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TANVI RATNA: Iran war isn’t a distraction from America’s problems, it’s where they lead
Americans are asking a simple question: why focus on Iran when we have a crisis at home? It sounds reasonable. Immigration is strained. Fraud is rising. Enforcement systems are under pressure. Why escalate overseas?
Because the premise behind that question is wrong. It assumes the problems are separate. They are not. We already accept this in one part of the world. Violence and cartel control in Central America push migration directly to the U.S. border. When those systems stabilize, migration drops. Foreign instability does not stay foreign. It shows up here. The same thing is now happening through a different corridor, one most Americans have never been asked to look at.
Start with the map. The Iran warIran war is no longer confined to the Persian Gulf. Tehran has signaled it can open a second front at the Bab el Mandeb Strait. Most Americans have never heard of it. But they know the Red Sea. They know Saudi Arabia. They know the Suez Canal.
Bab el Mandeb sits at the other end of that same waterway, where ships leave the Red Sea and enter the Indian Ocean. It is not Iranian territory. It lies between Yemen, where Iran backed Houthi forces operate, and the Horn of Africa. That is exactly why it matters.
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Iran does not need to control the strait. Through the Houthis, it can threaten traffic moving through it. That allows Tehran to pressure two global chokepoints at once, Hormuz and Bab el Mandeb, forcing energy markets, shipping routes, and military deployments to react.
But the real story is not the water. It is the land on the other side. Across from Yemen sits a fractured corridor in East Africa that has been quietly reorganizing for years. Somaliland, a breakaway region, has become a strategic node. The UAE has built up the Port of Berbera. Ethiopia secured long term coastal access in 2024. In December 2025, Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland.
That recognition was not symbolic. It opened the door to a new alignment, ports, logistics, and potentially military positioning along one of the world’s most critical trade routes. On the other side sits Somalia’s central government, backed in different ways by Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, all wary of fragmentation and external control.
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Now add pressure. Saudi Arabia needs U.S. and Israeli cooperation to counter Iran and Houthi threats in the Red Sea. At the same time, it is trying to block the UAE from building a chain of ports and proxies stretching from Yemen to Somaliland. That is the bind. Support the coalition against Iran, and you risk enabling a new regional order that sidelines you. Resist it, and you weaken the response to Iran.
The Red Sea is no longer just a shipping lane. It has become a convergence point, war, Gulf rivalry, and fears of fragmentation all sitting on the same corridor.
If Somaliland becomes a staging ground for Israeli or Emirati operations, and if recognition spreads, this does not stay local. It becomes a new flashpoint across Africa and the Gulf.
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You may not know it, but it is also closely linked to a flashpoint at home. The same Somali region at the center of this contest is directly connected to the United States through migration and diaspora networks, especially in Minnesota and Michigan. Those connections are not theoretical.
In late 2025, ICE launched Operation Metro Surge, targeting Somali heavy neighborhoods in Minneapolis and expanding into other cities, including parts of Michigan. At the same time, Temporary Protected Status for Somalis was ended.
Alongside enforcement came something else. A massive fraud system.
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The Feeding Our Future case exposed roughly $250 million in fraudulent claims. Broader investigations into Medicaid and social service programs have examined billions more, with estimates suggesting the scale of fraud could reach into the billions.
Then came the escalation.
Reports and investigations began raising the possibility that some of those funds moved through informal transfer networks into Somalia, and potentially toward al Shabaab. Al Shabaab is not a local gang. It is a Somalia based Islamist militant group affiliated with al Qaeda, seeking to unify Somali regions under a fundamentalist state.
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Whether U.S. funds reached that network is still under investigation. But the fact that the question is now being asked is the shift. What was treated as a domestic fraud issue is now being viewed through a national security lens. There is also a political layer.
In January 2024, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., told a Somali audience in Minneapolis that “Somalia is one… our lands are indivisible,” and that the United States “will do what we tell them” on Somali territorial issues, explicitly opposing the Ethiopia Somaliland deal.
That is not an isolated statement. It reflects a real alignment, diaspora politics tied to territorial disputes that now sit inside a live geopolitical conflict.
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Put the pieces together. A maritime chokepoint under pressure from Iranian proxies. A contested African corridor being reshaped by Gulf states, Israel, and regional actors. A diaspora network embedded inside the United States. And domestic systems, immigration enforcement, fraud networks, political alignments, already under strain.
The Iran war did not create these systems. But it is now activating them. The same corridor emerging as a second front in the Iran conflict runs through a region tied directly into American communities, financial flows, and political dynamics.
This is not a distraction from America’s problems. It is where those problems lead. If the United States treats foreign conflict and domestic instability as separate, it will keep reacting at the point of breakdown, at the border, in the courts, in local politics, while the system driving those pressures continues to build. The Iran war breaks the back of that nexus for the Middle East.
This article is a Fox News Digital exclusive from the author’s Substack series on different theaters President Trump is realigning with the Iran War.
The Michigan Wolverines men’s basketball team will return to the national championship for the first time since 2018 after a rout of the Arizona Wildcats, 91-73, in the Final Four.
