Somalia Goes from Bad to Worse

By Douglas Farah

The current develpments in Somalia show that a bad situation can almost always get worse. It also shows the limits of the administration's uncoordinated policy, where the military, State Department and intelligence communities barely talk to each other and clearly are not looking at the same play book.

The Washington Post reports that the always-dubious offer of the Islamist militias, who control most of the country, to open a dialogue with the weak and ineffectual nominal government, had been revoked.

The reason given for this was the entrance of Ethiopian troops, predominately Christian, into Somalia to protect the central government. Rather than dialogue, the Islamists have now declared jihad against the government and its backers.

The statements reflect the predominance of Hassan Dahir Aweys, with strong links to al Qaeda and a public defender of suicide bombers, within the Islamist militias. Others in the militias may not be in total agreement, but so far have been unable to exercise any autonomy from Aweys.

The U.S. government has acknowledged it did not see the Islamist triumph coming, and so far has limited its official response to public calls for dialogue among all parties and the usual litany of ineffective responses often given in the absence of a real policy. The intelligence community came across as ham-handed and inept in its failure to successfully help non-Islamist militias defeat Aweys and his allies. The State Deparment comes across as uninterested, disengaged and unwilling to face the reality of the Islamist threat in the impoverished nation.

Now there is the prospect of a wider regional war with heavy religious overtones in an region that is of strategic importance and already volitle. My full blog is here.

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