WASHINGTON — Ever since the assassination of Haiti’s president last summer, the Biden administration has been planning for the possibility of the country’s potential collapse. The Department of Homeland Security has quietly readied for an unprecedented flow of refugees across the Florida Straits. And the Pentagon has gamed out what it would do if heavily armed gangs took control of the country’s seaports and fuel depots, triggering a grave humanitarian and security crisis.
In each of its planning exercises, the U.S. military is never leading the effort to take back Haitian territory — and it is never going it alone. A global coalition, organized and backed by Washington, would lead the way.
Now, the predicament U.S. officials have long planned for has arrived. The Haitian government and the United Nations secretary-general are pleading for international military intervention as the country spins out of control, with powerful armed gangs blocking access to key roads, ports and the main fuel terminal in Port-au-Prince. They are calling for a rapid-reaction armed force that would establish humanitarian corridors in Haiti, facilitating the distribution of fuel, water and critical medical supplies to thwart a growing outbreak of deadly, waterborne cholera.
