New US envoy to the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia crisis could make Syria look like "toys"

The new US envoy to the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, faces a series of interconnected challenges in the region, wrote Foreign Policy, the diplomatic and national security editor for Foreign Policy.

Robbie Grammer indicated that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken formally appointed Feltman to the post on Friday, becoming the first official in Washington to resolve the bloody conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia that has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis and widespread allegations of war crimes.

In his first interview since his choice for the position, Feltman said that the conflict has the potential to turn into a full-fledged regional crisis, citing its comparison to the war in Syria.

"Look at what the collapse of Syria and the chaos of the civil war means," he added, citing the refugee crisis and its impact on Europe, as well as the rise of terrorist groups in the power vacuum and the collapse of a country whose population before the war was 22 million people.

"Ethiopia has 110 million people. If the tensions in it will lead to a large-scale civil conflict that goes beyond Tigray, then Syria will look like a child's play by comparison," said Feltman.

The magazine suggested that Feltman is no stranger to crisis diplomacy, as he served in several positions across the Middle East, including the US ambassador to Lebanon from 2004 to 2008, which included the 2006 Lebanon war. He was the US State Department's envoy to the Middle East from 2009. To 2012, including during the Arab Spring.

Ethiopia has 110 million people, and if the tensions there are to lead to widespread civil conflict beyond Tigray, Syria will look like playing children by comparison.

But she added that his new mission is arduous, as there is the conflict in Tigray and the broader issue of stability in Ethiopia, and the military intervention of neighboring Eritrea in the Tigrayan conflict, with its forces being accused of committing atrocities and major human rights violations, which only complicate any solution.

Meanwhile, Sudan is struggling in a fragile and uncertain transition to democracy after 3 decades of authoritarian rule, and is grappling with a border dispute with Ethiopia that could spark a separate conflict between the two countries.

There is still a political and security crisis in Somalia.

All the while, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan were in the midst of a years-long dispute over the huge Ethiopian dam on the Blue Nile, which the administration of former US President Donald Trump had clumsily attempted to mediate.

Regarding the controversial Ethiopian dam, which has strained regional relations for years, Feltman said he saw some openings for potential progress in talks between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt to avoid a major diplomatic crisis.

Sudan and Egypt have long expressed concern that the massive dam project in Ethiopia on the Blue Nile River threatens their water security downstream, and Ethiopia objects that it needs to generate power from the project and that the current water sharing agreements are not up to the standard required.

In concluding the interview, Feltman said that the differences "are not intrinsically irreconcilable," and yet he added, "I cannot pretend that the gaps in mistrust can be closed so quickly, or overnight."