The author says recognition would freeze a partition Somaliland has not won on the ground: the east slipped away at Las Anod in 2023; Mogadishu backs a North East State there; unionist clans sit east of Oog, where Irro’s control is said to stop. Strategic arguments (Red Sea, Houthis) do not close that gap.

Ex-envoy David Shinn: the U.S. usually follows the AU on African borders; going first could cost counterterrorism work with Mogadishu. Dual-track talks with Hargeisa were a hedge, not a two-state plan.

The piece blames past U.S. and partner interventions—1993 Mogadishu, 2006 Ethiopia—for deepening Somali fracture and swelling al-Shabaab, and treats recognition as another outside cut, not a settlement. That is the argument, not official policy.

The strongest case against recognizing Somaliland comes not from Mogadishu’s objections but from Washington’s own record in the Horn of Africa. Proponents of recognition frame the question around American strategic interest — countering Iranian-aligned forces, securing Red Sea shipping lanes, denying rivals a foothold. But regional conflict dynamics, the history of U.S. intervention and diplomatic precedent all point the same way: formal recognition would not stabilize the Somali Peninsula. It would ignite it.

The Case for Recognition Rests on a Flawed Premise

Advocates such as Steven A. Cook build their argument on geostrategic necessity — confronting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Houthis, protecting freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz. What this argument assumes, and never demonstrates, is that opposition within Somaliland’s own claimed territory can be managed through dialogue.

Somaliland has never governed its eastern regions in any durable way, with the brief exception of Las Anod between 2007 and 2022. Armed resistance among the eastern clans dates to 2009. In 2023, local militias routed the Somaliland army at Las Anod, leaving parts of the........

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