The Tuaregs had reason to rebel against the Mali government. But with Tuaregs siding with al Qaeda, we had reason to support the French-led mission to defeat the separatists and their jihadi allies.
Fed up with jihadi brutality, the Tuaregs experienced their own awakening and mostly sided with France in defeating the jihadis.
But the north-south friction remains. The Tuaregs could revolt again if the friction is not lessened. And the jihadis could again find a haven in northern Mali or even threaten all of Mali given the poor quality of the Mali armed forces who are more interested in battling for control of the government than in battling jihadis.
How long the Tuaregs will watch Mali's government try to restore the pre-revolt control is a good question. The UN is not happy with the Mali government on this issue:
The United Nations Security Council on Monday called on Mali's government and rebels conclude talks as soon as possible, warning that the failure to do so risked radicalizing fighters and undoing fragile security gains.
Members of the Security Council visited Mali over the weekend to assess progress in stabilizing the country, a year after France dispatched thousands of troops to end an occupation of the north by al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels.
The Tuaregs have demonstrated a desire to escape total control and have shown they can defeat Mali's army.
The Malian government has demonstrated that they can't control the north without outside help.
The Mali government needs to make the best of a bad situation and negotiate enough autonomy to keep enough Tuaregs content to remain within the Mali state.
Is France expected to to be on-call for interventions to save Mali's government from their own narrow, ethnic focus forever? That's not going to happen.
France is already concerned that their intervention in the Central African Republic isn't going as smoothly as they'd hoped. France really wants Africans to cope with these outbreaks of violence.
And if the Tuaregs learn their lesson and reject the jihadis when they revolt against the southern Mali government, and call on Western help to kill jihadis, who will intervene on the side of Mali? The regional groupin, ECOWAS? Good luck with that, too.
Cut a deal that makes the jihadis lose out.
[In a pre-publication update, let me add this Strategypage post on Mali.]
