Echos of Gallipoli? Hormuz and the Geography of Hubris
In a naval chokepoint, always bet on the shore over the ship
Ashes of Pompeii | March 24, 2026
“History is not a teacher, it teaches nothing. History is a warden, and it punishes for poorly learned historical lessons”
– Vladimir Putin.
The ghosts of 1915 still haunt the narrow waters of the Dardanelles. The Battle of Gallipoli remains one of history’s warnings against racist and strategic hubris. As geopolitical tensions rise and speculation grows about potential U.S. military action in the Strait of Hormuz, the shadow of the this far off battle should be casting a long, dark silhouette over modern war planning. But of course it isn’t. Technology has evolved, the fundamental truths of geography and human resilience have not, and lessons sometimes need to be repeated.
Gallipoli was born of overconfidence. The Allied powers, boasting superior naval technology and industrial might, assumed the Ottoman Empire would crumble under a naval bombardment followed by an amphibious landing. They were wrong. The geography of the Dardanelles turned the Allied advantage into a liability. The narrow strait allowed a numerically inferior force to concentrate fire, mine the waters, and utilize the high ground to devastating effect. The result was a bloody stalemate, massive casualties, and a humiliating withdrawal.
The parallels to the Strait of Hormuz are hard to miss. Like the Dardanelles, Hormuz is a maritime chokepoint, narrow, shallow, and flanked by land that can be fortified. But where the Ottomans relied on artillery and mines, Iran has, over the last 30 years at least, built a layered, modern asymmetric arsenal designed specifically to exploit this geography. Iran’s advantage isn’t in aircraft carriers or stealth fighters; it’s in the sheer density and dispersion of its missile and drone forces.
Iran possesses the largest missile inventory in the Middle East, including thousands of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and precision-guided munitions capable of striking ships at sea. Many of these systems are mobile, hidden in tunnels, or dispersed among civilian infrastructure, making them exceptionally difficult to neutralize in a first strike. Complementing the missiles is Iran’s drone fleet: the Shahed-136 and other loitering munitions that are cheap, hard to detect, and effective in swarms. In a confined space like Hormuz, a swarm of slow, low-flying drones can saturate a warship’s defenses, forcing it to expend precious interceptors or risk being overwhelmed. The Houthis defeated the US Navy in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb with far less.
This is the modern iteration of the Gallipoli lesson: a force perceived to be less advanced, fighting on home terrain, can use asymmetric tools to negate a superior adversary’s edge in firepower. The Ottomans used the high ground and narrow waters to blunt Allied naval power. Iran will use coastal missile batteries, underwater mines, and drone swarms to turn the strait into a contested kill zone. The U.S. Navy is unquestionably more powerful, but power means little if it cannot be brought to bear without unacceptable cost.
Differences, of course, exist. Modern precision weaponry allows for strikes that were impossible in the era of biplanes and battleships. Yet defense has also evolved. In WWI, mines were contact-based; today, they are sophisticated, influence-activated, and difficult to clear. Furthermore, the stakes are different. Gallipoli was a theater of war; Hormuz is the throat of the global economy. A blockade or prolonged engagement there triggers immediate worldwide recession, adding a layer of pressure the Allies never faced in the Aegean.
History offers other grim comparisons. Operation Market Garden in WWII and the battle for Gostomel Airport in Ukraine both illustrate the perils of assuming an enemy will collapse under the shock of a rapid airborne assault. In both cases, planners underestimated the defender’s ability to regroup and strike back. And both failed because the armor couldn’t reach the paratroopers, underscoring the danger of betting on shock over substance. Even if the American paratroopers were to create a beachhead in Hormuz, the operation would fail without naval support and successful landing of the marines, just as in Market Garden, where Arnhem was “A Bridge Too Far”.
Then there is Iwo Jima. While an American victory, it serves as a cautionary tale regarding fortified defenses. The Japanese forces, dug into volcanic rock, inflicted massive casualties on the Marines despite overwhelming U.S. air and naval superiority. The underground tunnels of Iwo Jima find their modern equivalent in Iran’s buried missile silos, drone launch sites, and command centers. You cannot bomb what you cannot find, and it is difficult to occupy terrain that is designed to deny you footing.
The lesson for any modern planner looking at Hormuz is not to doubt American firepower, but to respect the defender’s will, the terrain’s tyranny, and the multiplying effect of asymmetric technology. Gallipoli taught us that a narrow strait favors the shore over the ship. Iran has spent decades learning that lesson and building a force to exploit it. Market Garden and Gostomel taught us that speed and surprise do not guarantee success. Iwo Jima taught us that fortifications, and the determination behind them, multiply defensive power exponentially.
The Dardanelles remains a graveyard of ships and reputations. To ignore the lessons of that campaign while eyeing the Strait of Hormuz, especially while underestimating the disruptive potential of drones, missiles, and mines, is to invite a catastrophe not of capability, but of imagination. The map has not changed, even if the weapons have. And in a naval chokepoint, always bet on the shore over the ship.
‘Safe’ corridor opening up through Strait of Hormuz: What we know so far
RT | March 20, 2026
Iran has signaled that it is ready to allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz to vessels from certain countries. Media reports and tracker data also suggest that a handful of pre-vetted tankers have already sailed smoothly through the “safe” corridor, with at least one shipping company allegedly paying Iran $2 million.
The development comes as more than 15 tankers have been hit by drones and projectiles in the strait since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February.
As the Middle East escalation has roiled energy markets, the impact of a few tankers passing through has so far remained limited. Brent is still trading well above $100.
Here is what to know about the latest developments in the Strait of Hormuz.
Who is allowed to pass?
In short, not everyone and not everywhere.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that the strait is open to all except the US and Israel, while adding that some ships from “different countries” had already been allowed through. In practice, however, Western-linked vessels face significant hurdles in securing safe passage.
