Somalia's Second Chance: [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service]

To look at the situation today, first, on the military side, as you know, the Ethiopian troops are still backing the TFG in Somalia. About a third of the Ethiopian troops have already withdrawn. I understand that it will be done in two more phases. There will be a second phase and finally a third phase that hopefully will coincide with the arrival of the peacekeepers.

The peacekeepers will be Uganda, Burundi, possibly Nigeria, possibly Tanzania. It's only beginning to really firm up, but we know that Uganda's parliament has approved and now Uganda is in the process of putting together a contingent. Our government is planning on providing 15 million (dollars) for the lift and some of the logistics.

As far as the Somalis themselves, about 10,000 Somalis have been trained. And they should be in Somalia, taking up their duties for security, very shortly. And they are representative of all the clans.

And of course, in the end, whether Somalia succeeds or not will depend on Somalia's own ability in governance and in peacekeeping itself.

On the political side -- and of course, in the end, this is now a political question; the military question has been solved -- the political question, if it is solved, will preclude further military problems. President Yusuf is organizing a conference for 3,000 clan leaders around the country. He needs to do a lot of work to make that work, but that's a great step forward. The Ethiopians have been meeting with the Ayr. The Foreign Minister has been to Mogadishu just recently, and the Ayr have been to Addis recently as well. As we know, the Ayr are kind of key to resolving this situation.

LYONS: Thank you very much for a very broad question that will allow me to speak on a couple of different themes. My starting point is to note that to understand the recent events in Somalia, you have to understand that Somalia is simultaneously in internal Somali struggle, but also embedded within a regional set of problems, including the Ethiopia-Eritrea -- unresolved Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict, internal problems within Ethiopia, and then on top of that, the U.S. global war on terror.

And so these things sometimes work at cross-purposes with each other, or moving forward with one piece undermines a different piece. And they don't all need to be solved simultaneously, and so there is a possibility to move forward with a political reconstruction, rehabilitation, within Somalia without solving all of the problems simultaneously. But in the long run, there is a regional dynamic, and the Ethiopia and Eritrea border dispute remains a matter that ought to be of considerable concern to the United States and others in the international community.

MCDONALD: In your view, why did Ethiopia intervene in Somalia?

LYONS: I think that from the perspective of Addis Ababa, there were -- some of the most significant security concerns were not that either al Qaeda was controlling the Islamic Courts or that the Islamic Courts were imposing Shari'a or that what the Islamic Courts were doing within Somalia, but the Islamic Courts have built alliances with Eritrea, with internal groups, insurgent groups within Ethiopia, the Oromo Liberation Front, the Ogaden National Liberation Front. And to the extent that those forces were being allowed to work from Islamic Court-controlled areas to increase their ability to engage in cross-border attacks on Ethiopia required or drove Ethiopia to engage in this preemptive strike.

LYONS: Let me answer that, actually, in the context of where the TFG is right now, because, as Ambassador Huddleston said, the question of will the TFG be able to form a broad-based government in clan terms is a key challenge to see if it's able to be representative of Somalia. And there has long been splits between the clans and the TFG, particularly the Hawaiye clan, which is most powerful within Mogadishu. And the Hawaiye clan, particularly sub-clans of the Hawaiye clan, have never been supporters of the TFG. They've always distrusted the TFG. They see the TFG's interest as contrary to their interests, and that was in part the fight with the Islamic Courts, some in part derived from this Hawaiye dissatisfaction.

So now the TFG, which was unpopular and weak in late 2006, has now come to Mogadishu with the support of Ethiopia, the long-time regional rival to Somalia, and with at least the tacit support of the U.S. military. These things don't -- you know, will not strengthen TFG's local legitimacy or local authority. If the TFG can reach out and form a kind of an inclusive government that brought in some new members, new political constituencies from Mogadishu, from the Hawaiye, from the Islamic Courts, I would argue -- the moderate elements, if you will, of the Islamic Courts -- then there's the possibility that that government could hold together and represent a new beginning for Somalia.

I think actually, though, that the opportunity for that to happen is closing quite quickly and that there needs to be movement very, very rapidly because the security situation is eroding and it's likely to continue to erode unless there's a political process, a broad-based, inclusive political process that the most important constituencies -- all of the most important constituencies in Somalia see as workable and as the way forward.