It took La Belle France the better part of a year to craft a UN-backed plan for dealing with the Islamist takeover of northern Mali that would avoid a French military intervention.It took only a few hours to turn that project on its head.
The lightening deployment of French troops to stop an unexpected Islamist offensive left UN diplomats scrambling for answers and analysts scratching their heads.
| "This is an amazing example of how a diplomatic process at the UN can take on a life of its own without any real reference to what's happening on the ground" |
The UN resolution outlines a months-long process of national reconciliation between the authorities in the capital Bamako and Malian Tuareg rebels in the north who cut ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
| ...preparing it to join an African intervention force to take back the north from the extremists who now control it, sometime around September... |
Despite some scepticism from the Americans, the resolution passed unanimously in December.
But now, admits one Security Council diplomat, "some of the assumptions will have to be rethought".
But now, admits one Security Council diplomat, " |
Some Malian soldiers have since rallied to fight with the French, but the question is whether these can form the core of a reformed army, or whether "we move over and have the Africans in the lead rather than the reverse," said the diplomat.
Another flaw was that the initial assessment of the gangs underestimated their capability as what a senior French diplomat called a "well armed, equipped, trained and determined" force, which apparently tried to hold ground in terrain usually defined by skirmishes and ambushes.
Even the political process was miscalculated.
The idea was to split the Tuareg rebels from foreign terrorist groups by addressing the political and economic grievances that had fuelled their rebellion, with the suggestion that the Islamists amongst the Tuareg, the Ansar Dine, would be willing to negotiate.
"The big question was about Ansar Dine," said another Security Council diplomat.
"The Algerians were saying it was possible to negotiate with them... so it was a shock to Algiers that Ansar Dine was part of the offensive."