Roger Kaplan is a writer and commentator specializing in international affairs, with particular expertise in North Africa, the Francophone world, and the Middle East. He contributed to The Weekly Standard from 2003 to 2015, writing extensively on topics including Algeria, Mauritania, France, and Israel. His work frequently explored geopolitics, counterterrorism, and U.S. foreign policy in Africa and beyond.
Washington, D.C.,'s Rock Creek Park Tennis Center—site of the week-long Citi Open tournament that wrapped up Sunday—is more formally known as the William H.G. Fitzgerald Center after its major benefactor, a living monument to success and generosity. Fitzgerald, who died nine years ago at 96, was a…
In winning Nigeria’s presidency on his fourth try, Muhammadu Buhari, former military dictator and proponent of sharia, may have answered the Nigerian question: Is the big West African country more than a geographical entity—does it have a sense of nationhood transcending sectional and religious…
If you inhabit the Left Bank of Paris, you live left and vote right. The Left Bank is on the southern shore of the river Seine, and the heart of it is the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a small, dense country you can cross on foot in half an hour. Around here they vote right, though you…
World War II posed no moral or existential problems for Albert Camus. As it began, he was 26 years old and had already made his mark as a crusading journalist; within a couple of years he would be famous for a shocking novel, The Stranger. With his family and his wife’s family in relative security…
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a central figure in Mali’s political life for over 20 years, was the winner in Sunday’s runoff vote in the landlocked West African nation’s presidential election, as his rival, Soumaila Cisse, conceded and congratulated his compatriots on a civic duty well done.
The town of Kidal, about 200 miles north of Gao, the big hub on the Niger River in eastern Mali, is hot and dry, and its police and electricity function erratically. The town, whose population is about 25,000, fell under the control of forces hostile to Mali’s central government in Bamako, which is…
In downtown Algiers, on June 4, 1958, Charles de Gaulle expressed himself clearly, as usual. The conventional wisdom has it that he was “ambiguous,” even “duplicitous.” But what he said was that the page had to be turned in Algeria: Political and civil institutions had to be reformed; there could…
With the quiet announcement that the United States is earmarking $50 million from the defense budget immediately for France and Niger, two countries in the forefront of the battle for Mali against Islamist hordes and Tuareg secessionists, the Obama administration appears to be indicating that it…
Nouakchott, Mauritania
Determined not to lose Mali to Islamist forces, France’s president Francois Hollande ordered a rapid deployment of air and ground forces in Mali to block well-armed and motivated fighters of the Ansar Dine movement led by the veteran Tuareg leader Iyad Ag Ghali from crossing the Niger river and…
Paris
Following almost daily coups de théâtre after the Malian junior officers’ coup d’etat of March 22 led by Capt. Amadou Sanogo, indications of the political evolution of the shaken West African country and of the possible military repercussions of the past weeks’ events are being voiced in Bamako.
In the latest turn of events in the decade-long war on terror, U.S. counter-terrorism policy in Africa was dealt a blow – or an opportunity – with the declaration of independence of the Azawad, the territory claimed by the Tuareg tribes of northern Mali.
Alain Juppe, France’s foreign minister, forcefully condemned the coup d’état that overthrew Mali’s president, Amadou Toumani Toure, a few days ago, and called for elections as soon as possible in the context of the restoration of constitutional order. Elections, the first round of the presidential…
With the fall last weekend of the northern Mali garrison town of Tessalit, and its airstrip, to Tuareg secessionist forces, U.S. counter-terror policy in Africa is dealt a stunning setback. A USAF airlift brought supplies on February 14 to the besieged town, which reportedly was overwhelmed by a…
Mopti, Bamako
In embattled Mali, the battle for Tessalit continues. This has become a miniature African Stalingrad (neither condescension nor excessive alarm intended). It appears the rebellious Tuareg who declared independence in January for the northern tier of this West African country are determined to…
With U.S. forces in Mali
Israël Peut-il Survivre? (Will Israel Endure?)
Modern Sudan is a complex geographical expression more than a country. Annexed by Egypt's Albanian ruler Mehmet Ali in the 1820s, it was poorly managed from the beginning, and the country's administration grew increasingly corrupt under Mehmet Ali's sons. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869,…
Commander of the Faithful
Justifying their coup against an elected president last month, Mauritania's top generals underscored not only what they claimed was creeping corruption and blatant incompetence but a soft approach to the al Qaeda franchise in North Africa, known as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [west]. One…
WHILE ATTENTION WAS focused on the other side of the earth, a band of soldiers in Mauritania led by General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz overthrew the government of Sidi Ould Cheik Abdallahi in a bloodless coup during the first week of August. The president, his family, and entourage are detained and…
Close on the heels of the latest sham election in Zimbabwe, the International Criminal Court announced last week that it is seeking the arrest of the president of Sudan on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. As Africa notches up more failures on the long road out of…
Albert Camus the Algerian
Overshadowed by Iraq and Afghanistan in the global war on terror, less scrutinized than Turkey as a laboratory of Islam's compatibility with liberal democracy, Algeria remains a crucial testing ground for the ability of postcolonial Islamic societies to develop modern institutions. Algeria is also,…
Among the Righteous
After the Empire
AMERICANS learned from Afghanistan that neglect of impoverished, out-of-the-way places can be costly. This is especially true of Islamic Africa--where Osama bin Laden has been known to take refuge and in whose vicinity his followers have found both recruits and targets for their bombs. So it is…
ON THE MARGINS of the Arab world, the United States has some little noticed allies. These are ethnic or religious minorities who have never accepted the inevitability of strongman rule. Some of them have fallen on hard times--the Maronite Christians of Lebanon are scattered and defeated for now;…
PIERRE LELLOUCHE, who represents a Paris district in the French National Assembly, did not appreciate being called "Pierre Laval" during a recent foreign policy debate in parliament. A leading defense expert who backed Ronald Reagan's strong stand against the Soviet Union in the 1980s when many in…
AMERICANS have been getting a crash course in French foreign policy lately. For further insight, it may be instructive to cast a glance at Ivory Coast, a charming and until recently peaceful country on Africa's west coast. Dissatisfied with the policies of the democratically elected president,…