Somali unity was always an illusion. In 1960, the former British Somaliland joined with Italian-colonized regions to form on paper what, after a few name changes, became known as Somalia. In practice, though, it was a country of regions where local authority often trumped national unity. Cold War-era dictator Siad Barre sought to impose unity by force but his repression only condemned Somalia’s already weak state to failure and, after 1991, collapse.
Most Americans know this period through the lens of “Black Hawk Down,” though reality is more nuanced. Somaliland—as the former British protectorate remains called—reasserted its independence and remained largely peaceful. Somaliland’s government in the capital city Hargeisa built capacity as Somalia’s clans and warlords turned on each other throughout the rest of the country.
In 1993, Clinton withdrew U.S. forces from Somalia and the failed state largely faded from diplomatic and public consciousness.
The United States—first the George H.W. Bush administration and then Bill Clinton’s—did not serve Somalia well by flooding it with humanitarian aid. Rather than help Somalis, assistance worsened their plight as warlords weaponized food as they used it as rewards for patronage and its denial as punishment. In 1993, Clinton withdrew U.S. forces from Somalia and the failed state largely faded from diplomatic and public consciousness.
Ironically, it was under former first lady Hillary Clinton that Somalia returned to American awareness. Clinton saw her tenure as secretary of State as an important step in her quest to become America’s first female president but, after more than three years, she had little to show for her tenure at the State Department.
As she faced critics questioning her effectiveness and sought to demonstrate success, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose Somalia. For 12 years, the international community had sought to rebuild basic institutions. Clinton arbitrarily claimed this transitional period to have been a success and claimed credit for the inauguration of the Federal Government of Somalia, ascribing legitimacy, progress, and stability to the country less based on facts on the ground and more on political considerations in Washington. In effect, she put a fresh coat of paint on a crumbling, termite-infested structure and sought to sell it as brand new. Somalia still relied on appointed figures, but Clinton, and later Secretary of State John Kerry, promised that Somalia would hold elections after five years, in 2017.
It was fantasy; while the international community has spent billions of dollars on Somalia elections, the country has yet to hold a single one-man, one-vote poll. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whom Clinton installed in 2012 and after a five-year interregnum returned to the presidency in 2022, likely controls less than 20 percent of the country and, with Al-Shabaab on the outskirts of Somalia, could be the man who loses the country.
Rather than learn the lessons of Somalia, the United States, Europe, and the United Nations now repeat them in Syria. Consider the recognition, de facto or more formal, that the international community bestows on self-declared President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the head of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a former Al Qaeda affiliate. Recent travelers to Syria like Middle East Quarterly editor Jonathan Spyer note that Sharaa’s forces manned no checkpoints for more than 100 miles on a major highway across the Syrian desert. Most analysts believe that when al-Sharaa seized Damascus, he controlled no more than 45,000 men, a paltry number with which to control a country and a little less than the more discipled and largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces can claim. With Syrian Kurds in charge of the Northeast, Turkish forces still in the country, southern tribal leaders controlling the South and Alawis in the West, al-Sharaa no more controls Syria than Hassan Sheikh Mohamud controls Somalia.
The problem is how embracing the illusion of progress can undermine security and encourage terror.
The problem is neither chaos nor vacuum; that is a reality with which policymakers can deal. Rather, the problem is how embracing the illusion of progress can undermine security and encourage terror. Tens of billions of dollars donated to Somalia or to build up the legitimacy of the Hassan Sheikh Mohamud regime in Mogadishu did little but catalyze corruption, underwrite China, and bolster Al-Shabaab.
In Syria, the international community now exaggerates both al-Sharaa’s control and his commitment to reform. The idea that al-Sharaa has any interest in democracy or a platform that does not conform to Al Qaeda’s is belied by putting off elections for five years, like in Somalia, and for appointing a cabinet that includes not a single ethnic or religious minority. His promotion of Osama al-Rifa’i to be Syria’s top religious figure also bodes poorly for peace and tolerance.
National security is at its strongest when Washington and the international community calibrate it to reality. Somalia and Syria are complex patchworks of clans and tribes and interests. Papering over that complexity to pour money into an illusion will never bring peace or stability. Diplomats may hope that al-Sharaa can bring stability, but they kid themselves if they believe bestowing premature legitimacy on al-Sharaa will do anything other than make Somalia’s past into Syria’s future.
