Thursday, 05.01.08
Indirect Hit
STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images
At $600,000 per Tomahawk cruise missile, the cost of whacking Ayro ran into the low millions. It would have been a bargain at twice the price. Somalis, victims of two decades of war and state breakdown, can bid farewell to a murderous madman, and their hapless provisional government will enjoy at least a slight boost in their efforts to quash the Islamist insurgency and repair the country. (Though turning Mogadishu back into a functioning city will be about as easy as turning foie gras back into a functioning goose liver.) For the U.S., however, the dividends from Ayro's death will be more modest.
According to official sources, the U.S. air strike neutralized a key al-Qaeda figure, a Bin Laden-linked regional honcho who wanted to turn Somalia into an incubator for terrorists in the style of 1990s Afghanistan. What that account leaves out is a realistic assessment of why Somalia is a vastly less attractive haven for al-Qaeda than Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Even if more violent Salafists set up operations on the Horn of Africa, Somalia will remain the same war-torn, dysfunctional place it is now, and the Islamists will have to cope with an environment that offers way too much insecurity and way too little food. In Afghanistan, once the Taliban pushed the Northern Alliance back, rule of law prevailed, and the al-Qaeda camps flourished in part because they enjoyed the blessing of the government. Ayro stood no chance of establishing the same sort of dominance, or achieving the same sense of security. In Somalia, only the north has anything like order, and its government has made clear that it doesn't intend to import or export jihad.
A mass migration of jihadists to Somalia would, in a way, be the ideal outcome for the U.S.: it would put al-Qaeda in a place where few of its members speak the language, and almost none of them could blend in with the local population. Somalia is a damnably difficult place to do business, and it is a place where loyalty can be bought. Nearly everyone lives at subsistence levels, so the influx of moneyed foreigners would be obvious and would attract attention from all over. Most important, the establishment of Somalia as al-Qaeda's next base would demonstrate the success of efforts to evict it from other countries. No one moves to Somalia unless he is welcome nowhere else -- unless every other neighborhood has become too secure, too pleasant, to permit terrorist training. Who knew gentrification would reach the Middle East so soon?
A primer on the fightingThis video dispatch, aired on Al Jazeera, was produced prior to Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia. |
Stability, terrorism and anarchyScott Johnson writes that the United States backed the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia to prevent a terrorist haven, but wound up helping to create another Iraq. |
Man without a countryA Somali journalist tells the story of fleeing his homeland to avoid being killed, bouncing around East Africa and finding other countries unhappy to have him. |
Curriculum vitaeLast year Reuters published a fact box on the Islamist militia commander. |
Good riddanceRob Crilly writes that Ayro was a key US target in Africa, and that his killing is likely to increase violence in the short term. |
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What's interesting is that before the US and the Ethiopians declared Somalia a haven for terrorism, is that the Islamists were actually bringing some order into war torn Somalia in 2005.
Islamists bringing order to war torn Somalia...and the trains ran on time in Nazi Germany too
"Somalis ... can bid farewell to a murderous madman."
Nice try. Similar things were said about Aideed in 1993, and Siad Barre in 1991. As if killing one "madman" will make a difference! Quite frankly, Somalia is suffering from decades of anarchy and violence. As much as the US wishes to spin its involvement as a victory in its GWOT, al-Qaeda's links to Somalia are tenuous at best! Support for the unpopular Ethiopian occupation - and turning a blind eye to Ethiopia's dictatorial crackdowns at home - seem to be perhaps the worst strategy to put Somalia together again. But then again, no one in the international community really cares about this conflict, beyond the "gotcha" headlines.
It's no argument to say that if it weren't for Ethiopia.... That's like saying, if it weren't for the discovery of gun powder....
Ethiopia would never tolerate an Islamic fundamentalist government in Somalia. Even if the two governments remained relatively peaceful, Ethiopian Islamic militants would always find support and haven in Somalia, with or without the tacit support of an Islamic government. The problem with religious governments of any order is that they find it difficult to affirmatively reject groups of their own faith (what matters is the label, and relative strength of affinities within the populations).
Ethiopians adopted Christianity before Europe. Ethiopians adopted Islam before Arabia. Ethiopia's population is roughly equally split (certainly since Eritrea seceded). Moderately successful, yet poor and vulnerable, the last thing it needs is increased threat of unrest within its borders. And right or wrong, Ethiopia was going to intervene in an Islamic Somalia just as sure as water is wet.
At best, Ethiopia would keep an Islamic Somalia sufficiently off kilter to keep military players focused within Somalia. Thus, there could never be a total peace; it would perpetually be "becoming". That's not a solution.
Compare Turkey's reservations about a Kurdish state; there a solution is at least plausible, for myriad factors--mostly involving economics and [prospects for] wealth--which are not contemporarily applicable to Ethiopia and Somalia. Indeed, it still will never come for the Kurds until Turkey is mollified regarding the [real or imagined] militant threat. (Notwithstanding other Iraqi concerns.)
Thus, as a practical matter there can be no fundamentalist Islamic Somalia. Note that this is distinct from a Somalia which practices fundamentalist Islam. India might tolerate a secular Pakistani government which nominally supports terrorism; but it's doubtful India could be expected to tolerate an Islamic government--where clerics can pull strings--regardless of whether one or the other would be more aggressive over the longer term.
You can't judge foreign policy (America's, or any other state's) based on immediate results or prospects for results, at least for narrowly circumscribed areas. Iraq and Afghanistan aside, what comes to pass has vastly more to do with regional variables than American missiles or European conferences. American policy in Somalia is a failure in its own right. No need to bandy cargo-cult policy "insights".
Bill,
Kudos for a nuanced and knowledgeable opinion on the region's politics. I must disagree, though, on the inevitability of Ethiopian invasion into an Islamic Somalia. My understanding is that the current occupation only took place following positive signals from the American administration, so to say that it is inevitable would also be to say that American enmity towards Islamic regimes is inevitable, onwards and upwards into the causal hierarchy to the point where it's all inevitable, so why bother?
Given appropriate stimulus and incentives from international organizations and great powers, I don't see why we couldn't expect and work toward at minimum an Ethiopian-Somalian relationship similar to Israel-Syria: openly hostile, occasionally violent, but not one involving occupation and open, sustained warfare.
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At $600,000 per Tomahawk cruise missile, the cost of whacking Ayro ran into the low millions. It would have been a bargain at twice the price. Somalis, victims of two decades of war and state breakdown, can bid farewell to a murderous madman, and their hapless provisional government will enjoy at least a slight boost in their efforts to quash the Islamist insurgency and repair the country.
This sort of writing is in the fascist tradition: "whacking" indeed. As to murderous madmen what possible objection can a country in transition from GW Bush to McCain have to one of them?
Posted by chris | May 1, 2008 3:38 PM