Oh, Here's Another Crisis You Might Want To Notice: Somalia

Breaking News: Jeffrey Gettleman has a follow-up piece in The New York Times tomorrow promoting Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, "a well-respected, moderate Islamic cleric", as Ahmed's successor.

Remember the Government in Somalia?


Well, it no longer exists.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned Monday, the final confirmation that he had little or no effective authority. There is no prospective replacement. Given Ahmed's repeated attempts to dismiss Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein this month, it is uncertain if there is even an operating central Government in Moghadishu. For the moment, the call is for "parliamentary unity".

Jeffrey Gettleman in The New York Times reported Monday on the emergence of fighting between "Islamist" factions, in particular between a new movement Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama and the Shabab, "one of Somalia's most militant groups".

That story may have significance, however, as a tip-off to Washington's response to Ahmed's downfall. Having toppled the Islamic Courts government in 2006 but failed to get stability, the US Government --- through the State Department and/or the incoming Obama Administration --- may be envisaging an "acceptable" Islamist leadership. No doubt that leadership will be expected to accept the emerging US oversight of the region through the new African Command.

Who that leadership will be and, more importantly, how they will take power in Mogadishu is just a bit unclear, however. So once again it seems that the US has ideas for how a country should be "reshaped" with little regard for the political and social complexities.

Stories to Watch After Christmas: Afghanistan and Somalia

AFGHANISTAN SURGE: THE US MAKES IT FIRST MOVE

From McClatchy News Services:

The U.S. Marines are considering requesting two battalions and a combat aviation unit in Taliban-controlled southern Afghanistan, which would be the largest proposed expansion of U.S. troops in the volatile region, two senior Marine commanders.


If approved, the move would involve roughly 3,000 Marines and support staff, and it would mark the Marines' shift from the once-restive Anbar province in Iraq to places such as Helmand and Farah provinces in southern Afghanistan, which U.S. and NATO officials concede that Taliban forces have overrun.

BUT IN EASTERN AFGHANISTAN, IT'S THE TALIBAN IN CONTROL

From The New York Times:

Attacks provide the latest evidence of how extensively militants now rule the critical region east of the Khyber Pass, the narrow cut through the mountains on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border that has been a strategic trade and military gateway since the time of Alexander the Great.

The area encompasses what is officially known as the Khyber Agency, which is adjacent to Peshawar and is one of a handful of lawless tribal districts on the border. But security in Khyber has deteriorated further in recent months with the emergence of a brash young Taliban commander who calls news conferences to thumb his nose at NATO forces, as well as with public fury over deadly missile attacks by American remotely piloted aircraft.

SOMALIA: THE LOST AMERICAN INTERVENTION

Two years after the US-prompted regime change that forced the Islamic Courts out of power in Mogadishu, this from The Washington Post:

Advisers to Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said Wednesday that he would yield to mounting internal and international pressure and resign over the weekend, but officials close to him insisted the situation remained dynamic.

Talk of Yusuf's impending resignation came as the prime minister he appointed last week quit, saying he wanted to end the political infighting that has paralyzed Somalia's transitional government as an Islamist militia has advanced across the southern half of the country.

OK, Now It's Time to Talk Zimbabwe

Here's that latest exchange over Zimbabwe in full:

US and British Governments: Robert Mugabe, you must step down now.

Robert Mugabe: No.


A few weeks ago, we noted that US attention --- especially that of the incoming Obama Administration --- seemed to be on the Sudan, rather than Zimbabwe. In the last 72 hours, however, the tone has shifted. American officials, especially Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, began declaring that the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe was "dead" and that Robert Mugabe should step aside. CNN this morning is featuring an interview with Frazer in which she declares that it is time for other African states to step up their pressure on Mugabe and that the US will now take the matter to the United Nations for further sanctions.

The problem is that a shift in rhetoric doesn't mean a significant shift in outcome. Calling the power-sharing patient deceased is only confirming a death that took place many weeks ago. And given Mugabe's tenacity, even in the face of appalling economic and social conditions in Zimbabwe, it is unlikely that any diplomatic measures or sanctions will shift him. Nor, given the apparent loyalty of the security services to the President, is a coup a foreseeable solution. That leaves military intervention, which Frazer explicitly ruled out --- at least with the participation of American forces --- in the CNN interview.

Forecast? Given that Obama's appointment as US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, is an African specialist, Zimbabwe will have its turns in the United Nations spotlight. But the prospects are more for finger-wagging, with the get-out clause that it's the African states who are to blame because they are "soft" on Mugabe, than for any significant change in fortunes for the Zimbabwean population.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm: US Troops in Iraq for a Decade?

The most significant story you won't find in your paper today:

Adam Ashton, writing for McClatchy News Service, reports, "[Iraq's] government spokesman, Ali al Dabbagh said...in Washington that the U.S. might be needed in Iraq for another 10 years." Dabbagh told journalists:

We do understand that the Iraqi military is not going to get built out in the three years. We do need many more years. It might be 10 years.

Juan Cole is taking a charitable view of the statement. From the Iraqi Government's viewpoint, as it still does not have a navy or Air Force, some American presence may be necessary to rebuild an indigenous military both for internal security and to maintain Iraqi sovereignty in the region.

How convenient, however, for the United States, which needs a pretext for its own policy of remaining the leading power in the Persian Gulf and beyond. Under the guise of "training", it can maintain its large bases in Iraq.

Sceptical of my scepticism? Have a look at the near-disgraceful puff piece for the Pentagon in The New York Times this morning. Eric Schmitt gets a free trip to Mali to trumpet, "U.S. Helps African States Fend Off Militants". Somehow Schmitt forgets to mention that the "counterterrorism training and assistance" is part of a much-wider strategy of the new US Africa Command to establish a prevailing US military presence across part of the continent.

In the 1960s, trying both to "win" Vietnam and to maintain US global power and to cut the costs of doing so, it was called "Vietnamization". Welcome to the 21st-century update.

Zimbabwe Update: The Ripples Reach America

Almost a week after Enduring America noted that the Zimbabwe story was absent from the US media, in contrast to coverage indicating Sudan as a priority for the Obama Administration, reporters for the New York Times and Washington Post have noticed the crisis in the country.



The Times story is more dramatic with the headline "Cholera is Raging, Despite Denial by Debate" and a personalised story of the five youngest children dying in a family. The Post story is less subjective in framing, "Mugabe Calls Cholera Crisis Over as Deaths Rise to 783", as it --- unlike the Times --- notes:

Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called on African nations to use force to depose Mugabe. This week, President Bush, echoing calls from France and Britain, said it was "time for Robert Mugabe to go.

Beyond that reference, however, neither story offers any indication of a change in US policy towards intervention.