Chamberlain-like chickens".

"The idea that Mugabe will cave in to sanctions or diplomatic pressure is absurd", Aaronovitch writes, adding that "unless you regard the recent burnings, rapes, beatings, murders, threats, arrests, starvings and raids as some kind of exotic preamble to negotiation, then what seems clear is that the Zanu (PF) military-security group has no intention of allowing any transfer of power to an elected opposition, no matter what a whingeing world says about it".

The Western powers went into Iraq with all guns blazing, in spite of a background which consisted of an explosive Middle East, belligerent neighbours, as well as a country so ravaged by internal divisions and ethnic and religious sectarianism. So why the kid gloves approach with Zimbabwe and a (comparatively and relatively speaking, of course) easier geo-political scenario?