04 Jul 2006: ISS Today: A Somali Taliban?

4 July 2006: A Somali Taliban?

The Wall Street Journal

Events are going from bad to worse in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. The Islamists now running the country have also seized control of much of southern Somalia, made public their intention to declare Shariah law, and named as their leader a cleric on the U.S. watchlist for suspected links to al-Qaeda. So it goes in the failed state in northern Africa that is beginning to look like Afghanistan under the Taliban. The world can’t afford another radical Islamic state that shelters terrorists. And while it would be nice to think that Somalia’s neighbors or the United Nations or NATO might do something about all this, the reality is the task will be left to the U.S.

Commentary

At first, I must admit, I thought the article beginning with the two sentences above was a joke on the part of the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case; instead it provides a disturbing and iconic vision into the dangerous geopolitical delusions of the conservative elite in the world’s only superpower.

If one looks at the world through a filter that excludes almost everything but the threat from terrorists, it should not be surprising that most of the detail useful in understanding specific situations becomes invisible. And so it is in the case of Somalia.

Here we have a country that has existed without an effective central government since 1991. There is an effective administration in the north-west, in the form of the self-declared, but as yet unrecognised, state of Somaliland. Puntland, in the north-east, has long enjoyed status as an autonomous territory within the putative state of Somalia, and it is Puntland’s Abdullahi Yusuf who emerged in 2004 as the president of the newly constituted Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia. Unfortunately for the TFG, it lacks the resources, political, financial or military, to enforce its writ over the national territory. It enjoys the recognition of the African Union and the United Nations, but precious little else. It has been unable to take control of the capital Mogadishu and has had to convene itself in the town of Baidoa, from which it issues repeated calls for the international community to come to its aid. In these efforts it benefits from the support of Abdullahi Yusuf’s long-time patron, Ethiopia.

In Mogadishu itself, the Islamic courts have succeeded for some time now in restoring a modicum of legal authority, which they now apparently wish to expand over more of Somalia. Their efforts appear to have met with the approval of many among the local population, who rejoice at their liberation from the arbitrary rule of warlords, some of whom seem to have received Washington’s backing. The Islamic courts’ militias have shown themselves to be formidable enough to persuade the TFG that mutual recognition and future negotiation might be a better way forward than further armed confrontation.

Nevertheless, in both camps there are those who seek to avoid compromise, and these elements receive ample support from allies with agendas far removed from the concerns of the Somalis themselves. President Abduallahi Yusuf continues to call for foreign intervention, and has received promises from the regional organisation IGAD and from the African Union. Fortunately, neither of these bodies is in any position to fulfil its vague undertakings, and the UN is not about to bankroll military adventures of this kind. Nor are any of the IGAD member states, with the exception of Ethiopia, too keen to intervene physically in an area where their presence is likely to prove inflammatory and dangerous.

Among the leaders of the Islamic courts movement there are some who seek to provoke some kind of military intervention, realising that this would radicalise their enterprise and add a useful dash of nationalist fervour. To his end some of them have sought to further to antagonise Ethiopia, by raising the old dispute over the Ogaden, which led to a bitter war between the two countries in the 1970s. Osama bin Laden apparently has added his quota to the mix by calling on Somalis to resist foreign invaders and identifying Somalia as the next battleground for al-Qaeda’s war against the US.

One of the fundamental principles of warfare is that one tries to avoid doing what one’s enemy wants one to do. Surely it is evident that a trap is being set here. If the US and its allies or local surrogates react to the blatant provocations of al-Qaeda over Somalia, surely it is evident that they will hand the enemy exactly what he wants: a cheap victory and entanglement of the US in a conflict it cannot win and will never understand.

Does Osama bin Laden think that Washington is that stupid? Unfortunately, on the evidence of the Wall Street Journal, he may be right.

Richard Cornwell