Sanctions Suck

There’s no shortage of feisty rhetoric coming out of Europe and the United States criticizing Robert Mugabe and his “land reform” policies in Zimbabwe. The ongoing nationalization/collectivization of the country’s farms and food distribution networks are effective ethnic cleansing. The fourth generation white farmers are being killed and deported. Mugabe is enriching his friends and cronies in the name of empowering the native peasant population. The process has turned the “Breadbasket of Africa” into a food importer. The West vigorously shakes its fists in outrage, all while being very careful not to suggest we’re going to do anything about it.

Our answer to the African Milosevic has been sanctions. Has this strangled Mugabe’s regime? No, not yet. Sham elections have kept the man in power, the opposition is jailed and exiled, and Mugabe continues his reign of terror confident that there is no Operation Bantu Freedom on the horizon, at least not in his lifetime. So sanctions are ineffectual—there’s little doubt about that. But what’s worse, they’re giving China the perfect opportunity to become Zimbabwe’s number one supplier of goods (at what you could call “uncompetitive” prices), winning the Middle Kingdom a new ally in Sub-Saharan Africa. (Click here for more on China-African relations.)

What we’re seeing in Zimbabwe is a repeat of bad policies in Ethiopia under President Carter (Kaplan article!). Jimmy refused to deal with the Mengistu regime because of human rights violations, which during the late 1970s meant killing political opponents. That allowed American self-righteous foreign policy moralists to feel good and smug about themselves, but our refusal to engage the Derg regime to try somehow and improve a rapidly worsening situation meant that the Soviets moved in. With East Germany operatives, Mengistu collectivized the countryside and learned how to use famine as a political weapon that killed more than a million people.

Sanctions and isolating a regime are bad decisions that do more harm than good. When you’re dealing with nasty world leaders, whether they be in the Sudan, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, or Iraq, you have two choices: engagement or invasion. Either work with the regime on some level to coax or cajole them into better behavior. Or, give them an ultimatum to shape up or ship out, and make good on the threat. This isn’t a call for unilateral action. This isn’t a desire to seek out monsters and destroy them. But sanctions strengthen the incumbent regime, hurt the domestic opposition, and give geopolitical opponents, whether they be the USSR or China, the perfect opportunity to gain a foothold using nefarious methods.

The other recent targets of sanctions are all in the same boat as Zimbabwe. Sudan provides 10% of China’s oil imports. Containing Saddam cost us billions and handed France sweet oil contracts. Myanmar is China’s only military ally. And guess who Iran’s number one oil customer is? None other than our faithful ally of Japan.

Conclusion? See the post’s title.