According to Lloyd’s List, India, Pakistan, China, Iraq, and Malaysia are discussing transit plans directly with Tehran, with officials in the first three countries as well as Türkiye confirming clearance.
The Financial Times reported, citing maritime data, that at least eight ships – including oil tankers and bulk carriers tied to India, Pakistan and Greece, as well as Iran’s own fleet – have sailed through the strait but used an unusual route around the island of Larak, which is close to the Iranian coast and where waters are much shallower than in the middle of the strait.
The actual number of ships – some of which may have turned off automatic tracking systems – could be higher, the report said.
According to the FT, at least nine Chinese oil and fuel tankers are also amassing in the Gulf, apparently preparing to traverse the Hormuz Strait.
Clearance is being granted on a case-by-case basis, Lloyd’s List reported, adding that the Iranian authorities are working on a “more formalized vessel approval process” expected in the coming days.
Is it free of charge?
On paper, international transit is not supposed to work like a toll road, but the current situation appears to be evolving under wartime conditions.
Lloyd’s List reported that at least one tanker operator paid about $2 million to transit, while saying it could not establish whether payments were made in other cases. It also remains unclear how such payments could be processed, given the sanctions on Iran.
In addition, several media reports indicated that Iran’s parliament was considering a bill aimed at taxing ships that cross the strait. The Wall Street Journal noted, however, that such a policy would “require a regional buy” from Iran’s Gulf neighbors.
What did Hormuz look like before the war?
Hormuz was one of the world’s busiest and consequential chokepoints, with an average of 20 million barrels a day of crude oil and oil products moved through in 2025, equal to around 25% of global seaborne oil trade. About 80% of the flows went to Asian countries, including China, India, Japan, and South Korea, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
About 93% of Qatar’s LNG exports and 96% of the UAE’s LNG exports also passed through Hormuz, representing roughly 19% of global LNG trade.
Before the war, around 138 vessels transited the strait daily; that figure has now dropped to roughly 3–5 ships per day, according to estimates.
The strait is just 29 nautical miles (54km) wide, with two-mile-wide inbound and outbound shipping lanes separated by a two-mile buffer. Ships using the Larak route must contend with shallower waters than in the central channel, though depths are still generally sufficient for most vessel types.
What impact is this having on energy prices?
The trickle of oil tankers is seemingly having a limited effect on the oil market, with Brent trading at $107 per barrel, down from a peak of almost $120. WTI crude slid from the $100 benchmark to $94.
European natural gas futures (TTF) slightly fell to €60 per MWh after spiking by more than 30% after Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field, triggering a retaliation on energy infrastructure in Qatar.
What does Europe have to say on Hormuz safety?
European leaders have demanded “the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” as well as “de-escalation and maximum restraint” from the belligerents. European NATO members, however, have been reluctant to send their navies to the strait. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his country could help in keeping the shipping lanes clear only when the guns go silent.
What impact on the US?
As oil prices skyrocketed, gasoline prices in the US also soared, reaching $3.90 per gallon on average. US President Donald Trump has sought to downplay the market panic, saying he thought that oil prices would be “much worse,” adding that they were certain to come down once the hostilities end.
In addition, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled that Washington could waive sanctions on the Iranian oil stranded on tankers in a bid to dampen prices. Earlier this week, he also said that the US had been allowing Iranian tankers to transit the strait “to supply the rest of the world.”
Israel’s War on Iran’s Grid: How the South Pars Strike Turned Energy into a Weapon
By Freddie Ponton – 21st Century Wire – March 19, 2026
In the early hours of March 18, Israeli drones tore into four gas‑treatment plants in Assaluyeh on Iran’s southern coast, where sour gas from phases 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the South Pars field is cleaned, separated and turned into the fuel that keeps the country’s lights on, homes heated and factories supplied. Iranian officials ordered the plants offline to contain the fires, and industry analysts immediately warned that production from the offshore platforms feeding those trains would have to be cut back. Within an hour of the strike being reported, European gas prices and Brent crude jumped, because traders understood what most headlines did not. This was not a symbolic hit on an abstract “gas field,” but a deliberate attack on a conversion node at the heart of Iran’s domestic energy system and a critical pillar of the wider Gulf energy order.
At the same time, Donald Trump was on social media threatening that if Iran retaliated again against Qatar’s LNG hub at Ras Laffan, he would “blow up the entirety” of South Pars – the largest gas field on the planet, and interestingly, a reservoir Iran shares with Qatar. The man who joined Israel in authorising the first strikes on Iranian production facilities is now openly dangling the prospect of destroying the shared gas reservoir that keeps tens of millions of people warm, powered and employed. That is not deterrence, only a head of state experimenting in public with the language of total economic annihilation.
Trump’s own Truth Social post about the strike reads like a rambling attempt to distance Washington from the attack while threatening to “blow up the entirety” of South Pars if Iran hits Qatar again. The post deserves closer attention later in this story.
ASSALUYEH: WHERE GAS BECOMES POWER
To see what was attacked in Assaluyeh is to understand that the language matches the target. South Pars itself is the Iranian half of a single, giant reservoir under the Gulf, known as the North Field in Qatar, which together contain around a tenth of the world’s proven gas reserves. Iranian officials say South Pars covers 24 phases and provides between 70–75% of Iran’s gas production, feeding power plants, industry, petrochemical complexes and gasoline production. The gas that makes that possible must pass through places like Assaluyeh, where onshore plants strip out condensate, liquefied petroleum gases and natural gas liquids before returning dry gas to the grid and sending liquids on to refineries and export jetties. Over two decades, the South Pars Special Economic Energy Zone has grown into a dense cluster of processing trains and downstream plants with total gas‑processing capacity on the order of a billion cubic metres per day and around twenty‑one petrochemical units producing close to forty million tonnes per year of urea, methanol, polyethene, and other basic chemicals.
