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One of Bush's closest advisers envisions making Somalia an international "protectorate"; some U.N. officials speak of "receivership." Olara Otunnu, the former Foreign Minister of Uganda who is now president of the International Peace Academy in New York City, suggests the term "transitional arrangement," since that would underscore the temporary nature of the takeover. He believes that the U.N. as a whole might accept the idea of superimposing itself on a member state "as long as it is seen as necessary to restore what has been lost -- namely, Somalia's status as a sovereign and independent country -- rather than as taking that status away."
Finding a euphemism for trusteeship is the only easy part of the task. The costs and risks are high. But so are the stakes. Somalia is humanity's burden. In addition to being an immense tragedy in its own right, the situation there is a paradigm of the tribal divisions that are proving to be the bane of the post-cold war era, and a challenge to our ability to cope with similar situations elsewhere. There are going to be plenty. In addition to Cambodia, there are at least two other cases where politics has given way to chaos. One is Liberia, which could turn out to be worse than Somalia since one-quarter of the population has already fled into neighboring states. The other is Bosnia- Herzegovina, where U.N. peacemakers would have to fight Serbian tanks and heavy artillery.
In Somalia, by contrast, the enemy consists mostly of Toyota Land Cruisers manned by boys and mounted with recoilless rifles. If the U.N. cannot combat that threat to the new world order, then there will be no such thing.