Security

Somalia Piracy Crisis: A Little Law and Order, Please

Resolving Somalia’s at-sea piracy crisis requires "the formation of a Somali government that can clear out pirates’ land bases," I reported in a new piece for Popular Mechanics. But there’s a twist: Somalia had just such a government only two years ago, and the United States helped destroy it. Two years ago, the hardline Islamic […]

03somaliaxlarge1
Resolving Somalia's at-sea piracy crisis requires "the formation of a
Somali government that can clear out pirates' land bases," I reported in a new piece for Popular Mechanics. But there's a twist: Somalia had just such a government only two years ago, and the United States helped destroy it.

Two years ago, the hardline Islamic Courts regime, allied with a number of regional warlords, had brought a measure of stability to
Somalia after 15 years of civil war. The Courts suppressed piracy to its lowest level in years. But U.S. suspicions that the Courts were actively harboring Al-Qaeda operatives led the U.S. to sponsor an joint invasion by Ethiopia and an alliance of outside Somali clans, destroying the Courts and sparking a bloody, Iraq-style insurgency. In the wake of the invasion, piracy flared up again.

A more reasonable U.S. strategy would engage hardline regimes because the alternative, chaos, is far worse, I propose in my first bimonthly column for World Politics Review.

*To craft lasting peace, we must respect regional regimes, and even local strongmen, who offend our Western sensibilities, but who are capable of enforcing a measure of law and order.
*

It all boils down to this: do you prefer dealing with an unpleasant Islamic regime merely suspected
of harboring a handful of terrorists, or with heavily armed pirates seizing shiploads of food aid, armored vehicles and, possibly, chemical weapons?

(Photo: NYT)

ALSO: