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Editor's Commentary

Don't replay Iraq in Horn of Africa

January 31, 2007

William Minter

For additional background, analysis, and links on Somalia, see http://www.africafocus.org/country/somalia.php.

William Minter is editor of the Washington-based AfricaFocus Bulletin This commentary originally appeared in the Providence Journal (http://www.projo.com) in Providence, Rhode Island.

Washington. As Congress debates how to withdraw from a failed war in Iraq and President Bush begins his troop surge, U.S. policymakers seem determined to replicate the Iraq debacle in Africa. In the last two months, Washington has backed an overwhelming Ethiopian invasion of neighboring Somalia and has launched air strikes on alleged terrorists, killing an unknown number of Somali civilians. The United States is now counting on the African Union to replace Ethiopia as the military sponsor of a weak Somali government.

Somalia is not Iraq, of course. Somalia's 11 million people are less than half of Iraq's 27 million. The African country is also flanked by two powerful neighbors that are U.S. military allies, Ethiopia and Kenya. Instead of sending in U.S. troops, Washington strategists have relied on Ethiopia for troops, tanks and planes, limiting the direct U.S. presence to air strikes and special forces. Somalia's clan divisions also differ profoundly from the sect-based schisms in Iraq. And the recently defeated regime was not an entrenched dictatorship but a diverse Islamic coalition that had brought security to the Somali capital for the first time in 15 years.

But the similarities are nevertheless substantial. The United States and Ethiopia cut short efforts at reconciliation and relied on hyped-up intelligence. They disregarded Somali and wider African opinion in an effort to kill alleged terrorists. And while chalking up military "victories," they aggravated long-term problems. Far from advancing an effective strategy against terrorism, the intervention is providing opportunities for terrorist groups to expand their reach.

This new Somalia intervention comes 11 years after the last U.S. troops withdrew from an earlier botched adventure there. It seems to crystallize a new pattern for U.S. military action in Africa: Identify the location of terrorists or regimes that may harbor terrorists, combine selective U.S. military action with support for clients eager to advertise their anti-terrorist credentials, marginalize diplomatic options and leave it to international agencies to pick up the pieces.

As in the Cold War, when African interests took second place to superpower rivalry, concern for the fate of African peoples gets lip service at best. A similar dynamic played out in a less-noticed U.S. intervention in the Sahara and Sahel regions, beginning in 2003. Relying on deceptive intelligence from Algeria, the U.S. military portrayed a hostage taking in southern Algeria as a full-fledged terrorist threat to the entire region, and stepped up U.S. military engagement to train and guide regional militaries in anti-terrorist tactics.

The result, according to Sahara expert Jeremy Keenan, of Exeter University, has been to intensify "anger, frustration, rebellion, political instability, and insecurity across the entire region." Now the United States has turned to Ethiopia, which has fought two wars with Somalia since 1960, to prop up a Somali government. This not only destroyed the brief stability enjoyed by residents of the capital, Mogadishu, under the Islamic courts. It has also strengthened extremists against moderates within the Islamic coalition and mobilized Somali sentiment against the United States and the new regime.

As the Royal Africa Society's Richard Dowden commented in The Independent, of London, that regime, despite nominal international recognition, is led by "one of Somalia's nastiest warlords," Abdullahi Yusuf. Yusuf "has made a pact with the country's age-old enemy. ... Think Oswald Mosley [the British fascist leader] being installed by the Germans as president of Britain in 1940 and you get close to the feeling Yusuf's government inspires in Somalia today."

After Ethiopia's quick military success, Jendayi Frazer, the State Department's top Africa official, is encouraging African Union peacekeeping troops to replace the Ethiopians. She is also advising the new Somali government to seek dialogue with moderate Islamists as well as with clan leaders. Frazer and her colleagues seem unaware that their own policies of fostering the Ethiopian invasion and unleashing air strikes have dramatically reduced the prospects for dialogue.

As in Iraq, short-sighted U.S. policymakers have found it easier to support instant nation breaking than to plan for long-term nation building. If Somalia manages to avoid further anarchy, it is likely to be due not to better U.S. planning, but to the Somali desire for peace and to diplomatic efforts that U.S. action has made more difficult. Recent reports say Washington may soon establish a military command for Africa. Unless policymakers drop the Iraq script from their playbook, this will be counterproductive, both for African security and for U.S. interests.