Israel did not attack the offshore reservoir. It attacked the pipes, columns and separators that turn raw gas into power, plastics, fertiliser and fuel. The four targeted plants process sour gas from phases 3, 4, 5 and 6, which are mature, are heavily integrated blocks that feed directly into Iran’s domestic grid and petrochemical system. Shutting those trains, even temporarily, forces operators to throttle back production on the linked platforms and starves downstream complexes of both dry gas and feedstock. In concrete terms, that means less gas available for electricity generation on a grid already prone to summer blackouts, less feed for petrochemical plants that supply everything from fertiliser to plastics, and less condensate flowing through the storage and export facilities that sit alongside the gas plants on the Persian Gulf shore.
Iranian reports speak of powerful explosions at several Assaluyeh facilities, fires around storage tanks and gas units, and workers being evacuated as emergency crews tried to contain the damage. From a planner’s point of view, this is a high‑leverage target: a handful of processing units at the convergence of offshore production and onshore consumption whose disruption sends shockwaves up the supply chain and down into the civilian economy. From the point of view of the people whose houses, factories and hospitals depend on those flows, it looks like something else entirely – an attack on the infrastructure of daily life.
That is the first truth this strike reveals: Israel has shifted from fighting Iran’s armed forces to fighting the country’s energy system, the circulation of fuel that keeps the state conscious.
This is not a one‑off aberration. During the twelve‑day war of June 2025, an earlier Israeli strike hit the Phase 14 processing plant at Assaluyeh, forcing a shutdown and firefighting operation before Iranian engineers brought the plant back online within two weeks. The March 2026 strikes returned to the same nerve centre but widened the cut: instead of Phase 14 alone, the drones went after four plants tied to phases 3–6, which together represent a much larger share of South Pars throughput and a deeper incision into Iran’s ability to turn offshore gas into usable energy. What is being tested here is not just Iran’s repair capacity. It is how much of its gas‑conversion system can be burned down before the political cost becomes untenable.
FROM MILITARY TARGETS TO CIVILIAN PUNISHMENT
The crucial point is that gas in Iran is not a luxury export commodity, but the country’s primary fuel for power generation, industrial heat and residential heating. Well over ninety per cent of the gas Iran produces is consumed domestically, not exported. It keeps homes warm in winter, feeds cement and steel plants, drives turbines in power stations and prevents rolling blackouts on a grid that is already fragile. When you hit Assaluyeh, you are not trimming a few cargoes of condensate to Asia. You are reaching into the core of a domestic energy system that supports nearly ninety million people – the apartment blocks in Tehran that already live with scheduled outages, the small factories in Isfahan that depend on steady voltage to keep lines moving, the provincial hospitals that cannot function when the generators sputter.
Even the outlets trying to normalise the strike cannot entirely avoid that reality. They call South Pars an “energy lifeline”, stress that it powers much of Iran’s electricity system and note that the onshore plants at Assaluyeh are central to separating condensate and LPG from the gas that then runs into Iranian networks. “Energy lifeline” is the language of necessity, not of optional revenue. To choose that target is to choose to tamper with the civilian infrastructure that stands between a functioning society and a rolling crisis of blackouts, shortages and industrial breakdown. “Collective punishment” is usually invoked in the context of bombs on apartment blocks or food embargoes. Here it is delivered through valves and turbines.
It is precisely at this point, when questions of necessity and legitimacy collide, that the recent behaviour of Washington’s own security establishment strips away the alibi that this was a war forced by urgent facts. In a few sentences at a Senate hearing, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers that only the president can decide what is an “imminent threat” from Iran, even as senior aides were warning her that there was no evidence Iran had restarted enrichment or posed an immediate nuclear danger. Two days earlier, Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned, saying in his letter that he could not “in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” that Iran posed “no imminent threat,” and that Israel had pressured the United States into the conflict. Those two moments do not need pages of commentary. Together they are enough: the official charged with guarding the integrity of U.S. intelligence rewrites “threat” as a presidential mood, and the official charged with synthesising terrorist threats walks out saying the war is manufactured.
In other words, while Israeli pilots and U.S. operators are hitting the infrastructure that keeps Iranian civilians alive, the people at the top of the American system are quietly admitting that the supposed emergency justifying those strikes does not exist in the way the public was told. The last line of defence, a reality defined by evidence rather than by political need, has been crossed, and it has been crossed at the exact moment the war shifted from military targets to the machinery of everyday survival.
Trump’s Truth Social statement makes that shift even starker. It is not a clarification, and reads more like a hostage note. South Pars is being turned into collateral for Qatar’s LNG security, and Trump denies U.S. prior knowledge of Israel’s first strike while claiming the right to decide if and when the entire shared field is destroyed. In one message, he signals that the energy backbone of Iran and Qatar is now a bargaining chip Washington is prepared to sacrifice to enforce its war.
That is the second truth of this episode: the war on Iran’s civilian infrastructure is being waged under a definition of “threat” that collapses into whatever the president needs it to be.
Once a president starts talking about “blowing up the entirety” of the field that keeps both Iran and Qatar running, the fiction that this is a contained war collapses.
Exporting the Energy Shock
By treating Iran’s South Pars complex and linked Gulf energy infrastructure as disposable targets, Israel and the United States have not just escalated a regional war; they have shifted the economic pain onto societies that never signed up for this fight, from Turkish households to European workers and Indian farmers now absorbing the fallout.
Turkey: forced into a rigged market
In Turkey, the cost of turning South Pars into a battlefield is already measurable. Analysts note that Iran supplies gas to Turkey by pipeline, and that any prolonged disruption would force buyers to look for replacement cargoes on the LNG market. That “elsewhere” is the spot market, where Asian demand has already begun pulling cargoes away from Europe as importers scramble to replace lost Gulf supply. In practice, a strike pitched as pressure on Iran becomes a higher import bill for a NATO member and another inflationary squeeze on households and industry.
