ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — The headline in an Ethiopian newspaper drew familiar, if unflattering, comparisons to another nation's faster-thanexpected victory in a war abroad.
"Mission Accomplished," blared Addis Ababa's Daily Monitor in a story about Ethiopian forces' triumph over Somalian Islamists this week.
In 2003, the same phrase adorned a banner behind President Bush as he declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, though the battles and bloodshed proved far from over.
Just as the Iraq invasion has divided Americans, Ethiopians are split over their government's decision to get involved in Somalia's brewing civil war by sending troops across the border.
After just a week of fighting, Ethiopian troops have enabled Somalia's transitional government to gain control of a vast swath of southern Somalia that had been seized by the fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union over the last six months. By Thursday morning, Ethiopian and Somalian government troops had reached the outskirts of the capital city, Mogadishu, with Islamic forces there apparently having disappeared into the populace.
Ethiopian leaders are calling the military intervention a smart preemptive strike against the spread of religious extremism in the Horn of Africa. They say the world should thank Ethiopia for defeating a coalition of militant Islamists that U.S. officials have accused of having links to terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
Others here worry that the incursion could backfire over time by stirring political instability at home or driving Islamic militants to set their sights on this nation.
Ethiopia has no opinion polling to measure public attitudes, and recent government crackdowns against opposition leaders and journalists have made some citizens afraid to express their views.
But nearly everyone, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, agrees that the issue has sparked debate.
"It's natural to have disagreements on fundamental issues," Meles said Thursday. Yet he stressed that the Ethiopian people expressed "overwhelming" support for the action in Somalia.
About three-quarters of Ethiopia's Parliament voted this month in favor of military involvement in Somalia. Though the vote suggested a resounding endorsement, opposition leaders said it was the closest tally they've had in a legislative body heavily dominated by Meles' party. One Parliament member who is part of Meles' political coalition abstained, a rare act of defiance.
