by Mr. Abiy promised a new way. He allowed once-banned opposition parties, appointed women to half the positions in his cabinet and struck the peace with Eritrea that earned him a Nobel Prize.
But in moving swiftly, Mr. Abiy also unleashed pent-up frustrations among ethnic groups that had been marginalized from power for decades most notably his own group, the Oromo, who account for one-third of Ethiopias 110 million people. When mass protests erupted, he reverted to the old playbook: arrests, repression and police brutality.
At the same time, tensions escalated with the T.P.L.F., which resented Mr. Abiys swaggering reforms. The party leadership retreated to Tigray where, last September, it defied Mr. Abiy by proceeding with regional elections that had been postponed across the country because of the pandemic.
By early last November, word reached Washington that war was looming in Tigray. Senator Chris Coons, who has a longstanding interest in Africa, phoned Mr. Abiy to warn about the perils of resorting to military force.
Mr. Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said he reminded the Ethiopian leader that the American Civil War and World War I had started with promises of swift military victory, only to drag on for years and cost millions of lives.