Europe: dragged back toward 2022
In Europe, the impact showed up first on trading screens. After disruption to Qatari LNG output, benchmark gas prices on the Dutch TTF hub jumped by as much as 45%, reaching around €46 per megawatt-hour. Reuters then reported that Asian buyers scrambling for LNG replacement cargoes were already pulling shipments toward Asia, reinforcing the risk of another continental price shock. Europe’s dependence on LNG after cutting Russian pipeline supply means that attacks on South Pars-linked infrastructure in the Gulf do not stay regional for long.
India: paying for a war it did not choose
In India, the blowback is more than theoretical. Government sources told CNBC-TV18 that LPG supplies were already “feeling some heat” as the West Asia conflict disrupted shipping routes and pushed gas prices higher. The same report said Asian LNG prices had risen from about $6–8 per MMBtu to around $15 per MMBtu, while rerouting cargoes from alternative suppliers such as the United States or Norway would take longer. A later report said Indian LPG consumption fell 17.7% in the first half of March because of war-related supply disruption. That is what energy warfare looks like in human terms: shortages, higher costs and forced adjustment by people who had no role in launching the conflict.
China: tested, not insulated
China’s immediate exposure looks smaller on paper, but the same shock still hits Beijing’s energy calculus. Reuters reported that over 80% of Qatar’s LNG exports go to Asia, placing major buyers like China in the line of fire when Gulf supply is disrupted. Another report noted that China was among the key Asian markets exposed as the regional benchmark LNG price surged and traders sought replacement cargoes from farther afield. That leaves Beijing with more buffers than poorer importers, but not immunity from the price shock set off by attacks on Gulf gas infrastructure
WHEN A SHARED FIELD BECOMES A WAR ZONE
If the story stopped at Iran’s shoreline, it would already be devastating. But South Pars does not stop at Iran’s shoreline. The reservoir that feeds Assaluyeh stretches under the Gulf into Qatari waters, where it is known as the North Field and where it supplies Ras Laffan Industrial City, the most important LNG complex on Earth. Before the war, Ras Laffan’s trains exported around 77 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas, with plans underway to expand capacity towards 142 million tonnes by the end of the decade. Alongside LNG, Ras Laffan also produces Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), ethane, condensate and sulphur, and hosts gas‑to‑liquids plants, power stations and desalination units. It is a central hinge in the global energy system, and on the day Iran’s missiles arrived, workers there were told to leave the plant that underwrites their families’ incomes because someone else had decided their shared field was expendable.
Qatar understood immediately what an attack on South Pars meant. Its foreign ministry condemned the strikes as “dangerous and irresponsible,” explicitly reminding the world that the field is geologically continuous with the North Field and warning that targeting infrastructure tied to that reservoir threatens global energy security. It has now gone further, calling Iran’s strike on Ras Laffan a “brutal targeting” of its gas hub, invoking Security Council resolutions and asserting its right to respond under Article 51 of the UN Charter. The United Arab Emirates, normally cautious about public criticism of Israel, issued its own statement that attacks on energy facilities linked to Pars risk catastrophic consequences. Those are not sentimental reactions. They are the reflex of states that suddenly realised the line between “hitting Iran” and “putting our own energy spine in the crosshairs” had effectively vanished.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard then warned that key Gulf facilities had become “direct and legitimate targets” and urged workers to evacuate them before the strike. The list was specific: Ras Laffan; Mesaieed, Qatar’s original deep‑water export port and industrial hub, where gas and condensate are turned into NGLs, refined products, petrochemicals, aluminium and steel; Samref, a more‑than‑400,000‑barrels‑per‑day refinery in Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast with around 13 million barrels of storage; Jubail, the giant refinery‑petrochemical complex in eastern Saudi Arabia running at roughly 440,000 barrels per day and anchored by a 1.5‑million‑tonne‑per‑year ethylene cracker; and Al Hosn in the UAE, a sour‑gas project that processes about a billion cubic feet per day of raw gas, produces roughly half a billion cubic feet per day of sales gas for the Emirati grid and throws off tens of thousands of barrels of condensate and thousands of tonnes of sulphur every day.
In Kuwait, drones struck individual units at the Mina al‑Ahmadi refinery and Mina Abdullah refinery, triggering “limited” fires and forcing operators to temporarily halt parts of their output. Further east, Abu Dhabi’s Habshan gas facilities, already singled out in Iranian warnings, were shut down after debris from intercepted missiles fell on the site, underscoring that Tehran was willing to hit the very installations that underpin its rivals’ domestic energy security.
In other words, Tehran not only threatened but executed multiple strikes, and in the Ras Laffan’s case, it appears the Islamic Republic have struck the same class of conversion assets on Arab shores that Israel and the U.S. had just targeted at Assaluyeh, the plants where raw hydrocarbons become electricity, heating, industrial feedstock and exportable product.
It is crucial to understand that Ras Laffan’s LNG trains, Mesaieed’s NGL and refining complex, Samref’s crude units, Jubail’s crude‑to‑chemicals expansion and Al Hosn’s gas and sulphur trains are all parts of the same nervous system.
When one side authorises attacks on conversion nodes at South Pars, the other side’s answer is not to keep politely to its own coastline. It is to declare that the Gulf’s entire energy architecture is now part of the battlefield.
That is the third truth this strike exposes: by hitting a shared field, Israel and the U.S. have made their own allies’ energy spines part of the target set.
THE ENERGY WAR NOBODY CAN HONESTLY CALL ‘DEFENSE’
Seen from this angle, the Assaluyeh strikes were not a self‑contained tactical move. They were the opening of a new kind of war, a war on conversion infrastructure, that punishes civilians first and drags allies and markets along for the ride. Israel hit the plant that turns Iran’s gas wealth into heat, light and wages; Iran responded in kind by putting the plants that turn Qatar’s, Saudi Arabia’s and the UAE’s hydrocarbons into LNG, petrol and plastics in its sights. Trump then raised the stakes by threatening to “entirely blow up” the shared reservoir that makes all of this possible, as if the energy backbone of two states and a sizeable slice of Europe and Asia’s gas supply were a pawn to be removed from the board to prove a point.
