WASHINGTON \u2014 Without lifting a finger, the Trump administration may be witnessing the culmination of nearly two decades of U.S. efforts to pry Zimbabwe from the powerful grasp of its authoritarian President Robert Mugabe. Yet with Mugabe\u2019s fate and Zimbabwe\u2019s political future in limbo, neither Trump nor previous administrations can claim credit or celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The past three American leaders have actively and outspokenly sought to isolate Mugabe and his ruling clique for human rights abuses, hoping to encourage a democratic transition. Since January, however, it\u2019s been virtual crickets. Now the 93-year-old is under house arrest with his rule nearing an end, a victim not of U.S. and Western pressure but of domestic infighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After staying silent through the first day of Zimbabwe\u2019s possible coup with the exception of warning American citizens there, Trump\u2019s State Department weighed in Wednesday by voicing concern about the military\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department urged Zimbabwe\u2019s leaders \u201cto exercise restraint, respect the rule of law and uphold the constitutionally-protected rights of all citizens.\u201d It encouraged leaders \u201cto quickly resolve differences to allow for a rapid return to normalcy.\u201d The U.S. does not take sides in Zimbabwe\u2019s internal politics, it said, while stressing that it also \u201cdoes not condone military intervention in political processes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mugabe on Thursday was meeting a South African delegation at the state house as negotiations continued for a resolution to the political turmoil. South Africa President Jacob Zuma, speaking in parliament, said the political situation \u201cvery shortly will be becoming clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that indeed translates into Mugabe\u2019s ouster, it\u2019s a result the United States has long hoped for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington started acting against Zimbabwe toward the end of President Bill Clinton\u2019s administration in 2000, condemning Mugabe\u2019s moves to consolidate power by suppressing dissident voices, often violently, and implementing controversial seizures of white-owned land. The U.S. then began restricting aid, international loans and weapons sales, eventually cutting off virtually all nonhumanitarian assistance to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2003, then-President George W. Bush declared a national state of emergency with respect to Zimbabwe and signed the first of three executive orders he would issue while in office, authorizing sanctions against senior Zimbabwean officials deemed to be undermining democracy. Following national elections in 2008 that Bush called \u201ca sham,\u201d the U.S. took a lead in encouraging a power-sharing arrangement between Mugabe and Zimbabwe\u2019s main opposition leader. When that failed, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was \u201cwell past time\u201d for Mugabe to leave power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former President Barack Obama maintained the pressure, annually extending the Bush-era state of emergency authorizing sanctions. When elections in 2013 saw Mugabe re-elected, Obama\u2019s administration pronounced them \u201cdeeply flawed\u201d and the U.S. president himself said he was \u201cheartbroken\u201d at deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe. Obama\u2019s two secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and U.N. ambassadors, Susan Rice and Samantha Power, all delivered speeches that scathingly criticized Mugabe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for the past 10 months, top U.S. officials have spoken nary a word about Zimbabwe. They\u2019ve imposed no new sanctions. They\u2019ve engaged in no known, behind-the-scenes efforts to escalate pressure on Mugabe or his government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a lunch for African leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September, Trump mentioned by name Ivory Coast, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Libya, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan and Uganda. He didn\u2019t mention Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, until Thursday, the only times the words \u201cZimbabwe\u201d or \u201cMugabe\u201d appear to have been used by senior Trump administration officials were in April and in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first time was when the State Department released a three-sentence written statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson congratulating the Zimbabwean people on the country\u2019s April 18 independence day. The second was when U.N. envoy Nikki Haley mentioned Zimbabwe and Mugabe in a speech that excoriated the U.N. Human Rights Council for failing to address despotic regimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump White House doesn\u2019t seem to have mentioned the country at all in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only White House mention of Zimbabwe in 2017 was in the waning days of Obama\u2019s presidency, when he extended the Bush-era state of emergency and sanctions for another year. That decision enabled the U.S. to impose further penalties on Zimbabwe\u2019s leadership. The only action by Trump\u2019s Treasury Department, however, has been to remove two retired officials from the sanctions list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without lifting a finger, the Trump administration may be witnessing the culmination of nearly two decades of U.S. efforts to pry Zimbabwe from the powerful grasp of its authoritarian President Robert Mugabe. Yet with Mugabe\u2019s fate and Zimbabwe\u2019s political future in limbo, neither Trump nor previous administrations can claim credit or celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":46608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,8,12,25,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[428],"class_list":["post-21020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-newsletters","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EWZII5XWO5C6NPB7OYLKPCDOGM","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/11\/16\/doing-nothing-trump-may-witness-us-goal-in-mugabes-ouster\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n