Zimbabwe’s slow-burning crisis could affect Africa

What if the H1N1 virus had emerged in Harare and swept through a country where the health infrastructure had been ravaged? Similarly, who would have anticipated that failing states in West Africa would be the new transit point for South American drugs going to Western Europe or that dirt-poor North Korea would develop the technology to launch missiles over Japan and verbally threaten the world with nuclear attack?

Finally, the most nuanced argument for engagement may be the most powerful. For Western countries and particularly the United States, the capacity to exercise so-called “soft power” depends in large part on a global perception that this power is intended for the global good. For most of the past decade, this has been absent. It has been a long time since Jean-Marie Colombani summed up the global mood on September 13, 2001, with the Le Monde headline, “Nous Sommes Tous Américains”.

The world’s reaction to the election of Barack Obama suggests that America is being given a second chance.

Immediately following 9-11, I said in a speech: “We ignore suffering and instability abroad at our peril. We must dedicate ourselves and our resources to fight poverty, illiteracy, disease, hunger, and repression - conditions that give rise to desperation that translates itself into terrorist acts. We must not squander the reservoir of resolve abroad ready to work with us in pursuit of a more secure, more democratic, and more prosperous world.”

Squander is exactly what America did with international goodwill since 2001. By contrast, in part because there are so few compelling national interests in rebuilding Zimbabwe, the impact of a substantial commitment to meet that challenge would be all the more empowering.