At that stage, the legal and moral mask slips. A campaign that begins as “precision strikes” against military and command targets turns, almost in slow motion, into an assault on the infrastructure that keeps tens of millions of people from freezing, blacking out or losing their jobs, and into a form of extortion against the wider Gulf. In other words, people of Iran are being asked to accept that Iran’s energy lifeline can be bombed with impunity, or watch their own refineries and LNG terminals burn.
Iranian analysts now call this openly what it is, “economic warfare” centered on energy, and warn that destroyed or degraded capacity will worsen electricity shortages and deepen domestic hardship. When the same government waging that campaign has senior officials on record saying the “imminent threat” used to sell the war does not exist as advertised, it becomes very hard to sustain the fiction that this is self‑defense in any meaningful sense.
A war waged under those conditions cannot be sold as “precision.” It can barely, if at all, be sold as self‑defense. What they are doing, in the cold light of Assaluyeh’s burning stacks and Ras Laffan’s flares, looks like a campaign of collective punishment enforced through the energy system of an entire region, and once you see it that way, it becomes very hard to unsee.
Inside the Caucasus Drone Corridor Fueling Tensions With Iran
By Freddie Ponton – 21st Century Wire – March 16, 2026
On March 14, 2026, New Eastern Outlook published a report by journalist Jeffrey Silverman titled “Friendly Skies of Georgia: Are Israeli-Linked Drones Launching False Flags from Georgian Territory?”
“Reports about the possible use of Georgian territory for drone operations…”
In his report, Silverman suggested that the March 5 drone strike on Nakhchivan airport, which was swiftly blamed on Iran before any public forensic record was produced, may have originated from a covert base in Georgia. Even if that specific allegation remains unproven, it points to a darker and more consequential reality in which Israel is deeply embedded in a regional drone and air-defense architecture spanning Georgia and Azerbaijan, one that could be used to manufacture confusion, direct blame toward Tehran, and draw another exposed frontier into Washington and Tel Aviv’s widening war against Iran.
Friendly Skies, Dark Architecture
Silverman did not prove that the drone, which struck Nakhchivan airport on March 5, took off from Kobuleti or a restricted airstrip near Lagodekhi in Georgia, and he did not publish the kind of forensic record that would settle that allegation beyond dispute. What matters more is the architecture his report exposes. By the time Azerbaijan blamed Iran for the strike, Georgia and Azerbaijan had already formalised direct unmanned/uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) cooperation, while Israel was deeply entrenched in the air-defense, radar, and command systems that shape how both states see the sky, classify threats, and assign responsibility.
That is why this story matters. It is not really about one secret runway or one speculative launch site. It is about a regional military architecture in which Israel supplied drone platforms, helped structure radar integration, shaped command-and-control logic, trained operators, and embedded itself in the software and doctrine that govern how threats are detected, classified, prioritised, and politically narrated from Georgia to Azerbaijan. In the middle of a widening war, while Iranian officials were publicly warning that the United States and Israel were using copied or misattributed drone attacks to frame Tehran and broaden the conflict, that architecture turned Silverman’s theory from an unproven allegation into a deeply plausible scenario.
The March 5 public record only sharpens that concern. In a March 5 statement, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said the attack occurred around midday, that one drone struck the terminal of Nakhchivan International Airport, that another fell near a school in Shakarabad, and that two civilians were injured. State-linked reporting later added that the prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case, described the UAVs as carrying remotely controlled explosive warheads, and said the disruption forced flight 264 from Nakhchivan to Baku to return for safety reasons. Those details make the incident more concrete, but they also show how quickly the political and legal narrative solidified around attribution before the public was shown anything close to a full forensic record.
Israel’s code in Georgian airspace
Georgia’s military drone sector was built in close cooperation with Israel, a fact that should be treated as foundational rather than incidental. Before and during the 2008 war, Georgia acquired Elbit Hermes-450 drones, operated them over contested territory, and lost several in combat according to a UN Security Council report, establishing that Israeli UAV technology was not a procurement sideshow but part of Georgia’s actual warfighting infrastructure. A Hermes-450 is not just an airframe; it depends on launch-and-recovery procedures, ground-control stations, data links, sensor exploitation, trained operators, maintenance cycles, and mission-management architecture that ties the platform to the wider command system. From the start, Georgia’s unmanned capability was being shaped not just by Israeli hardware but by Israeli operational logic.
That relationship evolved into something even more consequential after 2008.
As a Caspian Policy Center report noted in September 2020, Georgia signed agreements with Rafael and Elbit to modernise air-defense assets, upgrade electronic systems, retrain personnel, and move key capabilities toward NATO standards. Rafael’s Spyder-family architecture matters here because it is not just a launcher with missiles attached to it, but also a radar-linked, software-driven system that combines sensor inputs, battle-management logic, target prioritisation, and rapid engagement against aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, and loitering munitions. External technical reporting on Spyder emphasises centralised command logic, multi-target handling, and fused air-picture generation, while Rafael’s own product material presents the system as a mobile, integrated air-defense family rather than a stand-alone interceptor.
That technical detail is not window dressing. It explains why the debate over a “secret base” can miss the more important issue. Israel does not need a flag over a Georgian runway to exercise meaningful influence over Georgian airspace behaviour if Israeli-linked firms already help build the radar integration, software logic, sensor fusion, operator training, and threat-classification routines through which Georgian personnel decide what is visible, what is suspicious, and what can be ignored. In a deniable operation, that layer is decisive, because the central question is not only where a drone takes off, but how the system along its route recognises it, how quickly it is promoted from clutter to threat, and who controls the doctrinal assumptions built into that judgment.
