State Department’s model for Somaliland should be Taiwan, not Kurdistan

[Deeq A.]

The Congressionally-mandated State Department policy review for Somaliland is well underway. It is long overdue. For decades, the State Department’s approach to Somalia was both ineffective and divorced from reality. As Somaliland grew its democracy, ambassadors like Donald Yamamoto and Larry André, Jr., undercut it by enforcing a “One Somalia” policy whose parameters represented more their personal biases than any written State Department directives. As a result, the United States dumped billions of dollars into the world’s most corrupt government. Rather than advance Washington’s interests, the State Department advanced China‘s.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s team seeks a holistic approach that takes into account the entire Horn of Africa. Fair enough, though allowing Ethiopia and Eritrea, let alone Chinese satrapies Djibouti and Somalia, too much sway over Somaliland’s freedom risks U.S. interests, especially given the State Department’s lack of imagination and penchant for the status quo.

Even as the State Department deliberates and various desk officers try to hash out consensus, there is one certainty: It is impossible to return to the status quo. Somaliland has functioned as an independent state for longer than it was part of any union with Somalia. Somaliland is also far more successful than Somalia; it is quickly becoming the region’s Silicon Valley while Somalia is, well, Somalia. Lawyers in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, make convincing cases that the 1960 union that formed Somalia was neither legal nor binding. From a practical point of view, there are no mortgages in Somalia and Somaliland; newlyweds and business owners must pool family resources to buy houses or open shops. None will subordinate themselves to Somalia to see their livelihoods siphoned off into Somalia’s unelected leaders’ offshore accounts or Dubai mansions.

At a minimum, the State Department will likely agree to open a consulate in Hargeisa. This makes sense on one level; Somaliland and Somalia are as different from each other as the United States and Honduras or Indonesia and New Guinea. Stationing diplomats in Hargeisa, a city so safe my nine-year-old daughter once accompanied me there without any security, will allow U.S. diplomats better intelligence and insight into the region than they have when locked inside Mogadishu’s international airport, where the State Department locates its embassy.

The problem with a consulate, however, is that it will neither improve U.S. policy nor protect U.S. interests. A consulate is an extension of an embassy and, as Yamamoto and André demonstrated, the desire to ingratiate themselves to Mogadishu overshadowed other policy. That André retired to lobby for Hormuud Telecom, the new iteration of a company the U.S. Treasury Department had designated for terror finance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but delisted under the Biden administration, highlights the lack of State Department focus on the bigger picture. An ambassador thinking about a retirement golden parachute or smooth ties with Somalia’s appointed president could actually make things worse by forcing a consular official to carry out illogical demands to make life for American officers in Mogadishu easier.
Rather, a better model for American diplomats in Hargeisa might be the American Institute in Taiwan, a structure created to assuage Chinese diplomatic sensitivities while still enabling the United States a diplomatic presence in Taipei. Diplomats theoretically retire from the State Department before their Taipei posting, and then rejoin with full advancement and seniority at its conclusion. The State Department’s support for the American Institute model recognizes that Taiwan is both a democracy and distinct from the autocracy next door. Most importantly, running an Institute in Taipei rather than a consulate keeps Taiwan distinct from China and actually helps the U.S. Embassy in Beijing by tying their hands should Chinese officials make outrageous demands.

Short of immediately recognizing Somaliland’s independence, the State Department’s best option is clear: The American Institute in Somaliland, modeled after its successful policy in Taiwan.

Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

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