In a lengthy interview with "The Reporter" - a mouthpiece of the ruling Marxist Leninist League of Tigrai (MLLT) - Medhane Tadesse, a foreign relations expert of the MLLT, had this to say about the current conflict, "The expectation that the Eritrean regime could collapse in a short period of time is not there. The regime [Eritrean] has managed to continue fighting and to offer a strong resistance, which is something I did not expect". Regarding the peace process and the US role in this, this is what he had to say, "I believe this whole diplomatic mess came as a result of the fact that the US is determined to save Eritrea".

If the MLLT cadres miscalculated in thinking that Eritrea would quickly collapse under the pressure of an invading Ethiopian army, the pressure of economic boycott, and the pressure of aerial and naval embargo imposed by the Ethiopian air force, what do they do now that they openly admit this calculation proved to be a gross miscalculation? Secondly, what was it they had in mind that Eritrea needed to be saved from this by US diplomatic intervention?

Ethiopia's options
The answer to these questions are hinted by the same Medhane Tadesse. This is what he says regarding Ethiopia's options, "I expect Ethiopia to offer a tough resistance to the pressure from the US. As a result of this, I don't think the peace process will last, while the military option is still there", and a short while later adds, "Ethiopia will continue to play real politics in the sub-region, unlike in the past".

The military option is Ethiopia's best option, according to Medhane Tadesse, but what more does his "real politick" entail besides outright military aggression? Real politick is a term coined by cold war strategists during the Nixon-Breszjnev era of containment by mutual appeasement. In short, what it meant was that the two super powers have "legitimate" interest that may not be supported, or may even go counter to international conventions. To protect these interests, they accorded each other the right to conduct a diplomacy of power and coercion as opposed to the diplomacy of rights and convention, and on the basis of this defined spheres of interest & influence at the expense of the Poles, East Germans, Latin Americans, Africans and others.

What is Ethiopia's version of real politick?
In the beginning of the conflict, as is typical of aggressors, Ethiopia showed the world only its legitimate cards. Taking this at face value, peace brokers worked out a deal that to almost 100% satisfied Ethiopia's demands. Strangely, this put Ethiopia in a dilemma, or in a "whole lot of diplomatic mess" according to Medhane Tadesse, because the gratification of these demands was not all Ethiopia had in mind. The next step, in the Ethiopian version of real politick, is therefore to try to conduct a diplomacy of coercion and come up with demands that run counter to international conventions -- gunboat diplomacy, but better called human wave diplomacy in the case of Ethiopia. In short, Ethiopia, as the big power that it believes itself to be, plans to play its illegitimate cards, and present its illegitimate demands, hoping that it will have the muscle to get away with this, or at least win US understanding for this. This is what Medhane Tadesse had in mind by real politics, and if anything the recent OAU clarification is an indicator of this. From the OAU's reply to Ethiopia's queries, it is obvious that Ethiopia unsuccessfully tried to bypass the international treaties and conventions that established Africa's colonial borders as the basis for the resolution of this conflict.

The problems with this strategy are of course quite obvious. For starters, only few countries have the military power, economic clout and political sophistication to bend rules and muscle their way to unfair concessions. The US, may be,.... but Ethiopia?.... Hardly. The US can, as Carter did in late 70s, unilaterally classify oil as a strategic commodity, and declare that it will not tolerate any interruption of its flow from the wells of Arabia to the machines of the industrial West. It can, as Reagan did in the 80s, unilaterally declare Uranium, Plutonium, etc. to be strategic metals, and warn "strategic metal" producing countries of the consequences if delivery was to be interrupted.

Is Ethiopia in the same league? Not by a long shot. Ethiopia is a big power only as far as vanity is concerned, while in reality it is a country that has to beg for its daily bread, and wouldn't even count as a paper tiger. One cannot conduct real politics by threatening the world, "unless I get my way I will let five million of my people starve to death. Or, unless I get my way I will send wave after wave of my young conscripts to a sure death". No, the best option for weak countries like Ethiopia, or small countries like Eritrea, is not to play real politics but to scrupulously follow the rules. Just because it signed treaties and conventions with the likes of Italy in the previous century, Ethiopia seems to think it plays in the same division as these. And as long as it insists on this, Ethiopia, like Mussolini's Italy, will be condemned to a rhetoric and theatrical gestures that do not match its reality, something that at times can get quite funny if it were not for the inherent tragedy in the whole of it.

Prospects for peace
And now, as predicted by Medhane Tadesse, and recommended by a cheering crowd of like minded pseudo intellectuals, Ethiopia has officially rejected the OAU peace proposals. This effectively brings to an end that phase of the negotiations where both parties talked about rights and conventions. After months of lies and deception, a helplessly cornered Ethiopia has lost this phase of the negotiations and for all practical purposes conceded the moral high ground to Eritrea. For its part, Eritrea will continue to talk rights and conventions, and insist on these being the only basis for the resolution of the conflict. If Ethiopia can be convinced by the world community to remain within the sphere of legitimate interest and legitimate demands, then peace will still remain a possibility. If, on the other hand, it insists on taking us to the next phase, to what it calls real politics, then the world better brace itself because we are in for a long haul.

Ethiopia's hidden agenda
Throughout this whole conflict, Ethiopia's negotiating style has been unabashedly maximalist. But as infantile as this is, it has not been the funniest part. Even funnier is this, Ethiopia demanded the nearly impossible, got all its demands met, but to the bafflement of the peace brokers rejects the very peace proposals that were based wholly on its demands. Here, it should be clear to the world that Ethiopia is rejecting the peace proposals not to amuse us, but for one and one reason only: the peace proposals are rejected because they do not satisfy its hidden agenda-to annex Eritrean territory, including Assab, and to overthrow the current government in Eritrea and install a puppet regime that will do its bidding.

This is truly a fiasco for Ethiopia, and the blaming game has already started. Ultra right chauvinists are blaming Meles Zenawi for not letting the world know about the existence of Ethiopia's hidden agenda as early as Feb. 1999 -- around the time of the recapture of Badme. The argument goes like this: in the beginning Meles was right to deceive the world and deny the existence of the hidden agenda. But starting from Feb. 1999, he should have gradually introduced the world to this. For his part, by rejecting the peace proposals, Meles seems to agree with this criticism. Here, what both Meles and his critics are forgetting is that in this day and age the diplomacy of lies and deception is nether rational nor profitable, and history will not be kind to them for this.

In any case, now that Ethiopia's hidden agenda is fully exposed, the world community should make it clear to Ethiopia, as it made it clear to Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Milosovich's Serbia, that the age of conquest and expansion is over, and that it will not allow Ethiopia to continue its war of aggression.