There were essentially two reasonable choices to be made about Somalia prior to Ethiopia’s devastating invasion last month and what looks like the temporary rout of the Islamist alliance that had taken charge of the south and centre of the country.

One was to do nothing and let the Islamists, grouped in the Union of Islamic Courts, get on with it. In the six months they were in control, after all, they provided the first, rough semblance of order since the 1991 collapse of the dictatorship of Mohammed Siad Barre plunged the country into a long night of anarchy and warlordism.