For months, Cameron had been promising his Tory backbenchers a vengeful "grand speech" on the EU, to defuse the growing threat that the Eurosceptic mob represent for his leadership of the party. To this end, he planned to spell out his determination to "renegotiate" Britain's relationship with the EU, including the right for British companies to undercut the rest of Europe in terms of wages and conditions, and for the City to wreck financial markets without any interference from Brussels.
However, after French troops invaded the African country of Mali, Cameron couldn't be seen on the warpath against the EU, when the main EU countries were busy backing an offensive allegedly aimed at fighting "terrorism" in Africa. Especially not after the Amenas hostage crisis in Algeria exposed how the interests of BP, which has a stake in this natural gas facility, may be under threat.
So, in the end, Cameron postponed his "grand speech" against the EU and joined in with this new "war on terror", using rhetoric reminiscent of Blair and Bush in the weeks preceding the invasion of Iraq.
Behind their "war on terror"
Today's war in Mali, like the Iraq war 9 years ago, has more to do with Western shareholders' interests than with the fate of the populations now facing the brutal rule of Islamic militias.
Almost all the countries surrounding Mali - from southern Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal in the west, to Niger, Chad, or Sudan to the east - have had their own civil wars for many years, often involving Islamic militias, without anyone in the rich Western capitals being too worried about them. Nor has the arbitrary rule of their often dictatorial regimes caused much concern in the West. In Mali, itself, in fact, the regime which France is rescuing, with Cameron's support, in the name of "democracy", is a military dictatorship which has just recently taken power by overthrowing an elected government.
What was new about Mali, and which motivated France's "war on terror", was not the brutality of the Islamic militias which had taken control over the northern part of the country, but the fact that their advance was threatening the business interests of a number of big western companies.
The reason why France took it upon itself to launch this invasion was not only because it already had military bases in most of the region's countries, but primarily because its main source of uranium - in Niger - was within the reach of the Islamic militias.
And France is not the only Western power whose multinationals are threatened. Apart from British companies, as the Amenas hostage crisis showed, there are also a number of US oil majors operating in Chad, the French-US oil major Total is present, US mining companies are digging gold in southern Mali (Mali is Africa's 3rd largest gold producer), and other European companies import cotton from Mali and agricultural and mineral products from various countries in the region, etc..
Time-bombs left ticking by the West
In fact, the many civil wars in this part of Africa are the direct result of a combination of factors for which the rich countries are entirely responsible.
First, there is the legacy of the colonial days, which has left this region more impoverished than ever, divided into artificial countries, which make no sense whatsoever. The geometric lines of their borders, which were drawn with a ruler on a map by anonymous colonial functionaries, are proof that the needs and interests of the populations were never taken into account. Many ethnic groups were split between two or three countries. Some were cut off from their natural resources. In fact, the only issue for the colonial powers at the time of independence was how to ensure that the shareholders of the colonial companies retained a steady flow of profits, at the expense of the local populations. The outcome has been more poverty and more ethnic tension, which has caused the region's on-going civil wars.
Second, and more recently, came the Western war in Libya. It was hailed across Western capitals as a triumph, because Gaddafi's regime collapsed at minimal cost to the rich countries - and with no Western casualties, in particular. But beyond the enormous cost for the Libyan population - in terms of lives and destruction - and beyond the fact that the dictatorship was merely replaced by the rule of brutal militias, the war in Libya boosted the ambitions of Islamic forces across the region. Following the example of the Libyan Islamic militias, and thanks to the stockpile of weapons left by the collapse of Gaddafi's army, they are bidding for power in their own countries.
The time-bombs left by the rich countries are exploding. But, as was shown in Iraq and Afghanistan, they won't be defused by another western invasion. The rich countries are part of the problem, not part of the solution. That's why all Western troops should get out of Africa, now!