Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) gave a speech in Minneapolis on Jan. 27 declaring that she would use her influence to prevent an agreement over access to the sea being signed between Ethiopia and the breakaway Republic of Somaliland.

According to one corrected translation, Omar, speaking in Somali, proclaimed “The U.S. government will do what we tell the U.S. government to do. That is the confidence we need to have as Somalis … As long as I’m in Congress, no one will take over the seas belonging to the nation of Somalia.”

President Joe Biden may be anxious about inflaming Islamic sentiment in the region, but he should realize that a narrow diplomatic window has opened with regard to security and stability in the Horn of Africa, and he should not let it close.

Most Americans probably identify Somalia with Ridley Scott’s 2001 film “Black Hawk Down,” which dramatized the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. American forces have been deployed to Somalia off and on for more than 30 years and under five presidents. Official American policy supports the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia within its 1960 borders.” But policy can and should change.

The Republic of Somaliland, in the north of Somalia, declared independence from the central government in 1991. But the state from which it sought to secede was of no great antiquity, having been formed after independence from colonial rulers only in 1960. Before that, the territory which now claims its autonomy as Somaliland was a British possession starting in 1884, while the rest of the country had existed as Somalia Italia since 1908.

The United States should carefully examine........

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