Michael Gerson Cares More Than You Do

Michael Gerson, formerly George W Bush’s chief speechwriter, has been to the Congo. As you might imagine, it’s pretty grim there. So, naturally, Gerson has this to say:

Security in eastern Congo is the prerequisite for political progress. Nkunda will continue to push until someone effectively pushes back. The Congolese army is incapable of defeating him. While the U.N. peacekeeping force is the reason that Goma was not taken, it does not have the political will and the capabilities to contain Nkunda. It lacks rapid-reaction forces and night-fighting capabilities.

This leaves one alternative — a capable, hard-hitting European military force, supported by the United States, which would stabilize the situation, give the peacekeeping force some breathing room and put a limit on Nkunda’s ambitions. But Britain and Germany, to their shame, have opposed this kind of “bridging force.”