In Somalia, An Africa Hawk Rises

With most Westerners in the throes of holiday mirth this week, an estimated 20,000 Ethiopian troops deployed to neighboring Somalia went on the offensive against the forces of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Ethiopian forces are now on the outskirts of Somalia’s sometime-capital, Mogadishu, after retreating Islamist militants apparently abandoned the city without a fight. The ICU’s rout (compliments of Ethiopia) is impressive, since the Islamist group had captured Mogadishu in June, gradually won control of most of southern and central Somalia, and cowed the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland — the one-time base of President Abdullahi Yusuf, who heads the utterly ineffective but internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government — into hastily imposing sharia law last month.

However discomfiting it may be for Washington to find itself bedfellows with the fairly authoritarian Ethiopian government, U.S. strategic interests have been served by that government’s troop offensive and the ICU’s setbacks. The question now becomes what to make of the new power shift on the ground.

First, the Ethiopians need to move quickly to capitalize on their momentum and finish off the ICU, especially its leadership, which includes the likes of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is prominent enough a figure in the world of terrorism to make the cut onto the U.S. government’s special-designation list of 189 individuals and organizations, created after September 11.

The sheik of terrorist-list infamy also led Al-Itihaad, which had extensive ties to Al-Qaeda and other foreign terrorist elements. The group sought the creation of an expansive “Islamic Republic of Greater Somalia”, embracing all Somalis, and eventually all Muslims, in the Horn of Africa. After the collapse of the last effective government of Somalia in 1991, the sheik and other Islamists tried to seize control of strategic assets like seaports and crossroads. Although it temporarily held the northern port of Bosaaso and the eastern ports of Marka and Kismaayo, the only area where it exercised long-term control was the economically vital intersection of Luuq, in southern Somalia, near the Ethiopian border, where it imposed harsh sharia-based rule from 1991 until 1996.

From its base in Luuq, the Islamists encouraged subversive activities among ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region and carried out a series of terrorist attacks, including the bombing of two hotels and the attempted assassination of a cabinet minister in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopians finally intervened in Somalia in August 1996, wiping out Al-Itihaad bases in Luuq and Buulo Haawa and killing hundreds of Somali extremists as well as scores of clearly non-Somali Arabs who had flocked to the Horn under the jihadi banner.

Ethiopia’s mistake a decade ago was not consolidating its victory and allowing Al-Itihaad’s leadership to regroup, morphing into the ICU’s leadership. Now the retreating Islamists are digging in at the port city of Kismaayo, about 300 miles south of Mogadishu. Here they could become entrenched and, having been defeated in conventional warfare, might well make use of their expanded international ties to become a regional hub of terrorist activities, which is potentially an even greater threat to the stability of Horn of Africa. While it is less than desirable from the point of view of the global struggle against Islamist radicalism to have the army of Ethiopia’s government, which is perceived as “Christian”, destroying forces that proclaim themselves “Islamic”, the alternative is to allow the Islamists to continue their offensive.

Second, having now seen proof of the dangers posed by neglecting Somalia, despite its geopolitical significance, for more than a decade, the international community needs to reengage and facilitate the creation of an effective government. This does not mean endorsing the extraordinarily dubious proposition contained in UN Security Council Resolution 1725 (unanimously passed in early December) that characterized the TFG as “the only route to achieving peace and stability in Somalia.” As I testified to Congress earlier this year, in its more than two years of existence, this essentially self-appointed “government”, with its literally dozens of ministers—at one point, the cabinet bloated to over ninety members—and hundreds of parliamentarians has yet to show that it represents anything other than the personal interests of its members who profit handsomely from their international recognition—without having to exercise responsibility for actual governance. One has to admit that, even after its military defeats, the ICU probably enjoys greater popular legitimacy among Somalis than the TFG.

State-building in a culture like that of the Somalis, where clan loyalties remain strong, cannot be the top-down approach favored by international diplomats, including the imposition of interim national authorities through conferencing. It will necessarily be a resource-intensive, bottom-up approach that will require time and commitment. It is unlikely that, post-Black Hawk Down, many Westerners have a taste for this level of engagement. And given the UN’s poor record with Somali political-capacity building (the worthless TFG was just the most recent product of Turtle Bay’s initiatives), the United States and other partners must provide support to the African Union (AU) and the sub-regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to begin building governance from scratch. The process would entail consultation with traditional clan elders, who still hold considerable influence in Somali society, as well as the “warlords” who control effective forces and, as John Hulsman and Alexis Debat argued in The National Interest argued earlier this year, “operate within a clear and defined political framework” and are thus accepted as legitimate by the population.

Diplomats must begin recognizing the facts on the ground. For example, one part of the collapsed Somali state—the former British protectorate of Somaliland—remained above the recent tide of Islamic radicalism and conflict. Since reclaiming its sovereignty in 1991 (Somaliland had become independent before the Italian- trust territory of Somalia, to which it later joined in a tragic union), Somalilanders have managed to construct a stable, democratic and secular government in an otherwise very bad neighborhood and with little outside help and no international diplomatic recognition. In the recent conflict, Somaliland acted as a buffer between the ICU and the tiny republic of Djibouti, where a small U.S. military force is based. Shouldn’t Somaliland’s peaceful achievement of de facto statehood—for which there is also a considerable body of de jure arguments based on unique circumstances—be rewarded, a development the African Union does not oppose? And while the case of semi-autonomous Puntland is quite different, developments there merit encouragement, so its autonomy ought to be preserved in any state-building exercise. As was the case in the former Yugoslavia, reality must trump any theoretical fixations with the maintenance of a unitary state.

As one of the first to sound the warning (more than a year before the dramatic seizure of Mogadishu) about the gathering strength of radical Somali Islamists, I cannot but evince satisfaction at the recent turning of the tide, given the success of Ethiopian forces. The developments of recent months looked ominous—with Osama bin Laden’s June 30 endorsement of the ICU’s establishment of a proto-state, based on their interpretation of Islam and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s recent characterization of Somalia as the “southern garrison of Islam.” The rhetorical flourishes of Al-Qaeda commanders could find concrete expression as foreign radicals flowed freely into the country. And in November, a monitoring group created by the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee reported that international compliance with the more than decade-old arms embargo against the former Somali Democratic Republic was severely lacking, with the “usual suspect” state supporters of terrorism—including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria—providing large quantities of armaments, personnel, and training to the ICU’s armed forces.

Ethiopia has made a major contribution to the war on Islamist terrorism in general, and the security of the Horn of Africa in particular, by taking on a dangerous Islamist threat that no one else would confront. It must now finish what it has started, lest it all have been in vain. The United States, which tacitly blessed the intervention, must now not only ensure that its proxy has the sufficient resources to achieve the necessary military victory, but also work diplomatically to ensure that Somalia’s political stability is consolidated—and the Horn is not lost.

J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University.