In the Quicksands of Somalia - Where Doing Less Helps More

(Foreignaffairs.com)

Washington's repeated attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have failed, even backfired. It should renounce political intervention and encourage local development without trying to improve governance.

BRONWYN BRUTON is an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The U.S. government needs to change its Somalia policy -- and fast. For the better part of two decades, instability and violence have confounded U.S. and international efforts to bring peace to Somalia. The international community's repeated attempts to create a government have failed, even backfired. The United States' efforts since 9/11 to prevent Somalia from becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda have alienated large parts of the Somali population, polarized the country's diverse Islamist reform movement into moderate and extremist camps, and propelled indigenous Salafi jihadist groups to power. One of these groups, a radical youth militia known as al Shabab, now controls most of Somalia's southern half and has established links with al Qaeda. The brutal occupation of Somalia by its historical rival Ethiopia from late 2006 to early 2009, which Washington openly supported, only fueled the insurgency and infuriated Somalis across the globe.


One of Washington's concerns today is that al Qaeda may be trying to develop a base somewhere in Somalia from which to launch attacks outside the country. Another is that more and more alienated members of the Somali diaspora might embrace terrorism, too. Somali nationals were arrested in Minnesota in early 2009 after returning from fighting alongside al Shabab, and in August 2009, two Somalis were arrested in Melbourne for planning a major suicide attack on an Australian army installation. The first American ever to carry out a suicide bombing did so in Somalia in October 2008. These isolated incidents have generated more hype than they deserve, but they have nonetheless put the Obama administration in a tough position. If only to avoid seeming weak in combating terrorism, it must prevent these threats from escalating, but it is entering the fray at a time when almost any international action in Somalia is likely to reinforce the Somalis' anti-Western posture.

Alarmingly, the State Department seems not to realize this or the failures of past policy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is clinging to the bankrupt strategy of supporting the Transitional Federal Government, Somalia's notional government but really a dysfunctional institution that has failed to garner much support from the population. Barricaded in a small corner of Mogadishu behind a wall of international peacekeepers, the TFG is incapable of advancing the United States' primary interests: stopping the expansion of extremist forces throughout Somalia and preventing the formation of al Qaeda cells, other radical strongholds, and training camps in the country. If anything, the TFG's presence in Somalia hurts U.S. goals. Resistance to the so-called government has united various radical groups that would otherwise be competing with one another. These groups and the TFG are now locked in a violent stalemate that is further battering the population, making it more likely that certain corners of Somalia will eventually become hospitable environments for al Qaeda. With 3.8 million people urgently in need of relief, Somalia has once again become the site of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

This error stems from Washington's mistaken belief that state building is the best response to terrorism. Because Washington has lacked both the political will and the resources to launch a large enough state-building program, U.S. efforts in Somalia have been inadequate. Neither Clinton nor the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, appears ready to support the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Somalia. Even if enough resources were available, the conditions on the ground mean the approach would be unlikely to work anyway. Somalis may have grown weary of war, but they remain highly suspicious of centralized government. And they disagree about questions as fundamental as whether a Somali state should be unitary, federal, or confederal; whether the judicial system should be wholly Islamic or a hybrid of sharia and secular law; and whether the northern territory of Somaliland should be granted its long-sought independence. Efforts to create a central government under such conditions are a recipe for prolonging conflict.