Late to the Game In Somalia

Somalia is an example of a country that really is falling into becoming a terror state, with this Islamic Courts Union consolidating their hold on the country. There may be forces within the Courts that are not enemies of the US, but whether or not we can persuade them to reject terror is unclear at the moment. This all happened right under the noses of the US, who supported horrible warlords who had no popular support because we hoped our strongmen would beat their strongmen. It was a stupid strategy, not well thought-out, because the insistent focus on Iraq has taken away from all the other parts of the so-called "war on terror."

Now, via Think Progress, we're apparently moving on to diplomacy in Somalia at a time when we couldn't possibly have less leverage:

On Thursday, the US will initiate a “Somalia contact group” of interested countries and organizations to begin deliberating on how the international community can help stabilize what experts consider to be a “failed state.” The tone suggests a carefully revised US position on Somalia, analysts say. The broader lesson, they add, may be that instead of rejecting Islamist political groups outright, the US will have to do more to differentiate friend from foe within Islamist political movements.

“It sounds like Plan A didn’t work, so we’d better try Plan B,” says Jim Bishop, who was the last US ambassador to Somalia, before the US evacuated its embassy there in 1991. […] “Of course, we want stability and we don’t want to see a terrorist haven there, but discussion and finding a compromise is better than Plan A.”

Future President Feingold is all over this:

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, one of the few members of Congress who pays close attention to Somalia, expressed concern this week about U.S. policy in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Despite instability throughout Somalia, Feingold said there is "an absence of a unified and comprehensive U.S. government strategy for Somalia that deals with the full range of challenges facing that country."

He noted that the most recent State Department report on international terrorism says that Somalia has no functioning central government and that parts of the country "have become havens for terrorist and other illicit activities, threatening the security of the whole region."

Feingold is basically saying that this latest strategic move may be too little and too late, and certainly didn't happen in time to see Mogadishu restored and not given over to the Courts. Even today we have one State Department official charged with issues on Somalia, and our budget for counter-terrorism in Somalia is $2 million dollars. Pathetic. We spend $2 BILLION a week in Iraq.

The White House strategy against terror is so badly flawed, and Somalia is a tragic example.