This architecture did not emerge overnight. As early as 2012, Rick Rozoff warned in Voltaire Network that under Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia was being refashioned into a U.S.-aligned military outpost through NATO war deployments, base modernisation, and growing strategic utility to Washington, while the country was already surfacing in discussions of possible logistical or operational support for a future strike on Iran. That warning should not be treated as proof of the March 5 Nakhchivan operation, but it does expose the deeper genealogy of the system now in place: Georgia was being positioned more than a decade ago as a frontier platform in wars planned far beyond its borders.
Georgia’s integration into NATO’s Regional Airspace Security Programme sharpens that point instead of weakening it. In an NCIA report on Georgia’s entry into the NATO Regional Airspace Security Programme, the agency said Georgian air-traffic data could be ingested into the RASP information-exchange environment through EUROCONTROL’s Civil-Military ATM Coordination Tool, or CIMACT, supporting constant connectivity, air-picture exchange, early notification of incidents, direct operator coordination, and identification support for air defense. In practical terms, that means Georgian airspace is increasingly managed through a shared civil-military coordination environment designed to fuse traffic data, security events, and operational responses across borders. But systems like CIMACT do not abolish the physics of drone detection. Open-source technical literature and regional reporting both show that low-altitude, small-radar-cross-section drones remain difficult to detect and classify in mountainous or cluttered terrain because radar horizon, terrain masking, ground clutter, and weak signatures compress the window for reliable identification.
That is precisely what creates a false-flag-friendly environment. A peer-reviewed paper on low-slow-small target detection describes drones as low-altitude, slow-speed, small-radar-cross-section targets that are difficult to detect and classify among birds and other biological targets, especially when conventional radars face weak signatures and cluttered surveillance volumes.
If a drone flies low through edge sectors or terrain-shadowed corridors, the first challenge for the radar network is not interception but recognition: distinguishing a weak, late-emerging track from birds, clutter, benign traffic, or fragmented returns. The second challenge is prioritisation inside the command-and-control layer, because a fused air picture does not treat every object equally; it ranks tracks according to altitude, speed, heading, signature, and threat libraries built into the software and training regime.
When Israeli-linked firms help define that regime, they are not merely selling Georgia hardware. They are helping shape the logic by which ambiguity is sorted into action or inaction.
Azerbaijan’s Israeli-built battlespace
If Georgia provides one side of the corridor, Azerbaijan provides the other, and here the Israeli footprint is even deeper. As an Institut FMES study of the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship details, Azerbaijan has spent decades building military-technical ties with Israel that include observation drones, tactical drones, loitering munitions, missiles, mapping support, and an air bridge through Turkish and Georgian airspace during wartime supply operations. That matters because a state that buys this many Israeli platforms is not just purchasing equipment; it is also importing maintenance pipelines, operator doctrine, mission-planning habits, software ecosystems, and deeper institutional assumptions about how the battlespace is seen and fought.
Two Israeli systems are central to the Nakhchivan story. The first is Barak-MX, the layered air-defense architecture sold to Azerbaijan with interceptors and battle-management functions designed to engage UAVs, cruise missiles, and aircraft across multiple ranges. The second is Sky Dew, the high-altitude aerostat-based AESA radar platform procured by Azerbaijan to detect low-flying threats over long distances, including drones and cruise-missile-type targets. Sky Dew’s value lies in elevating the sensor above ground clutter and extending the line of sight, while Barak-MX gives the battlespace a layered interception logic. Together, they form more than a shield. They form an Israeli-coded interpretation system for airspace.
And yet even this system is not all-seeing. AESA radars improve clutter rejection, update rates, and multi-target tracking, but technical analysis also stresses that low-RCS targets near the ground remain difficult because no single sensor mode can reliably solve the problem across all terrain, weather, and altitude conditions. Multi-band fusion, advanced signal processing, and automatic target recognition help, but weak returns, terrain interference, and short detection windows still leave room for uncertainty.
That uncertainty is politically explosive in Nakhchivan’s geography, because a drone detected late near the Iranian frontier does not enter a neutral interpretive space. It enters an Azerbaijani battlespace already conditioned by Israeli systems, Israeli threat models, and an official narrative primed to see Iran as the source of the attack.
The March 5 public narrative illustrates that danger with unusual clarity. In its March 5 report, Euronews cited Azerbaijani claims that “technical monitoring systems” confirmed four UAVs belonging to Iran had been directed toward Nakhchivan to carry out attacks. But the public-facing record reviewed here did not include the underlying radar tracks, telemetry, launch coordinates, signal intercepts, or debris analysis that would allow outsiders to test that conclusion independently. Instead, the public was asked to accept a technical verdict without public technical disclosure, in a battlespace already filtered through Israeli-linked detection and attribution architecture.
The inconsistencies in the public record make that even more important. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry described two drones and two injured civilians, while a U.S. Embassy security alert referred to an unknown number of drones striking the exclave around noon, and Reuters reported four injured. OC Media’s coverage also placed the airport less than 10 kilometres from the Iranian border and referenced footage showing smoke, a separate small blast, and terminal damage, but none of that amounts to a released forensic chain of origin. The issue, then, is not whether every radar return was fabricated. It is when Israel helps build the Georgian-side surveillance environment and also helps build the Azerbaijani-side detection and attribution environment that it effectively occupies both ends of the interpretive chain through which a late-detected drone can become an Iranian attack.
