Politics

Somaliland is home to approximately six million people and occupies an area of 176,000 square km, which makes about three quarters the size of Britain. It borders Somalia to the east and is not recognised as an independent state by any country except Israel.

The area edged blue in this map is Somalia. From Somalia’s point of view the blue line continues around the pink area. In the view of Somaliland the pink area is Somaliland.

Somaliland is not a breakaway province of Somalia. Rather, in the late 19th century, the Somali sultanates were colonised by the Italian and British empires, who created two colonies from the tribal territories: Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland.

Britain formally granted independence to the State of Somaliland in June 1960, and almost immediately Somaliland voluntarily united with the former Italian Somaliland to form the Somali Republic.

Things didn’t go smoothly, however, and the union didn’t last. Eventually war broke out, and after ten years Somaliland declared independence in 1991.

Israel recognised Somaliland as an independent state last December. To cement that, the first official delegation from Somaliland arrived in Israel on Monday 23rd February 2026.

So from 1991 until last December, Somaliland has been in a nether world of being home to its people but not recognised as a country.

That is not to say it was ignored, because it has relations with a number of countries. But by making the step to formally recognise Somaliland, perhaps Israel will cause the floodgates to open.

Israel has reason to want a partner in the Horn of Africa. It helps to counter Iranian-back Houthis in Yemen. But as of just a day or two ago, that dynamic has changed with the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. That said, a partner is a partner, particularly in this changing world. I guess the parties probably stressed that when they met.

President Trump has consistently berated Zelensky for not giving way to Putin’s demands. He seems to be saying that sometimes the best deal is the one that hurts but at least is a deal, because without a deal the outcome will be much worse. Is he looking as an outside observer? Does he think that cutting Europe loose is a better outcome for the USA than taking a stand with Europe? Does he have another agenda?

With the invasion of Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro, the USA has nicely undercut its ‘sovereign territory’ objection to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am sure that President Trump, President Zelenskyy of the Ukraine, and President Putin of Russian Federation are acutely aware of this.

Each will have their own reasons and motives for drawing parallels and of saying that the analogy has limits and what applies to one does or does not apply to the other. But whichever way it is described, President Trump has handed President Putin an argument that sways the balance away from support of Ukraine. Perhaps that is what he wants. He might have handed himself an argument for abandoning Ukraine and Europe without having to shoulder responsibility for having done that.

Tehran’s dams are currently at about 19% capacity. Because of Iran’s history as a funder of terrorism, it is tempting to see the drought as payback. This may well affect the extent to which others will help Iran in its crisis. And that leaves aside the question of whether any country can actually help.

To say that Iran’s problems are because it is intensely urbanised, needs context. After all, the population density of Britain is nearly five times that of Iran.

The population of Iran is 91.57 million. The population of the Tehran is 9.6 million but the population of the greater metropolitan area is 16.8 million. That equates to more than 18% of the population of the country living in the capital.

The combined populations of Iran’s next six biggest cities – Mashhad Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, Tabriz, and Qom – totals another 16 million people. So that equates to more than a third of the population of the country living in the cities.

But urbanisation in Iran is recent. Poor harvests have caused a drift to the cities. And it has left a gaping hole in rural areas where agriculture is outdated and inefficient, and there’s no one to work the fields. Yet agriculture in Iran consumes 90% of the available water.

Seven Lean Years?

Iran has had five consecutive years of drought. The rainfall in the last year has dropped by 45% below the longterm average, and by spring of this year, over half of Iran’s reservoirs were empty.

Temperatures have been over 50 °C in parts of Iran, worsening the crisis and triggering power and water outages. The prediction is that Tehran could be out of water within weeks. What happens when millions of people in the cities have no water?

Since May 2025, widespread protests have erupted across Iran over water and power shortages, particularly in the poorest areas, with a risk of social and political destabilisation.

Syria

Between 2006 and 2010, Syria had its worst ever drought. The UN estimated that around 800,000 farmers lost their livelihoods because of it. Crop failures triggered millions of Syrians coming to the cities. That led to protests, and from there to State repression and from there to civil war.

