The US intervention in Somalia against al-Shabaab cannot succeed, because it doesn't recognize the role that al-Shabaab plays in life in Somalia.

The article omits to mention that the US is responsible for the very existence of al-Shabaab. The Islamic courts movement had taken control of Somalia had established peace. Peace with incomplete respect for human rights, to be sure — Islamists oppose some aspects of human rights — but peace with incomplete human rights was a big step up from faction war with incomplete human rights.

Then Ethiopia intervened, clearly as a US proxy, to destroy the Islamic courts government. One part of it, no longer in power, was al-Shabaab.