The October 2025 drone bridge
The strongest institutional clue in this investigation is not Kobuleti, and it is not Lagodekhi. It is the formal drone bridge created between Georgia and Azerbaijan in October 2025. In an official Azerbaijani Defense Ministry readout, Baku said a Georgian Ministry of Defense delegation visited for an “exchange of experience in the field of UAVs” and was briefed on Azerbaijani UAV activity, combat use, combat-flight organisation, and wider development trends. Those are not vague diplomatic pleasantries. They are the language of direct operational transfer. “Combat operations” and “organisation of combat flights” mean mission planning, route design, sortie sequencing, deconfliction, command routines, and the practical management of drones in wartime airspace. Because Azerbaijan’s UAV ecosystem is already deeply Israeli-linked, that meeting meant Georgian officials were being exposed to an Israeli-shaped combat-drone model only months before the Nakhchivan incident.
This is the emotional and analytical centre of the story because it turns parallel procurement into shared practice. Once that bridge existed, the regional picture changed. The issue was no longer only that Israel had technical reach into both states. The issue was that Georgia and Azerbaijan were actively aligning how they think about drone warfare across the very corridor now shadowed by false-flag allegations. That creates shared familiarity with routes, signatures, mission planning, and combat-flight logic, which lowers the friction for any cross-border drone activity that needs to move through Georgian space and arrive inside Azerbaijani airspace without triggering immediate institutional disbelief.
Corridor politics and verdict
Turkey completes the corridor. The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) has described Georgian airspace as a conduit for traffic supporting Azerbaijan, including flows tied to Turkish and Israeli strategic interests, while the South Caucasus route became even more important as the Middle East conflict rerouted more traffic across Türkiye, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Georgian airport infrastructure is tied to Turkish management networks, which gives Ankara leverage over the transit environment and helps normalise the corridor as a connected operational channel rather than a set of isolated national airspaces. In wartime, normalisation is half the game. What moves routinely moves invisibly.
The wider war context makes that normalisation more dangerous. Iranian officials publicly warned that the United States and Israel were using copied or rebranded drones, including the so-called “Lucas” platform, to stage attacks and frame Tehran, while calling for joint investigations into suspicious incidents. Whether one accepts those allegations in full is not the point. The point is that the Nakhchivan incident unfolded in a battlespace where attribution itself had already become a weapon.
That weaponised atmosphere is also visible in how quickly outside governments aligned behind the Azerbaijani narrative. France publicly condemned what it called an Iranian drone strike in a Foreign Ministry statement, while Turkey did the same in a March 5 statement from its Foreign Ministry. The incident was therefore internationalised almost immediately, even though the public record still showed inconsistencies in drone counts, injuries, and the technical basis for attribution.
Jeffrey K. Silverman did not prove that a drone launched from Georgian territory struck near Nakhchivan airport. His most specific launch-site claims remain unproven. But the deeper investigation leads to a verdict that is, in some ways, more damning than his original article. Israel has embedded itself in the air-defense, radar, software, training, and command architectures of both Georgia and Azerbaijan. Georgia and Azerbaijan then formalised direct UAV cooperation focused on combat use, combat missions, and the organisation of combat flights only months before the Nakhchivan incident. Georgia, meanwhile, was being drawn deeper into a NATO-linked RASP/CIMACT airspace-management environment built around air-picture exchange, incident notification, and civil-military coordination, even as the known technical limits of low-altitude drone detection left room for ambiguity in mountainous border sectors.
That does not close the criminal case. It closes the plausibility argument. Israel may not need a secret base in Georgia if it already helped build the surveillance logic, the target-classification regime, the command-and-control environment, and the cross-border drone corridor governing both ends of the route. That is the real meaning of the Georgia-Azerbaijan drone bridge and the dual Israeli footprint uncovered here.
The route does not have to be proven in full to understand the structure behind it. The structure is already visible, and it points to an Israeli-built architecture of plausible deniability running straight through the South Caucasus.
When Tel Aviv decides, Washington fights
By Jamal Kanj | MEMO | March 9, 2026
American taxpayers are still hemorrhaging from the made-for-Israel war in Iraq, a war audaciously offered as one that would “pay for itself.” Instead, it was paid in Iraqi and American blood, ruins and financed by American debt. The promised democracy was a broken state, regional chaos, and the afterbirth of terror and resistance that continues to metastasize across the Arab world. Marketed as a short, decisive campaign, Iraq became a two-decade-long disaster with no exit in sight. Trillions were burned on lies manufactured by Israel-first Zionists in Washington, while generations of Americans—many not even born when the invasion began—were conscripted into inheriting the debt, the interest, and the moral stain.
The real balance sheet of that war is etched into nearly 5,000 American tombstones and the endless corridors of veterans’ hospitals. Before that blood-soaked bill is even paid, the very same architect, using the same lies, has succeeded again in dragging the U. S. into another made-for-Israel war, this time against Iran. Iraq was not an aberration; it was a rehearsal. Yet, Iran doesn’t appear to be the final act on the Israeli menu. In recent weeks, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett declared that Turkey is next. And it is the U.S., not Israel, that is expected to keep paying for wars, America neither needed nor chose.
The evidence of who set the clock of this war is unmistakable. The most revealing admission did not come from Tehran, Moscow, or Beijing, but from the U.S. State Department. In an unguarded moment, the U.S. Secretary of State admitted that the timing of this war was not an American choice. This became painfully clear when the State Department was caught unprepared to help evacuate tens of thousands of Americans from the war zone.
As U.S. ambassadors hurried to evacuate their staff and families, desperate citizens were told their government could not assist and were advised to arrange their own departures, after airports had already closed.
This is not a minor detail. It’s a government that is willing to sacrifice the well-being and security of its citizens by joining a war decided by someone else. It goes to the heart of sovereignty and democratic accountability. A nation that chooses to go to war prepares its people, its diplomacy, and its logistics. A nation that is dragged into war improvises and hopes for the best.
