The United States and Somalia: Who Threatens Whom?

Since the terrorists attacks of 9/11, Somalia has received a fair amount of attention as a potential ‘breeding ground’ for terrorism. The Council on Foreign Relations, for example, published a brief on Somalia explaining that the Bush administration was afraid of terrorism in Somalia “because Somalia is a chaotic, poor, battle-weary Muslim country with no central government.” John Prendergast, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group and Washington insider, recently wrote in the Washington Post about ‘Our Failure in Somalia’ in which he argued that

“Somalia is an al-Qaeda recruiter's dream -- with rampant unemployment, travel restrictions, and no government or foreign investment -- and young Somalis will turn to terrorism for money and, occasionally, because of shared ideology.”

The questionable sociology underlying Prendergast’s claim aside (most Al-Qaeda recruits seem to have come from middle class settings, with some education in the West), recent events seem to confirm the general concern.

In the past few days, an Islamic militia has taken control of Mogadishu, ending at least temporarily the fifteen year-long struggle for the Somali capital. This has given force to the argument that there is a ‘Talibanization’ of Somalia. The rising success of Islamist militias, against secular warlords, has convinced observers like Prendergast that the US needs to be more involved, and take sides more seriously in favor of the warlords.

“A successful counterterrorism effort would require the United States to pull the political and military threads together into a coherent strategy of broader engagement. U.S. officials and those from other governments throughout the region uniformly have told me that long-term counterterrorism objectives can be achieved only by American investment in the Somali peace process.”

What Prendergast, and the rest of those calling for more extensive American engagement, miss is that it is precisely the ‘American investment in the Somali peace process’ that has been central to the problem. A little history reminds us why.

Throughout the 1980s, the United States supported Siad Barre, a deeply authoritarian ruler who was able to dominate by pure force for an entire decade, only because of the financial and military aid he received from the US. When the United States withdrew support for its Cold War client in 1990, Siad Barre was rapidly overthrown, and the years of repression and extreme recession drove the once nationalist opposition back towards a clan basis. The ensuing civil war produced no decisive victor, and the country has since been unable to establish a new government. Civil war in the south of the country was exacerbated by a massive American-led UN intervention in 1992, UNOSOM, that brought nothing but extended misery, increased fighting, and a series of awful abuses by foreign ‘peacekeepers’ including the famous, usually misrepresented, ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident. Only in northern Somalia, where American and other international brokers played little role, did some measure of stability get restored, but in the south, especially around Mogadishu, fighting has persisted amidst endless internationally mediated ‘Transitional Administrations’ and peace talks.

Throughout the 1990s, secular militias have had one foot in these international peace negotiations, taking place mainly in Kenya, and spent as much time trying to please foreign mediators, and outmaneuver competitors, as they have developing deeper foundations in their own society. Lured by the promise of foreign backing, international recognition, and perhaps the actual military support of external forces, these militias weaken themselves politically. Not only have the negotiations actually extended the civil war – creating an incentive for a militia that loses at the negotiating table to return to fighting until its bargaining position is improved – they have ensured that there is a political vacuum in Somalia itself.

It is into this vacuum that the Islamic militias have stepped, laying firmer roots in Somali society, and offering war-weary Somalis the prospect of peace. As with the Taliban, these Islamic militias are successful because they have managed to ground their project in the real needs of Somalis. Moreover, as even the Council on Foreign Relations admits, there is very little evidence that these militias have any contact with al-Qaeda, and the Islamism they preach is more shaped by the peculiarities of the Somali experience, than any trans-national jihadist ideology.

What does this mean for ‘American investment in the Somali peace process? The point is that the Islamic militias are a much more promising source of peace than any internationally lead peace process. Deeper American involvement, especially with the secular militias the US seems to support (see also the CFR report), will only prolong a protracted civil war, and further destabilize a country whose political development has been so profoundly warped by geopolitics. The Talibanization of Somalia is not necessarily a bad thing at all, but rather evidence of an incipient, truly domestic political process, with far more long-run promise than absorption into the vicissitudes of America’s war on terror. The threat the United States poses to Somalia far, far outweighs any threat Somalia poses to the United States.