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In
2006, the Bush administration declared Somalia the latest front in the
war on terrorism: a newly influential movement, the Union of Islamic
Courts, was suspected of playing host to al-Qaida there.

When this union took over the capital in June
2006, the United States tried to coax moderates within it to enter a
dialogue with Somalia’s official government, a toothless institution
that was exiled from the capital. But by December of that year, when
the Islamic courts seemed about to take down the government entirely,
neighboring Ethiopia convinced U.S. officials that allowing the courts
to control Somalia would be tantamount to handing the country to
al-Qaida.

And so, the Ethiopian military moved into Somalia
to protect the unpopular government, and for the next two years the
United States bankrolled a brutal occupation. Today, no one doubts that
this was a tragic error. To defend the dysfunctional government,
Ethiopian soldiers robbed, killed and raped with abandon.

The perception that the United States had sided with Ethiopia and the African Union internationalised the conflict.

Ultimately it allowed al-Qaida to gain a foothold
in a country that American intelligence, in 2007, had declared to be
“inoculated” against all kinds of foreign extremist movements.

Sadly, today, the Obama administration is poised to repeat its predecessor’s mistake.

The situation now is very similar to what it was
in 2006. The Ethiopian soldiers are gone, but the regime they
protected, the so-called Transitional Federal Government, is still in
place, now protected by 6,000 African Union peacekeeping troops.

Like the Ethiopians before them, African Union
soldiers from Uganda and Burundi are inflicting thousands of civilian
casualties, indiscriminately shelling neighborhoods in Mogadishu.

Today most of southern Somalia is under the
control of a vicious mob of teenage radicals known as al-Shabab, who
are clearly getting guidance from al-Qaida and who have proudly claimed
responsibility for the attack earlier this month that killed 76 people
in Uganda.

Nobody, from the White House to the African Union,
can believe that the ineffectual transitional government has any hope
of governing Somalia. During the latest round of infighting the speaker
of Parliament was ousted and the prime minister was fired (though he
has refused to step down), and soon afterward the minister of defense
resigned, accusing the government not only of incompetence but also of
trying to assassinate him.

Yet in the past 18 months, the international
community has trained some 10,000 Somali soldiers to support this
government, and American taxpayers have armed them. Seven or eight
thousand of these troops have already deserted, taking their new guns
with them. Indeed, Somalia’s Western-backed army is a significant
source of al-Shabab’s weapons and ammunition, according to the U.N.
Monitoring Group.

There are better ways for the United States to
prevent the rise of terrorist groups in Somalia. A strategy of
“constructive disengagement” – in which the international community
would extricate itself from Somali politics, but continue to provide
development and humanitarian aid and conduct the occasional special
forces raid against the terrorists – would probably be enough to pull
the rug out from under al-Shabab.

This group, led mostly by foreign extremists fresh
from the battlefields of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, is internally
divided, and is hated in Somalia. It has recruited thousands of Somali
children into its militias and uses them to brutally impose a foreign
ideology on the religiously moderate Somali people.

The only way al-Shabab can flourish, or even
survive in the long term, is to hold itself up as an alternative to the
transitional government and the peacekeepers. If the Somali public did
not have to face this grim choice, the thousands of clan and business
militiamen would eventually put up a fight against al-Shabab’s
repressive religious edicts and taxes. (Somalia’s sheer ungovernability
is both its curse and its blessing.) And without a battle against
peacekeepers to unite it, al-Shabab would likely splinter into
nationalist and transnational factions.

Distracted by the unwarranted concern that
withdrawing the soldiers would allow al-Qaida to take control of
Somalia, the Obama administration argues that it can’t afford to step
back.

On the contrary, it can’t afford to do anything
else. To truly stabilise Somalia by force would require 100,000 troops.
Putting another few thousand on the ground – as the African Union has
announced it will do – would only increase the violence. It could also
necessitate sending soldiers from Ethiopia or other bordering states,
bolstering al-Shabab’s best argument for popular support.

Because plans to send more soldiers to Somalia
cannot succeed without American support, the Obama administration is at
a significant crossroads. It is essential that it resist the temptation
to allow history to repeat itself.

Instead, the United States should negotiate with
the moderate elements within al-Shabab. It is not a monolithic
movement, after all. Extremists from Kenya, Afghanistan, Somaliland and
elsewhere have spoken publicly for the group.

But al-Shabab also includes many of the same
Somali religious leaders who controlled the Union of Islamic Courts in
2006, the people the Bush administration once hoped to draw into the
transitional government. Some of these leaders are extremists, and the
idea of talking with them is unappetizing. But the United States can
and should negotiate with them directly.

Most Somalis, who are desperate to be rid of the
foreign extremists, would support such an effort. And it is the best
alternative to escalating the violence and strengthening al-Shabab.

Bronwyn Bruton is a former international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

© 2010 The New York Times