Obama's incoherent policy on Somalia

Obama's incoherent policy on Somalia

This week two major incidents took place in Somalia.

Six American gun ships attacked a convoy of vehicles carrying suspected Al Qaeda militants and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, an Al Qaeda leader wanted for the bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in 1998 and an Israeli-owned Kenyan hotel in 2002.

The US helicopters swooped in on a convoy of vehicles and strafed them with heavy gunfire. A Land Cruiser carrying Nabhan and at least four other senior militants was badly hit as were a number of "technicals," improvised battle wagons made from pick-up trucks loaded with heavy machine guns, according to witnesses.

The attack took place close to the coastal town of Barawe, about 150 miles south of Mogadishu, deep inside territory controlled by Al Shabaab, an Islamist insurgent group.

In the second incident, suicide bombers in Somalia killed 21 people, including 17 peacekeepers, in twin attacks at an African Union base in the capital, Mogadishu.

The attacks were said to be in retaliation for the US commando raid that killed Salah Nabhan - leader of the Foreign Fighters wing of the powerful Islamist group, Al-Shabab.

The deaths of the peacekeepers in two suicide car bombings at the AU’s main base in Mogadishu, during which force commander Maj Gen Nathan Mugisha from Uganda was also injured and his deputy killed, underlines the radicalisation of the Somali conflict, with the increased use of suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices (IEDS).

It is also a sad reminder of the hellhole Somalia has become. In many ways, Somalia is today hardly a state at all. Nearly a million and a half Somalis are displaced within their country and live in some of the worst conditions possible. Hundreds of thousands others are crammed in overflowing refugee camps in neighbouring countries.

But surely this is not the Somalia US President Barack Obama had in mind when he was running for office. Unlike his predecessor, Obama had made it clear that his foreign policy will not be shaped by the “politics of fear,” but by “hope and change.”

On his campaign website, Obama stated that his administration will develop “a coherent strategy for stabilizing Somalia,” a succinct statement that broadly addressed the incoherent tactics employed by the Bush administration, often to destabilize Somalia.

That nearly nine months after assuming office the Obama administration is employing the same tactics as George W. Bush has come as a shock to keen observers of political events in the Horn of Africa.

"Obama seems to be pursuing the 'War on Terror' mantra that defined the Bush administration’s policy toward Somalia," says an analyst on Somalia affairs based in neighbouring Kenya.

"What we expected is that Obama will without compromising the national security of the United States, deploy the 'tough diplomacy' that he often promised during the campaigns. That is not happening," he noted.

The Obama administration donated at least 40 tonnes of arms to the weak and beleagured government of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in recent months. US secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a visit to the region in August assured the Somali government of more US support including arms to help it fight its opposition. Washington's attempt to prop up the Somali government with a flow of arms is a futile gesture because there is not enough training and support for its soldiers. With no salaries the ill-trained government troops are rumoured to be selling their weapons to the very Islamist fighters they ought to be fighting.

This has left the government at the mercy of about 5,000 African Union Peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi. After the opposition groups stepped up their attacks against the government the African Union Peacekeeping Mission (AMISOM) has in recent months been forced to sidestep its mandate of peacekeeping to that peace enforcement. They are now playing the role of Somali government forces and all hopes of a continued stay in power for Sharif's government depends on them.

Many Somalis believe that the United States has a moral responsibility to help end the Somalia crisis in part because the US ignited the most recent conflict when it supported the notorious Mogadishu warlords. 

And also in part because the mere election of Barack Obama, a man whose roots hail from nearby Kenya, was largely celebrated in the hopes that he remotely understands the region better, relative to other presidents.

US policies in Somalia since 2001 have been counterproductive. First, the CIA backed unpopular and bloodthirsty warlords, stoking anti-American feeling and setting the stage for the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts that finally took power in 2006.

Then, the Bush administration supported the Ethiopian invasion while continuing to attack suspected al-Qaeda targets within Somalia. The Ethiopian invasion sparked an Islamist resistance that led to thousands of civilian deaths, displaced over a million people, and depopulated the capital, Mogadishu. But instead of focusing on the aftermath of this crisis and helping foster a peace process, the United States, European Union, and other international actors engaged in the more dramatic and media-friendly anti-piracy campaign.

At one point, during the Ethiopian presence in Somalia, US operations in the country were touted as the model for post-Iraq counterterrorism strategies based on the use of surrogate countries to stabilize failed states.

A fulfillment of Obama's pledge to change the Bush administration's belligerent and counterproductive policies in Somalia could have far-reaching positive consequences for the Horn of Africa as a whole.

But unilateral US attacks and a further descent into anarchy in Somalia are only likely to help the spread of radical Islam in the region. The recent raid and the quick retaliation that ensued are clear proofs to this.