October 06, 2009

Choosing the Somalia Strategy in Afghanistan?

If media reports are to be believed, there are two camps in the White House.

One camp, led by the military, believes that the strategy in Afghanistan should be modeled after Iraq. Large numbers of troops involved in counterinsurgency with a focus on protecting the civilian population, restoring order, and giving "breathing room" for the government to train its own forces.

This model does not recognize that there are major differences between the indigenous Salaafi jihadists of the Taliban and foreign Salaafi jihadists of al Qaeda. It assumes that anarchy breeds extremism and that the vacuum left by a non-functioning government will be filled by the Taliban who will then be in a position to offer al Qaeda safe harbor from which attacks against US interests will be launched.

The other camp, led by VP Biden, wants to follow the Somalia model. Since, unlike Iraq, our strategy in Somalia is not widely known, let me describe it as succinctly as possible.

Several years ago an indigenous Islamist movement, modeled after the Taliban, called The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took control of Somalia by force. US opposition to the ICU took the form of supporting local tribal militias. When these militias failed to oust the ICU, the US covertly supported an invasion by neighboring Ethiopia.

However, the Ethiopian invasion failed at bringing order to the country. As the Ethiopians withdrew, the armed wing of the ICU, the al Shabaab Youth Mujahideen Movement, became the predominate force in many areas of the country.

The al Shabaab openly supports and receives support from al Qaeda.

The new policy in Somalia was to try to differentiate between more "moderate" members of the Taliban-like ICU and al-Qaeda-like al Shabaab.

Working through third party countries, such as the Sudan, the US backed a new transitional government made up of the former members of the ICU. The same people we were once fighting.

In return for this US support, these ICU leaders have renounced the al Shabaab. The non-functioning government we covertly supports still wishes to impose the kind of sharia law which would cut off the hands of thieves and stone adulterers to death. What they claim is that they will not give safe haven to al Qaeda and are today fighting al Shabaab.

The US keeps a small counter-terror force in nearby Djibouti. From time to time we strike at high value targets in Somalia linked to al Qaeda.

It seems to me that this is the strategy advocated by VP Biden. One of "differentiating" between the Taliban, whom we would no longer be fighting, and focusing on al Qaeda.

But what if the Taliban return to power? This strategy anticipates that if the Afghan government was defeated and the Taliban returned to power, that they could be "turned" from their former allies in al Qaeda. Much the same way that the ICU leadership was "turned" from what was formerly their military wing.

That is how I see the present "conversation" between the military and their counterinsurgency strategy and the VP and NSA Director and their counterterrorism strategy.

But, lest we forget, the Iraq model has worked wonderfully.

And in Somalia? Shabaab grows stronger day by day. In fact, much of the country is under al Shabaab control. And even though the group does not actually have a functioning "government", neither does the ICU. And the group has become strong enough that the FBI and CIA now worry that it will begin to carry out attacks against the US abroad.

The best case scenario for this strategy is that a kind of stalemate develops between the ICU, the various tribally governed areas of Somalia, and al Shabaab.

The best case scenario in Somalia if we continue with our current policies is, in fact, very much like pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

The Taliban ruling in the capital and in much of the South with something that resembles a government. The various anti-Taliban tribal forces united in loose coalition ruling in areas of the North.

The difference in our policy towards Afghanistan now and pre-9/11, I am told, is that we would have at least some troops stationed on the ground and that we would be much more vigorous in prosecuting operations against al Qaeda.

The problem with this line of reasoning, though, is that it assumes a friendly government. If there isn't one?

Let us assume that a more "moderate" Taliban government came to power. One that promised to no longer cooperate with al Qaeda. Would they really be willing to allow US forces to remain in Afghanistan? If you think the answer is yes, you are fooling yourself.

And if you think a small number of counteterror units combined with a large number of UAVs can actually take out the world's largest terrorist network, then you have read too many thrillers not understanding that these are works of fiction.

I'm not sure we need to follow the Iraq strategy in Somalia. Frankly, I'm not sure how to solve the Somalia problem!

However, I am fairly confident that following the Somalia strategy in Afghanistan is a sure path to failure. And failure in the war against violent Islamism is not an option.