Ethiopia Cutting and Running?!!?
By Ethiopia is prepared to withdraw troops from Somalia even if the interim government is not stable, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said.
Ethiopia invaded its neighbour in 2006 to oust an Islamist militia and re-install the transitional government. He told the UK’s Financial Times paper that financial pressures had to be taken into account and said the commitment was not open ended.
Indeed. While the United States is a wealthy enough country to carry on its foreign policy mistakes indefinitely, Ethiopia is not. Given that piracy has skyrocketed since the displacement of the ICU (including a spread to the Gulf of Aden), and that Ethiopian and Somali “government” forces still control only a bare patchwork of the countryside, I’d say that this has been a pretty big disaster…