Sharing a share of power in Zimbabwe

Certain of those who like to tell the rest of us - typically in the Guardian or on Comment is Free - that the politics of humanitarian intervention, indeed the too forthright expression of humanitarian concern, is nothing but Western arrogance and imperialism, have one formula they will wheel out to distinguish their position from what one might call pure do-nothingism. They reassure people that regional bodies are now in place to take care of what properly belongs within their own regional sphere, so that governments and others who are more remote should - not to put too fine a point on it - butt out.

This is a marvellous formula but only for those a bit slow on the uptake. It treats as invisible a question that anyone can see clearly who knows the historical origin of the doctrine of a 'responsibility to protect': namely, what if a humanitarian disaster is developing and those geographically best placed to prevent it do not in fact do so?

The power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe, for everything that was wrong with it in requiring a compromise between those who had won the recent elections and the architects of the country's decline who had lost them, did at least envisage some power-sharing, opening hopes thereby of the start of a genuine transition: Mugabe was to retain his hold on the army, but Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC would have control of the police. Mugabe subsequently modified the deal in a clever way by deciding to keep the police as well as the army for Zanu-PF. This weekend the Southern African Development Community met to consider the matter. They didn't insist upon Mugabe backing down. No, they insisted only on a government of national unity in Zimbabwe being formed immediately, with 'control of the disputed home affairs ministry, which oversees the police' to be... shared between Mugabe and the MDC. A grand regional solution.