By Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A recent trip to the Persian Gulf and East Africa provided me snapshots of several countries that enriched my vision of the region. I visited the United Arab Emirates, with time in Dubai and a stop in Abu Dhabi, Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and Kenya in East Africa.

Dubai continues to be development on steroids. It has been hit by the world recession. Some say that upwards of 60 percent of the major capital projects have been put on hold and some of the Emirates' foreign workers sent home. At the same time, the Dubai picture was colored by the fact that at one roundabout a shiny orange Lamborghini convertible passed us at an unholy speed, personifying for me what I saw there. As far as I could tell, whatever cutbacks there have been have not affected the Emiratis, the local population, who continue to live at a very high standard of living.

On the political front, when they consider new U.S. policy under President Barack Obama, Emeratis are now in a "show me" mode. They liked the president's June 4 Cairo speech but want to see what he will do to settle the Israeli-Palestinian issue. They still think he will be unable to break free of what they see as an Israeli and American Jewish stranglehold on U.S. policy, whatever Mr. Obama's understanding and real intentions might be with regard to that issue.

In Abu Dhabi, the capital of the U.A.E., I attended a dinner given by the minister of higher education and scientific research, Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan, for a delegation from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I looked across the table and saw a face from the news. It was overthrown Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who spends some of his time in exile in the U.A.E.

Djibouti is an extraordinary place. It is the former French Somaliland, has a population of less than a half million and three important assets. One is a railroad running from large, landlocked Ethiopia -- that country's only usable outlet to the sea. A second is a port, expanded by the Iranians to the tune of $500 million. The third is an American military base, the only one in Africa, part of the Defense Department's new Africa Command.

These three assets make Djibouti strategic. Its relative stability and peace and quiet provide it something to offer in a neighborhood that includes Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, which are in conflict with each other and are each torn to varying degrees by internal conflict.

Djibouti's own situation is precarious. Eritrea, to make problems for its enemy Ethiopia, has grabbed a piece of Djiboutian territory on its border. Djibouti in response has deployed 20 percent of its 5,000-strong armed forces on its border with Eritrea, a substantial expense.

If Eritrea, which has an estimated 45,000 under arms and 250,000 in reserve, were to cut the Djibouti railroad from Ethiopia to the port, or grab the port, Ethiopia would respond immediately, with overwhelming force. It would be awkward for Eritrea to take such action, since it is a Muslim state like Djibouti, but it might.

The United States would be left up a tree. It has its Africa base in Djibouti. Ethiopia is virtually America's ally, the United States having supported it militarily in its 2006 invasion of neighboring Somalia to overthrow an Islamic government. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine that the United States would become involved in a hot war in the Horn of Africa in spite of the war planes and other assets it has based in Djibouti.

Somalia, which I could not visit because of the security situation, remains a scene of sharp, intermittent fighting among armed elements. Disorder has prevailed in Somalia for the most part since January 1991, when its last government took flight. Looking at Somalia from outside the political-diplomatic realm, as I do now, one sees a different picture from the tales of pirates, violent Islamic extremists cutting off hands and feet for crimes under sharia law, and an almost total lack of law and order.

The Somali element which the United States fears most as the potential power in Mogadishu are the shabab, or youth. They are Islamist and substantially worse than the Islamic Courts government that the Ethiopians and the United States overthrew in late 2006. At the same time, I was told by very reliable sources that the shabab don't interfere with business. That is to say, necessary imports -- rice, fuel, clothing, medicine and other basics -- are brought into Somalia freely, and whatever there might be to export would be allowed out. The most interesting of these exports would be a traditional Somali export, bananas, which in the past were bought by an American company.

There is also an airport called "Kilo 50" southwest of the capital which is served by at least four airlines. I flew one of them, Daallo, from Dubai to Djibouti, a satisfactory experience. Also served are the towns of Berbera, Bosasso, Gaikayo and Hargeysa in Somalia. "Normal" was how its owners described Daallo and its service in and out of Somalia. (But with a history in Somalia I would not accept an invitation to go there on this trip.)

Kenya, my last stop, has pretty much recovered from the shock to its system administered by the lethal disorder that occurred there in the wake of the disputed 2007 presidential elections. President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, and Raila Odinga, a Luo like Barack Obama's father, cooperate to some degree in a coalition government. In a way, the trouble that followed the elections was healthy for Kenya in that it showed Kenyans just how fragile their country is, hopefully scaring them from taking matters to the brink of national destruction again.

Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com, 412 263-1976). More articles by this author

First published on July 8, 2009 at 12:00 am

Source: Post Gazette

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