Someone must have noticed Hegseth’s seaborne operation against Yemen was an historic blunder.
Shooting down your own aircraft, colliding with merchant ships, losing jets to maintenance failures, a billion-dollar campaign that ended in a ceasefire that the Houthis called a victory and mercilessly mocked Trump.
America!
Seriously, Hegseth is unfit and an embarrassment to any military. The costly feckless operation, launched as deterrence to secure the Red Sea, not only failed to weaken Houthi power but also led to a ceasefire that exposed Trump’s diplomatic and military weakness.
Israel is therefore pivoting to strikes on Yemen from a military base in an unusual way, from a neighboring state it just unilaterally created. Well, more like from a contested territory it recognized.
The Somaliland government in 2017 accepted an Emirati bid to establish a military base in Berbera. Satellite imagery shows the naval base has been transformed into a near-completed facility, with advanced infrastructure including a modern military port, a deep-water dock and an airstrip with hangars and support facilities. The runway at Berbera is 4km long, allowing it to receive heavy transport aircraft and fighter jets. Israel has of course been monitoring the whole thing.
Once the UAE built the infrastructure, Israel bought access with a signature. In a very controversial move, Israel recognized the state of Somaliland. Recognition is traded for strategic partnerships. This is the second time Israel has traded recognition of contested territory for strategic access under the Abraham Accords banner. Morocco got Western Sahara recognition; now Somaliland gets independence recognition. The simple calculus is sovereignty as currency.
Berbera sits directly across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, like maybe 150 miles. For context, that’s closer than Gaza to Tel Aviv. It’s the obvious new forward operating position for sustained attacks on Houthi operations without having to fly everything from Israel or from sea.
This presents a functional solution to the Red Sea problem that doesn’t require the US military under Hegseth to embarrass itself further. That could be the reason Netanyahu is off to meet with Trump three days after recognition… although it also could be a resettlement deal. Earlier this year, the US and Israel reportedly had contacted Somaliland about jets of forcibly displaced people landing in Berbera, such as Palestinians from Gaza.
The Somaliland president has of course only made statements about “regional peace and security”. That’s almost certainly code for “airstrikes on Yemen.”