Michigan jumped out to a 16-point lead midway through the first half and never had to look back from there. The high-percentage shooting from Aday Mara and Elliott Cadeau’s ability to knock down the long-range shot was more than enough for the Wolverines to get the win.
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Wolverines star Yaxel Lendeborg was saddled with two fouls early in the first half and then suffered a tough-looking ankle injury during the period to keep him on the bench. He started the second half and hit two 3-pointers before he called it a night.
He looked as though he was struggling with the pain. He managed to score 11 points, including three 3-pointers in 14 minutes of play. As he struggled, Trey McKenney stepped up big time.
McKenney was hot from long range. He finished with 16 points on 4-of-6 from 3-point range.
Mara led Michigan with 26 points and nine rebounds. Cadeau had 13 points and 10 assists.
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Arizona was unable to find its rhythm throughout the night, and the continued missed shots sucked the air out of the building. The Wildcats only shot 37% from the floor.
Wildcats freshman Koa Peat scored 16 points to lead the team. He also had six rebounds.
Brayden Burries and Jaden Bradley each had 13 points. Motiejus Krivas had 11 points.
Michigan lost in the 2018 national championship to Jay Wright’s Villanova squad. Their appearance in the Final Four on Saturday night was their third since 1993. The team last won a national championship in 1989 when Glen Rice and the Wolverines knocked off Seton Hall in overtime.
The Wolverines will take on the UConn Huskies in the national championship game on Monday night. The Huskies defeated the Illinois Fighting Illini to receive the opportunity at the title.
If UConn wins, it will be the Huskies’ third title in four years.
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The UConn Huskies men’s basketball team is headed back to the national championship game for the third time in the last four years after defeating the Illinois Fighting Illini, 71-62, in the Final Four.
The Huskies, who were leading by as much as 14 points, fended off a late 10-0 run from Illinois to keep their championship hopes alive. Tarris Reed Jr. ended the run with a lay-up in the paint, then a turnover led to a Solo Ball one-handed slam.
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UConn will be in a position to win three national championships in four years and give head coach Dan Hurley a place to call his program a dynasty.
The Big East champions, and the No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, needed heroics from freshman Braylon Mullins to get past the Duke Blue Devils in the Elite Eight. Mullins stepped up in a big way against the Fighting Illini.
Mullins’ only made shot against Duke was the game-winner. It didn’t take him 40 minutes to score for UConn as he hit the first 3-pointer he attempted against Illinois. He had 12 points in the first half as UConn held a nine-point lead. He finished with 15 points.
Reed led UConn with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Reed’s poised play was needed as it looked like the Fighting Illini were going to come back in the game. He was 6-of-12 from the field and made each of the five free throws he attempted, despite being a 59% free-throw shooter.
It was Mullins and Reed’s performances that helped take some of the pressure off Alex Karaban.
Karaban had nine points, four rebounds and four assists. He was only 1-of-8 from the field.
Illinois cut the deficit to four points with 43 seconds left. The Fighting Illini shot themselves back into the game, but living and dying by the three ball ultimately cost Illinois in the end. As Illinois got cold, UConn was able to capitalize.
The Fighting Illini finished shooting 23% from long range.
Keaton Wagler led the team with 20 points. Tomislav Ivisic added 16 points. The teammates were the only ones in double figures.
UConn will await the winner of Michigan and Arizona in the other Final Four game to determine who they will face in the national championship.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Saturday an immigration detainer has been lodged against an illegal immigrant accused of leading Ohio deputies on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash killing a pregnant 17-year-old girl and her unborn child, and injuring another woman.
Tarsem Singh, an Indian national, was recently indicted on vehicular homicide, involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide charges, according to DHS.
He is being held on a $1 million bond, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an arrest detainer with Ohio authorities.
The fatal Feb. 16 chase was initiated after a Darke County Sheriff’s Office deputy noticed an SUV driving nearly 25 mph over the speed limit.
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Officials said the deputy attempted to catch up to the SUV, allegedly driven by Singh, and paced the vehicle at 100 mph.
As the deputy activated his emergency lights to initiate a traffic stop, the SUV sped away, driving roughly five miles at speeds reaching 124 mph before crashing into an eastbound vehicle on a curve, according to the sheriff’s office.
The deputy immediately notified dispatch of the crash and checked for injuries, finding pregnant 17-year-old Ashlee Holmes, Singh’s passenger, dead after being ejected from the vehicle, local outlet WDTN reported.
Singh was taken by CareFlight to Miami Valley Hospital.
The female driver of the eastbound vehicle was conscious and alert with injuries, and taken to Union City to Reid Hospital in Richmond, Indiana, according to the sheriff’s office.
Officials said the pursuit lasted less than three minutes from the time it was initiated until the crash.
It is unclear why Holmes was in Singh’s vehicle.
“This is yet another tragic reminder of why illegal aliens should not be driving cars on America’s roads,” DHS acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis wrote in a statement. “A 17-year-old woman and her unborn child are now dead as a result of this illegal alien’s reckless actions.”
Singh allegedly entered the country illegally in February 2017 through the southern border in California and was arrested before being ordered released by a judge on bond.
Bis said the newly filed ICE detainer was lodged against Singh to ensure he is “never released and allowed back behind the wheel to put more innocent lives at risk.”
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