Look out Eritrea! US threatens new WOT front

Even though the US involvement in Iraq still hasn't ended, published reports suggest that the Obama Administration may be looking to open yet another front in the War on Terror, this time in the East African nation of Eritrea.

First a little background - the Muslim region of Eritrea fought a bloody 30-year war for independence against largely Christian Ethiopia. When Eritrea won its independence in 1993 it took Ethiopia’s entire coastline along the Red Sea with it. And while Eritrean independence should have been the end of the fighting, it really wasn't. The two nations have skirmished over an ill-defined border; Eritrea has maintained an army of 300,000 soldiers, huge for a nation of only four million people, just in case large-scale fighting breaks out again.

So far though, the two sides have seemed happy to fight a proxy war in Somalia. In 2006 Ethiopian troops backed a push by the Transitional National Government (TNG) of Somalia - which up to that time had been 'ruling' Somalia from a suite of hotel rooms in Kenya - to reestablished their government in Mogadishu (the Somali capital city). Eritrea backed the Union of Islamic Courts (ICU), which had taken Mogadishu back from a collection of warlords and set up their own version of a Somali government. When the ICU was driven back, Eritrea shifted their support to another Islamic group al-Shabaab ("The Youth"), who took up the fight against the TNG.

And that's where the US comes in. The United States thinks that al-Shabaab is al-Qaeda's franchise in the Horn of Africa. With US attention, for the time being, focused on the Horn of Africa because of the Somali pirate problem, the Obama Administration is apparently warning Eritrea to drop its support of al-Shabaab, or risk facing the same fate as Afghanistan. Eritrea, meanwhile, wants al-Shabaab to have a seat at any negotiations on forming a new Somali government.

Eritrea's President Isaias Afewerki isn't helping his country's cause with the world community. He promises democratic reforms, but continues to postpone presidential and parliamentary elections. Critics say a mandatory national service program instituted by Afewerki has turned the entire country into a "giant prison"; there are credible reports that his government subjects its political opponents to slavery and torture (including a version of crucifixion). And Eritrea was the first nation to host a visit from Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir after his indictment by the International Criminal Court on crimes against humanity.

All of which makes Eritrea a great candidate for the "rogue nations" list. But does it really make sense to threaten, even behind the scenes, Eritrea with the 'Afghanistan treatment' when the US is already bogged down on two fronts in the 'War on Terror' and, the US Navy's rescue of Capt. Phillips of the Maersk Alabama aside, when the US, and a coalition of the world's militaries, seem to be having a devil of a time even stopping motley collections of pirates off the Somali coast?

The Obama Administration should think seriously about wrapping up Iraq and Afghanistan before looking for new fights.