To the horror of many and the fascination of most, the Sirius Star, an enormous tanker transporting 2 million barrels of crude oil to the United States, was captured by pirates far off the African coast on Nov. 15.

The tanker, owned by Aramco, the Saudi oil company, was carrying enough crude to supply New England with fuel oil for 10 days — in the winter. It is seven times the size of the Titanic and longer than the Chrysler Building is tall. How, then, could a dozen pirates in two puny boats armed with rifles and a grenade launcher board a ship this size?

Quite easily — as I found out after spending weeks on a nearly identical ship on a passage from Saudi Arabia to Singapore five years ago.

From the bridge nine stories above the sea, there was a feeling of 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 — 15 knots — 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 — the collision avoidance system — 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, cell phone 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 — 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 U.S., 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-Qaida, 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 — and supertankers will be able to deliver oil to the United States without fear of getting hijacked.

John S. Burnett, author of "Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas," is working on a book about the hijackings off the Somali coast. He wrote this commentary for The New York Times.