France might be embarrassed about military intervention, which has not achieved its goals, on the border between Mali and Mauritania. However, France is obliged to engage in this, for more than one reason. First of all, it cannot be indifferent to what is taking place in areas of its traditional influence in northwest Africa. Moreover, it cannot stand idly by when French citizens are kidnapped and murdered. The intervention is not interesting in itself; rather, it is the method that has been used, a method that has resulted in transferring domestic conflict in Mauritania and Mali to the realm of French concerns. In the same manner that dirty laundry of Mauritania or Mali was awaiting a chance to be shown in public, in the form of political conflicts that take advantage of certain occasions, the domestic situation that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is experiencing has, in turn, moved toward attacking an intervention that has failed to achieve its aims. However, away from these turbulences, whose backgrounds have many different origins, there is the acknowledgment that the situation in the south Saharan Sahel region cannot continue much further, especially since the confrontation has moved from the African arena to the European jurisdiction, which has begun to examine how its citizens have become subject to terror and murder, without succeeding in warning them about traveling to dangerous areas, or adopting a long-term strategy to face the growing phenomenon of terrorism. The concerned regional and international parties appear to be racing to play roles that guarantee their interests. Algeria, which has returned its former ambassador to Bamako, to declare that the crisis with Mali had been overcome, believes, logically, that it is the country most closely involved with dealing with the region's security challenges. It does not believe, as a result of its constant disputes with Paris, that France can play a role without its consent. Meanwhile, the concerned African countries that have tried to show openness toward Algiers, cannot do anything without informing France. In fact, the repercussions that have appeared inside Mauritania, amid the latest incidents, reflect a part of the existing tension. The recent summit of Sahel and Saharan countries, which was hosted by Chad, could have produced some clear answers to the fundamental questions about security challenges in the Sahel and Sahara. If this does not happen through the adoption of concepts that would revitalize the African summits that have become all rusted, then it would take place by relying on recommendations and resolutions of the Sahel country summit, had it not been subject, in turn, to considerations that include contradictory positions in North African countries. However, Paris is now being prompted to pay more attention to these developments. This is because its policies have been very similar to the type of tutelage, which it has imposed in Africa. In fact, France has an annual summit whose main headline is about Africa and France, analogous to the summit held in the Commonwealth. The problem is that African decision-making has been split, since the very beginning, between Francophone and Anglo-Saxon countries. The repercussions of this division continue to influence the present and future of the continent, which suffers from a number of problems and challenges. The Americans are no smarter. At a time, in which they found that the French role would hardly extend beyond one of dialogue within a political club based on economic interests, they posed the idea of military intervention in Africa, through AFRICOM. The current tension over what is developing in the Sahel and Sahara region is not that far from the facets of this struggle. No one objects to US military maneuvers in the region, which were conducted under the rubric of the war on terror and assistance to confront the wrath of nature and the deceit of humans. While the French wanted to speak up, they were criticized by all sides. Most importantly, inter-African conflicts are about to bend in the direction of Franco-American issues, and all of this is taking place in the absence of a clearer vision, which would be the natural refuge for countries of the south Saharan Sahel.