Afghanistan

Within the last year, Afghanistan built the Pashdan dam on the Harirud River that has dried up the Harirud border basin beyond the dam and threatened the city of Mashhad in Iran. Iran objects to the denial of access to a water source that it is says is intended to be for the benefit of the region. But what is it going to do?

It’s significant for Iran because the population of the Mashhad metropolitan area is 3.46 million, making it the second largest city in Iran after Tehran.

And it is not the only country affected by Afghanistan’s plans. When the Qosh Tepa canal is completed and starts diverting water to the north of the country, it will threaten the water supplies of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

In the longer term, what might happen? Social breakdown iand regime change in Iran might be a consequence of drought but it doesn’t solve the problem of lack of water.

Perhaps an alliance of Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in a war against Afghanistan. It’s all possible, although how anyone could breach the Pashdan dam to restore the access is a nice question because it is a huge earth structure.

Perhaps Iran might accept technological help from Israel, the world’s leader in desalination. Iran has access to the Caspian Sea, which is about a third as saline as the oceans and you would think that is perfect for desalination. Israel has offered to help Iran with desalination but Iran has so far refused. That would be an interesting turnaround if Iran’s future was made more secure by Israel.

Iran Update February 2026

The drought continues. Authorities have started rationing water at night and President Masoud Pezeshkian has discussed evacuating the capital.

Iran invested heavily in large-scale dams in the late 20th century, and there are over 500 dams in the country. As of now, though, roughly 64% of the reservoirs are empty and nineteen major dams across the country are at less than 20% capacity.

The drift from the countryside continues. Because of drying wetlands and the inability to sustain farming, approximately 31,000 villages, nearly 45% of Iran’s rural settlements, are now deserted.

The Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 were intended by their very name to prevent the United States from being drawn into foreign wars. The Acts banned the sale of arms to warring nations and restricted American citizens from traveling on belligerent ships. The Acts were watered down in 1939 by an amendment that allowed the U.S. to sell arms to nations at war provided the buyers paid cash and moved the goods themselves.

On an historial note, the restriction on American citizens traveling on belligerent ships in the Neutrality Acts was explicitly intended to prevent a repeat of the Lusitania incident that had drawn the U.S. into World War I after a German submarine sank the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans.

Lend-Lease Act

On March 11, 1941, President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act, effectively ending a decade of declared U.S. neutrality and isolationism. It allowed the President to “sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of” military aid to any country whose defense was considered vital to the United States. The first beneficiary was Britain, followed by China in April 1941, and the Soviet Union after the German invasion in June.

In deciding which countries should benefit from Lend-Lease, the United States was signalling its strategic sympathies and future commitments, and in effect drawing the battle lines for future conflicts.

Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China proper in 1937. So when the U.S. extended Lend-Lease to China it sent a clear message to Japan.

The U.S. embargo on oil and other critical materials and the freezing Japanese assets after Japan invaded Indochina in July 1941, pointed directly to the coming inevitability of war between Japan and the United States.

Trump, The Strange Isolationist

Over the past handful of years, commentators have described Trump’s isolationist policies with his threats to pull out of Nato because the U.S. was saddled with too much of the cost. The result is that European nations have increased defence spending. You can discern two reasons. One is that they don’t want to lose the USA. The other is that if they are unsuccessful and they do lose the USA, then they want to be strong enough on their own to counter any threat.

The notion of being ‘isolationist’ doesn’t square with the deal that the U.S. has struck for the extraction of minerals in eastern Ukraine. That is, the deal is in place on a piece of territory that stands directly in the way of Russia’s ambitions under Putin.

And Trump has not been shy of declaring his position over Gaza, to simply take it over and administer it.

Nor has he backed off confronting Iran or in forging stronger links with Saudi Arabia and the wild card Qatar.

And then there’s his showman sleight of hand over intentions in Canada and Greenland.

Keep them guessing, is how it seems to me. But for a supposed isolationist he has a global reach with American fingers in a lot of international pies.

Update

I am updating this on the evening of 15 August 2025, before whatever agreement Putin and Trump may come to over Ukraine has been made public. Commentators are saying Trump is a fool, a plaything in Putin’s hands. If no deal is struck – what will Trump the supposed isolationist do?