Somalis have long told themselves a familiar tale about their misfortune. The nation’s problems are always attributed to external forces: colonial cartographers, Cold War rivals, predatory neighbors, scheming donors, and an endless series of foreign conferences. Abdirahman Roble Ulayare’s recent essay in Hiiraan Online, ‘Foreign interference and the struggle for Somali sovereignty,’ exemplifies this tradition. It is also a convenient distraction. Much of the essay is accurate. Colonial rule did fracture indigenous institutions; major powers did pursue their interests in the Horn. The disagreement lies in the conclusion: Ulayare portrays Somalis as passive recipients of external design, acted upon rather than acting, a perspective that benefits the political class by shifting responsibility beyond their grasp. The more challenging argument makes the opposite case. The decisive factor in Somalia’s prolonged failure has not been the ambitions of foreigners, which remain constant, but the conduct of Somalis themselvesa factor we alone control. As European empires withdrew from the Horn, they did not abandon Somalia to its own devices. In 1949, the United Nations General Assembly voted to determine the fate of the former Italian colony. Instead of leaving the territory or ceding it to a neighboring state, the UN placed southern Somalia under a UN-supervised trusteeship administered by Italy, with one clear mandate: prepare the region for complete independence within a decade. This inconvenient fact lies at the core of the interference argument. The first major international intervention in modern Somali history was not intended to maintain subjugation; it was a deadline for freedom, and it was met. The British protectorate in the north and the Italian-administered south achieved independence in 1960 and quickly united as a single republic. Few post-colonial states were granted such a deliberate path to sovereignty. How Somalis utilized that sovereignty became their own responsibility. The democratic republic of the 1960s deteriorated into clan patronage and electoral fraud before any external influence intervened. The 1969 coup was a Somali undertaking; the subsequent dictatorship was a Somali initiative. Ulayare correctly notes that major powers pursue their interests and prefer compliant allies over inconvenient ones. Yet this represents the standard practice of international politics, not a conspiracy targeting Somalia exclusively. Every nation is courted, pressured, and negotiated with by larger powers. The issue is not whether outsiders have interests, but whether a nation’s leaders protect the national interest or sacrifice it for personal gain. Somalia’s Cold War history provides the clearest response. It was Siad Barre, not Washington or Moscow, who made Somalia a Soviet client in the 1970s. Barre later switched allegiance to the American camp after the 1977 Ogaden war turned against him. The superpowers provided weapons and funds, but the decisions to invade Ethiopia, militarize the state, and rule through clan favor and secret police were made in Villa Somalia. Foreign patrons did not impose these choices; they were welcomed by a leader consolidating his power. External actors are summoned by Somalis seeking advantage over rival Somalis. Consider the period following the state’s collapse in 1991, which Ulayare identifies as the height of foreign manipulation. The historical record tells almost the opposite story. When famine followed the civil war, an American-led force under UN mandate arrived in 1992 to feed a starving population; its sole purpose was to keep Somalis alive. The international community then organized conferences that established the Transitional National Government in 2000 and the Transitional Federal Government in 2004. When these institutions were nearly destroyed by armed extremists, an African Union force, financed by Western donors and staffed by Somalia’s neighbors, defended Mogadishu and reclaimed territory from Al-Shabaab. This mission continues to support the federal state today. The diplomatic restoration was equally deliberate. In 2012 and 2013, the United States and other nations formally recognized a Somali central government for the first time in over two decades. More concretely, in December 2023, the IMF and World Bank approved Somalia’s completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, canceling approximately 4.5 billion US dollars in debt and reducing external obligations from around 64 percent of GDP to below 6 percent. The same international community accused of stealing Somali sovereignty had just returned control of the treasury. A power determined to keep Somalia weak would not have addressed its famine, secured its capital, restored its recognition, and forgiven its debts. If external actors were the decisive factor, Somalia would have stabilized whenever support was plentiful and collapsed whenever it was withdrawn. The opposite has proven true: the state has most consistently fallen apart when left in Somali hands. The 4.5 formula that Ulayare criticizes is portrayed as an imposition by foreign powers; in reality, it was an agreement Somalis reached among themselves guaranteeing each major lineage a fixed share of resources. The federalism he blames for fragmentation was also not dictated externally; it was shaped by Somali elites into political domains, each with its own president, budget, and international patrons. This is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of the matter. Somali sovereignty has not been primarily stolen; it has been squandered by a political class that views the state as a prize to be won rather than an institution to be constructed. The evidence is currently unfolding. Somalia is in its third week of a constitutional crisis entirely of its own creation. The president’s four-year term expired on May 15, 2026. He claims a mandate extending to 2027 based on amendments pushed through by his own institutions; the opposition, Puntland, and Jubaland reject this as a power grab. Talks have broken down. No foreign government orchestrated this situation. It is a Somali dispute over a Somali constitution among Somali leaders. The outside world’s role has been reduced to joint statements, such as the one issued on June 1, urging dialogue. This indicates not puppet-masters, but observers witnessing self-inflicted harm. A grim irony marks the timing. The president now stretching constitutional limits to retain office is the same individual who, eighteen months earlier, stood beside the IMF to celebrate the debt relief that restored Somalia’s financial standing. Sovereignty was returned. The issue has never been its acquisition, but how Somali leaders utilize it. None of this excuses the outside world for its actual failings. Donors have skewed priorities, neighbors have interfered, and mediators have pursued their own interests. A mature Somali political system will hold them accountable. However, accountability must begin at home, and the interference thesis prevents this by attributing every failure to external forces, thereby excusing those most culpable. It represents the most self-serving narrative for a ruling class, which explains its persistence. Sovereignty is not a possession that foreigners can seize. It is a practice, either maintained or squandered by those in power. Somalia has had its independence restored on multiple occasionsby the United Nations in 1960 and by the international community after 1991each time with the same political class wasting it. Until Somalis examine their own reflection rather than looking outward, the next crisis is already predetermined. The force preventing Somali sovereignty is not foreign. It is our own.