AP Photo

IN 2006, the Bush administration declared Somalia the latest front in the war on terrorism: a newly influential movement, the Union of Islamic Courts, was suspected of playing host to Al Qaeda there. When this union took over the capital in June 2006, the United States tried to coax moderates within it to enter a dialogue with Somalia’s official government, a toothless institution that was exiled from the capital. But by December of that year, when the Islamic courts seemed about to take down the government entirely, neighboring Ethiopia convinced United States officials that allowing the courts to control Somalia would be tantamount to handing the country to Al Qaeda.