Date: 02/12/2008
Secretly providing suitcases full of money for warlords. Helping to overthrow a popular government. Endorsing the results of a deeply flawed election and then recanting. Making deals with officials of a genocidal government.
All these and much more have been the lowlights of American policy over the last few years in the strategically important but perennially war-torn neighborhood of northeast Africa, across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia. These blunders result from a U.S. counterterrorism policy focused on eradicating small al-Qaeda cells that – rather than making us safer – is actually undermining our long-term security interests.
Why does this matter? It's simple. Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg. If we aren't able to help secure places like Somalia halfway around the world, then places like San Diego are less secure in the long run, vulnerable to the growth of terrorist networks. Also, longer and more costly overseas deployments will be required of the men and women serving in uniform in already stretched places like Camp Pendleton.
Having spent decades being victimized by the American and Soviet chessboard of the Cold War, the people of this region of Africa and other hot spots around the world are witnessing a U.S. counterterrorism policy that echoes the old Cold War-style support for dictators that fuels repression and conflict. Unlike the Cold War, however, the consequences of our current policies will not be localized “over there.” Repression, instability and hopelessness will be the fuel that fires the engine of extremism, mass violence and terrorist recruitment for decades to come.
The idea that we need to do all we can to combat terrorism is uncontroversial. The huge problem lies in how we carry out this war. Just as in Iraq, where a military strategy with little political depth has helped fertilize the ground for extremism and violence there, so, too, will American policy in places such as northeast Africa do the same – in slow motion.
U.S. foreign policy is increasingly seen as being driven by security concerns with overly militaristic responses. Providing uncritical backing to governments that support U.S. counterterrorism strategies means that the United States becomes enmeshed with those governments' policies. America's closeness to Ethiopia has entangled it with the latter's disastrous support for hated Somali warlords and eventual military intervention in Somalia, as well as repression within Ethiopia itself. As a result, extremism is on the rise in both countries, the Ethiopian-and U.S.-backed government in Somalia is in tatters, and 60 percent of the civilian population of Mogadishu – a city made infamous in the 1990s by the U.S. military intervention there and the “Black Hawk Down” tragedy – is displaced by this latest fighting, fertilizing the ground for future terrorist recruitment.
In neighboring Sudan, U.S. counterterrorism cooperation with regime officials there has trumped American commitment to confront the genocide in Darfur beyond annual State of the Union mentions. U.S. support for Kenya's pro-American government led State Department officials to prematurely accept the results of a deeply flawed election, hurting U.S. credibility and undermining America's capacity to help prevent at an early stage the killing that ensued.
To counter terrorism in vulnerable regions of Africa and other parts of the globe, more than the iron fist of American military force is needed. A velvet glove is much more crucial in the long run, one that prioritizes diplomacy, development and democracy.
Sadly, America is reducing its presence in these places, because so many U.S. diplomats have been reassigned to Iraq. To counter this dangerous and shortsighted trend, active and retired Foreign Service officers along with regional experts should be deployed to war-torn countries where terrorism has the best chance of taking root. Having diplomatic teams visibly responding to crises as or before they emerge would help counter the instability the terrorist recruiters require.
Development and democracy-building efforts have been inconsistent. Programs for supporting good governance have been gutted. America must stand with the dispossessed millions in their demands for honest government and decent jobs. The United States could invest much more in the democratic institutions that provide people a stake in decision-making, from parliaments to civil society groups to justice systems. And we could support the World Bank and others to do much more in helping to build the transport and communications networks that will help Africa compete in the 21st century, providing opportunities for the younger generation now subject to the pull of criminality, violence and even terrorist recruitment.
The United States needs to be at the forefront of supporting the diplomatic engagement necessary to promote stability, the democratic demands necessary to promote equality and the development investments necessary to promote a stake for young people in their future. These are the priorities that are required to truly prevent the incubation of extremist ideology and recruitment that will rebound eventually in further attacks on America and its interests. From a pure national security post-Sept. 11, 2001, framework, that is the investment America ought to be making in the world.
Full opinion piece available here.
