President Joe Biden’s administration has growing doubts about its ability to thwart a coup plot against one of the closest United States allies in West Africa, despite the relative isolation of the military junta in Niger and abroad.
“We do still have hope, but we are also very realistic,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. “At the same time, we are making clear, including in direct conversations with the junta leaders, what the consequences are of failing to return to the constitutional order.”
HERE’S HOW TRUMP’S 2024 GOP RIVALS CAN GET UNDER HIS SKIN
Would-be military dictator Abdourahamane Tchiani, the presidential guard general who placed Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum under house arrest late last month, has struck a recalcitrant pose. He refused to meet the State Department’s second-highest-ranking official when she visited Niger’s capital city of Niamey, and warned a regional delegation against even entering the country.
“They're in an active effort to try and consolidate their position,” Dr. Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow at National Defense University’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told the Washington Examiner. "They're looking to solidify their position before engaging in any further diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s acting top deputy tried to “get some negotiations going” this week, but she was denied a meeting with Tchiani and received a cold welcome from his top defense deputy.
“They are quite firm in their view on how they want to proceed, and it does not comport with the constitution of Niger,” acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told reporters Monday. “So again, we were very frank about what’s at stake. We kept open the door to continue talking. But again, it was difficult today, and I will be straight up about that.”
It’s unclear how much support Tchiani can expect from abroad. Russia condemned the coup plot in its earliest phase, but the Moscow-backed military regimes in Niger’s neighborhood have expressed support for Tchiani, and some putative demonstrators in support of the coup have appeared in public with the Russian tricolor.
"People assume that because you see people on the streets it is an expression of actual support rather than people who might have been paid to show up at protests," Miller said. "It does seem odd to me that if your country is suffering an attempted military takeover, the idea that the first thing anyone would do is run to a store and buy a Russian flag. That strikes me as somewhat an unlikely scenario."
Russia, which has treated Nuland as a bogeyman since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the war in Ukraine in 2014, implicitly praised Tchiani for rebuffing her overture this week.
"Victoria Nuland thought that in Niger it would work like in Ukraine: It will be enough to bring a cellophane bag full of cookies and play everyone for a fool,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday. “But, such a banana [republic-style] regime, like the one in [Ukraine], cannot be found anywhere else.”
Bazoum remains alive and in regular contact with Blinken, but Nuland’s appeal for “some gestures of health and welfare” related to his family was not granted. The president’s detention has sparked a diplomatic storm, as the Economic Community of West African States, led by Nigeria, which is typically regarded as the regional heavyweight, contemplates the possibility of a military intervention to defeat the coup, if their initial imposition of sanctions and a practical blockade of the land-locked state fails to sway the junta leaders.
“Though the deadline has passed and the country is still in deadlock, some may still believe that military intervention is the only solution,” Dr. Tatiana Smirnova, an expert on the Sahel region at the University of Quebec in Montreal’s Centre FrancoPaix, told War on the Rocks.
“This would be a disaster for a region where war has already taken so many lives. Instead, ECOWAS and the junta (CNSP) need to seek a compromise.”
Nigerian officials are mulling their options ahead of another meeting of the ECOWAS officials on Thursday, but Nigeria’s senate has signaled its opposition to military intervention. In the meantime, Tchiani’s co-conspirators cited economic pressure in a threatening refusal to hold any kind of discussions with would-be mediators.
“The current context of public anger and revolt following the sanctions imposed by ECOWAS does not permit the welcoming of this delegation in the required conditions of serenity and security,” the junta said Tuesday.
Such a truculent posture may be belied by the amount of support for the junta within the Nigerien military, according to officials and analysts. Nigerien military leaders outside of Tchiani’s inner circle signaled that they did not support the coup, but Bazoum’s physical vulnerability to Tchiani left them helpless. Yet the Nigerien government’s deep dependence on U.S. and international aid also left the would-be dictator in a vulnerable position, if U.S. officials conclude that the coup has succeeded, leading to the loss of U.S. and other international aid.
“They don't have a lot of leverage” beyond the fact that they have Bazoum in custody, according to Eizenga.
“It’s relatively little, especially if they’re denied access to sovereign accounts,” he said. “When they’re unable to pay the soldiers ... it’ll be a pretty quick change of pace for what kind of support they have within the military.”
And Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prighozhin has expressed his eagerness to work with Tchiani. That arrangement has proven workable for the junta in Mali, but U.S. officials think Tchiani is wary of working with the paramilitary boss.
“I got the sense in my meetings today that the people who have taken this action here understand very well the risks to their sovereignty when Wagner is invited in,” Nuland said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
On the other hand, U.S. officials understand the risks of any military effort, be it led by ECOWAS or anyone else, to displace a crew of treacherous bodyguards who have the president and his family in custody.
“This is a difficult situation and the outcome here is uncertain, but we are not ready to throw up our hands and go home and stop trying to achieve a return to democracy and a return to the constitutional order,” said Miller, the State Department spokesman. “We are going to try to — we are going to continue to press for that outcome because it’s one we support and one we believe ultimately the people of Niger support.”