No subject

absolute invincibility. I remember the captain of the ship telling me
that it was inconceivable that pirates could board his vessel. I
imagine he feels differently today.

The Sirius Star was plodding at service speed =97 15 knots =97 about 480
miles off the East African coast. This is far away from known pirate
waters, so the 25 crewmen aboard were probably working their regular
watches, performing duties during a normal day at sea.

The Sirius was on autopilot; the proximity alarm on the radar =97 the
collision avoidance system =97 had been set, and a young third officer
was most likely alone on the bridge reading a magazine or sending
e-mail messages to his family and occasionally glancing at the myriad
dials and gauges embedded in the instrument panel. He may have seen a
small blip on the radar screen; this far offshore, it was likely a
fishing trawler. But the mysterious vessel was watching him; it then
launched its boats for the attack.

The aft deck of a fully laden crude carrier is only 10 to 13 feet
above the surface of the sea. Motoring up to the giant ship, the
pirates hooked grapnels connected to ropes and fastened to aluminum
ladders onto the railings above, scaled the hull, rushed the bridge
and commandeered the ship. It was probably over in minutes.

The Sirius was just a target of opportunity. Pirates had no idea that
they were about to capture a potential floating bomb. It is not the
crude oil that is volatile. You can douse a cigarette in the stuff. It
is the vapor from the cargo that is vented into the air that is
explosive. For this reason, no one is allowed on deck with a camera,
flashlight, cellphone or a plastic cigarette lighter in his pocket.
One can imagine the captain of the Sirius Star pleading with his
captors not to shoot their guns on deck.

No one wants to contemplate the effects of an exploding tanker laden
with 300,000 tons of crude oil. To place this ship in some
perspective, the Exxon Valdez, which ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska
in 1989, carried 53 million gallons of crude oil. The Sirius is
carrying nearly 84 million gallons. If that amount of crude were to
escape, the environmental damage to the Indian Ocean and the East
African coast, upon which millions earn their living, would be
catastrophic.

So what can be done?

Given the failure to stop the pirates, shipping companies are now
diverting their fleets =97 instead of sailing through the Suez Canal and
the Gulf of Arden, tankers and other merchant vessels are forced to
travel around the tip of South Africa to get from the Middle East to
Europe and the United States, all of which adds weeks to the passage
and increases the cost of delivery.

But this is merely a short-term solution. The only long-term fix has
to take place on shore, in Somalia. Somalia has not had a recognized
functioning government since 1991. Law is dispensed through the barrel
of a gun.

There was some semblance of law and order in 2006, when the Islamic
Courts Union, loosely linked with Al Qaeda, took over much of the
country and imposed Shariah law. Though there were cruel tradeoffs,
the Islamists virtually eradicated piracy. (The crime was a capital
offense punishable by beheading.)

When Ethiopian forces, supported by the United States, replaced the
Islamists with an ineffective transitional government in 2006, piracy
returned with an intensity not seen since the 17th century.

It is evident that no nation can impose its will on Somalia; the
colonial British and Italians learned the hard way. And certainly no
nation can force Somalis to stop the best business in town. But if the
West really hopes to eliminate the scourge of piracy in these
strategic shipping lanes, then it should consider involving the courts
union, the only entity that has proved it could govern the country,
and its militant wing, Al Shabaab, in a new government.

If there is movement to talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan, then there
should be some effort to talk to the fundamentalists in Somalia. If
the Islamists were permitted to form a viable, functioning and
effective government, this shattered land might be able to return to
the community of nations =97 and supertankers will be able to deliver
oil to the United States without fear of getting hijacked.

John S. Burnett, the author of "Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and
Terror on the High Seas," is working on a book about the hijackings
off the Somali coast.