There is a certain poetry in watching dictator Tshisekedi sprint in circles, only to end up exactly where he was told to stand from the beginning: at the negotiation table with the people he insists do not exist, do not matter, and are definitely, absolutely, on the verge of collapse—the AFC/M23.
Doha, it turns out, has a longer memory than Kinshasa’s press briefings.
For years, Tshisekedi’s strategy has been simple: externalise the crisis, rename it a foreign aggression, outsource responsibility, and hope the noise drowns out reality. Yet even his most obedient echo chambers eventually crack. When figures like Martin Fayulu—usually drafted as moral backing singers—start mumbling about “internal dialogue”, the mask slips. The problem, inconveniently, lives inside Congo.
December 4 in Washington was supposed to change everything. Tshisekedi had a plan. A little summit bravado, a little military escalation, a little faith in Burundian muscle, and voilà: Bukavu and Goma would magically be reconquered, and Doha quietly buried. As is always the case with Tshisekedi’s botched plans, more territory vanished, his coalition went on the run, the front lines shifted south.
As if to rub salt into the wound, the invitations from Qatar reappeared—polite, firm, unavoidable.
Summoned once again, Tshisekedi is back against the ropes, forced to insult the Qataris and defy the Americans if he wishes to remain consistent in his refusal to talk to the revolutionaries. Except that whatever acclaim he may receive from his extremist base will be short-lived, as the stick will come in the form of liberation.
And perhaps liberation, too, is unavoidable, as Tshisekedi continues to double down. Lake Tanganyika bristles with war boats—30 of them. Uvira, Kalemie and Baraka absorb reinforcements. CH-4 drones, Turkish Bayraktars, Sukhoi-25s, Burundian troops, foreign mercenaries—the full catalogue of the despot’s bellicosity is on display. And when the next “decisive” battle is lost, he will play the victim. But the script is already written: yet another defeat, followed by a sudden rediscovery that Doha is the “only realistic path to peace.
Meanwhile, regime supporters chant with touching innocence that American troops are coming, that the revolutionaries are fleeing “liberated cities”. The fantasy is almost endearing.
The Americans have no interest in dying for Congo’s wars—especially when the minerals Tshisekedi has already sold to them will be delivered just as efficiently by the AFC/M23.
And M23 is not fleeing. It is advancing.
Doha waits. Again.