Northeast Africa, How I've Missed You

By BJ Bjornson

Despite the occasional flashes of good judgement, there has been little that has proven more disappointing in the Obama administration's actions than its continuation of many of the failed foreign policy initiatives of the unlamented Bush years. Today brings news of Hillary Clinton looking to continue one of the bigger, if far less publicized, blunders of the previous administration, destabilizing the Horn of Africa, not that the region needs much help in that regard.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the US will "take action" against Eritrea if it does not stop supporting militants in Somalia.

She said after talks with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, that Eritrea's actions were "unacceptable".

She also said the US would expand support for Somalia's unity government.

. . .

The US admits it has supplied pro-government forces in Somalia with over 40 tonnes of weapons and ammunition this year, and another delivery of weapons is predicted, says our correspondent.

I've been following the situation in Somalia for the last several years, and it never ceases to amaze me how the US can so consistently work at making the problems worse. The current situation can be traced to the US supplying weapons to a group of warlords in an attempt to combat what they believed was a growing Islamic influence in the country. Of course, finding out that the warlords were getting US assistance ended up rallying the locals to the side of the Islamists, who proceeded to conquer most of southern Somalia, and rather ironically, produce one of the most stable and peaceful periods in the county's recent history.

Of course, the Bush administration was never very good at admitting failure, and so they turned to their proxies in Ethiopia to deal with the ICU. The Ethiopian military, backed by US naval and air assets in the region, quickly brushed aside the lightly armed Islamists and propped up the so-called Somali government for a couple of years, while the Islamists, who weren't actually defeated, but merely smart enough not to engage in a head-on confrontation with the region's most powerful military, went to work fighting a long and dirty insurgency, with the US helpfully bombing villages and other targets in a vain attempt to help the Ethiopians out. All of this resulting in Somalia and the neighbouring Ogaden region in Ethiopia becoming one of the worst humanitarian disasters on the planet and the Somali population, (those that survived the fighting and starvation), becoming more and more radicalized and distrustful of the US.

So of course the best way to deal with such a problem is for the US to make clear that it is supporting the imposed interim government that automatically loses whatever legitimacy it could have claimed thanks to that support, and then blame all of their problems on Eritrea, which admittedly is likely not the most innocent of actors in the region, particularly given their border disputes with Ethiopia.

Given US support for their regional rival Ethiopia, the criticism of Eritrea is unlikely to sway that nation, and US support for the Somali faction in the government is likely only to prolong the fighting in the south. Add the piracy from the northern regions of what was once Somalia and parts of Yemen, the ongoing insurgency in the Ogaden, and the massive numbers of refugees that have flowed into Kenya and likely played a part in the recent destabilization of that nation, and I'm thinking that this would not be the kind of place you would want to add to the tensions.

Then again, who pays that close of attention to Africa?