Every year since George W Bush was first inaugurated in 2000, the United States president and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki have had a conversation. It’s usually by telephone.
They are an odd couple: President Bush, a man of the political right, sometimes seeming to be almost determinedly anti-intellectual (and whose vice-president is historically anti-African National Congress), and President Mbeki, a man of the political left, sometimes almost painfully cerebral.
They may both share a sense of being embattled by once-loyal Âconstituents, but they are ultimately bound together by certain shared strategic interests in Africa and beyond.
While it was kept extremely low-key, the 45-minute Bush-Mbeki meeting at the White House last ÂFriday afternoon gave some Âvisibility to the outline of this Âdeepening alliance.
Pretoria’s handling of Aids has been one of two public issues Âsouring US-South Africa relations. In remarks following the meeting, Bush adopted a new accommodating tone, saying: ‘We talked about our bilateral relations and his [Mbeki’s] government’s commitment to fighting HIV/Aids and our willingness to provide over $600-million to the folks in South Africa to help deal with this terrible pandemic.â€
In the run-up to the Mbeki-Bush meeting, the South African government seemed to make a deliberate and radical change of course — not unnoticed in Washington — that saw the emergence of a more sound policy voice, and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang being pushed off centre stage in the handling of HIV/Aids following her disastrous foray into Canada earlier this year.
Zimbabwe, the other issue that has long weighed down US-South African relations, seems not to have been discussed — or perhaps the two leaders have simply agreed to disagree.
Washington’s focus on Aids has less to do with its interest in public health south of the Sahara and more to do with strategic matters. Aids — particularly within the South African military — has caused great concern in the White House and Pentagon, which view the South African National Defence Force as being of great strategic significance on the continent. You can almost hear the huge sigh of relief Ârising above the US capital now that South Africa seems to be getting on the road to what the Bush administration feels is a common-sense approach to the pandemic.
This gets to the heart of the Âcontinuing Bush-Mbeki exchanges. One of the hallmarks of the Bush administration’s foreign policy has been the steady emergence of the continent as an area of strategic importance for the US. A clear sign of this view within the top military brass emerged in an interview last year, when North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commander Marine General James L Jones said that Nato should be called the US ÂEuropean and African Command. ‘Nato will have to quit being such an eastward-focused alliance and will have to react to some of the compelling realities of the southern flank,†he said.
Africans might take some Âexception to becoming part of Washington’s ‘southern flank†— and tangible political progress has been registered in areas such as Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the US government is palpably concerned over several other developments. These include the Islamic courts militas’ new inroads in Somalia (to the detriment of US-supported ‘transitional governmentâ€), the July coup that overthrew the government of Mauritania, and the continuing conflicts in Chad and Darfur.
Speaking to reporters of the need to support Somalia’s transitional government, Mbeki described that country as a ‘failed stateâ€. His remarks underlined the growing US-South African agreement on issues related to security and terrorism. ‘It’s an important thing [support for the transitional government] because the problem, one of the big problems, is that as it is, [Somalia] provides a base for terrorists, [they] find safe haven there and then can spread out to the rest of the continent. It’s something that is of shared concern,†Mbeki said.
Neither Bush nor Mbeki took questions, but sources say that the Bush administration has concluded that Pretoria has both the military muscle and the political prestige to take the lead in assisting the US to meet its strategic goals in Africa.
Darfur may be the testing ground, although neither Bush nor Mbeki indicated whether they had reached agreement on a specific role for South Africa in that conflict. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has rejected a United Nations proposal to send thousands of additional troops to Darfur to boost the 7 000 African Union soldiers already there. UN Security Council action and an increase in peacekeeping troops is ‘very urgentâ€, said Mbeki. ‘We will absolutely do everything to make sure that, from the African side, we remove any obstacle there might be to such bigger deployment in ÂDarfur.â€
US-South African coordination on Darfur will likely become most evident in January, when Pretoria takes its seat on the Security Council as a non-permanent member.
Oil, and the need to be sure that the countries that supply it are secure, stable and able to supply it reliably, is another item near the top of the list of US strategic interests in Africa. Officials project African oil could account for 25% of US crude imports by 2015. However, much of that oil — like a great deal of Africa’s other mineral wealth of interest to the US — lies in the ground of countries ruled by some of Africa’s most troubled regimes.
But it is not just on the African continent that the Bush administration looks to South Africa for support. Because of its diplomatic position, which straddles strong relations with the US as well as developing countries, Washington sees Pretoria as an important global player.
When incoming House of Representatives majority leader Nancy Pelosi visited Darfur in March, Bush asked her to deliver a confidential message to Mbeki, seeking his assistance with Iran, with whom he has good relations at least in part because it is an important supplier of oil to South Africa.
Iraq may be a long way from South Africa — geographically and politically — but the day before the two presidents met, White House press spokesperson Tony Snow suggested to reporters that South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission might be a model for Iraq, provided the right leadership could emerge.
Trade remains at the top of the agenda. According to Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, US-South Africa trade exceeds R60-billion and is increasing at a rate of 11% a year. But multilateral rather than bilateral trade issues seemed to take precedence at this meeting, particularly the failed World Trade Organisation Doha round of talks. Mbeki asked for and got a ‘commitment†from Bush for assistance in reviving the deadlocked talks. But Mbeki is insisting that poor countries need greater access to the markets of rich countries and, despite verbal assurances, real support for this position is hardly likely to emerge from Washington.
Fortunately for Bush, few reporters seemed to pick up on his reference — twice — during the post-meeting briefing to the ‘Darfur round†of trade talks. A Freudian slip, perhaps suggesting a more muscular American approach to trade talks? Or a new Bushism? Mbeki, ever the diplomat, let it pass.
Veteran journalist Charles Cobb Jnr is senior correspondent for allAfrica.com. His book Civil Rights Trail: A Movement Veteran’s Travel Guide and Narrative will be published next year