Iran, for its part, is not the caricature often presented by the American Secretary of War and Donald Trump. It is a country prepared for drawn-out conflict and strategic patience. During the nearly eight-year Iran-Iraq War, Tehran fought a grinding, no-win war against a better-armed adversary. Against the expectations of Western military analysts, Iran endured. In a grim irony, it even committed the greatest of all sins: purchasing weapons from Israel, falling into Tel Aviv’s cynical strategy to weaken both Baghdad and Tehran simultaneously. Israel was willing to arm its supposed arch-enemy as part of its broader calculus of exhaustion and division.
That history matters today. Iran has demonstrated, repeatedly, a willingness to absorb punishment, and extend conflicts over time. At the end of the day, and by all means necessary, Iran is unlikely to surrender. In a protracted war of attrition to bleed the world economy, Tehran could move to close the Strait of Hormuz, an oil blood line for world economies. Iran may be economically battered, and it has been for decades under severe sanctions, but that very weakness reduces its restraint. A country with little left to lose is more inclined to impose pain on others, including Western and neighboring welfare oil economies dependent on uninterrupted energy exports.
Meanwhile, regional instability in the Gulf and prolonged American entanglement create the perfect parasitic symbiosis for Israel: a state that flourishes in the shadows of regional chaos like a scavenger thriving on the scrap of a landfill.
President Trump has suggested escorting oil shipments in the Strait to keep the oil flowing. The macho bravado may play well on television or for the stock market, but history, old and recent, offers daunting realities. The same was attempted during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s but failed. More recently, the U.S., the EU, and Israel combined failed to force a much smaller and poorer country—Yemen—to open the Red Sea. After months of bombardment, siege and naval pressure, Washington was forced into negotiations, and even then, Yemeni forces continued to block vessels linked to Israel until Gaza ceasefire.
The comparison is useful. The shorelines area under the Houthi control of the Red Sea (green map in the link) in the north of Yemen, is a much wider maritime passage. The Strait of Hormuz, by contrast, is so narrow in a clear day each shore is visible from the other. To borrow a simple image, in the Houthi area the width of the Red Sea is an Amazon River and where Hormuz is a stream. The narrowness of the Hormuz Strait makes control easier for Iran and exposes the vulnerability of U.S. naval ships. Before promising to escort commercial shipping, a responsible administration should ask a basic question: if a small, impoverished Yemen could not be subdued by the world’s most powerful militaries, how exactly will American warships be safer under the reach of fire in the narrower Strait?
There is another question Washington refuses to entertain: How will Americans feel when they realize they are risking lives, ships, and economic stability largely to advance Israel’s sole strategic objectives?
This is not an abstract question. It is a political and economic reckoning, purposefully delayed. Especially since Americans are still reeling from the cost of previous Israeli wars, and now, they are asked to take on a new national debt—$200 billion—to bankroll yet another war, especially made for Israel.
The made-for-Israel wars may have begun in Iraq but will not end with Iran. Israeli false flags are poised to provoke further escalations designed to entrap even states traditionally friendly to Tehran, such as Oman. For Israel, victory remains incomplete unless it drags Gulf Arab states into open confrontation with Iran, hardening divisions that may last generations. Iranian mistrust of the Gulf Arabs would likely endure even in the event of regime change. In this calculus, Israel “wins” not only on the battlefield, but by entrenching lasting hostility between Iran and the Arab world, ensuring a permanently fragmented region.
More than two decades ago, the illegal war against Iraq was cooked in the dens of the Pentagon by Israel-first ideologues and sold to the American public through the managed media, ruse and weapons of mass deception. The current war is, in some ways, even more brazen. It was exclusively designed in the war ministry offices of Tel Aviv, and Trump obliged.
This is not America’s war. The decision was made elsewhere, and timed elsewhere, fought on behalf of someone else to serve the strategic objectives of a foreign country. Washington has subordinated the American national interest to the tribal agenda of Israeli-firsters inside the Beltway. Simply put: Tel Aviv chooses the war, and Washington pays the bill.
Calls for the reconfiguration of military arrangements in the Gulf region
By Thembisa Fakude | MEMO | March 8, 2026
The former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani called for the formation of a strategic defence alliance bringing together Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan. Al Thani has described it as an “urgent need” in light of developments and changing regional and international dynamics. He made this call weeks before the attack on Iran by Israel and the US on 28th February 2026. It is not the first time Israel attacked Iran whilst in negotiations.
In June 2025 Israel attacked Iran whilst it was it was negotiating its nuclear program with the US. Iran retaliated with hundreds of missiles and drones targeting Israeli cities and the US military base in Al Udeid in Doha, Qatar. Al Udeid is the largest US military base in the Gulf region. In September 2025 Hamas leadership was attacked in Qatar by Israel whilst meeting to consider a ceasefire proposal from the US on the war on Gaza.
Qatar has spent billions of US dollars on US’s weapons and military hardware including a huge investment at the Al Udeid military base. It is estimated that Qatar has spent over 19 billion USD over time in Al Udeid. Notwithstanding, Qatar has remained vulnerable from external military attacks and its sovereignty has been compromised over the past months.
On 28 February 2026, the US and Israel started launching unprovoked attacks on Iran. They killed the Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei and over 180 school girls at the Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the city of Minab in the early stages of the attack. Iran retaliated to the attacks by firing hundreds of drones to Israeli cities and US military installations in the Gulf.
The US and Israel have called for a regime change in Iran. Speaking to the media on 5th March 2026, Donald Trump said “he wants to be involved in picking up the next leadership in Iran”. Iran has vowed not to allow foreign interference in their politics including how its leadership is elected. Such rhetoric from the president of the US presents a threat to the political process in Iran. Moreover, Trump’s hope and ambition that the US can come into Iran, impose its political will and preference and still have a stable Iran is farfetched and dangerous. It could lead to political instability in Iran and indeed the region. Iran has suffered tremendous infrastructural and leadership devastation already in this conflict. However, its government has vowed to continue fighting and judging by how it has resisted over the past couple of days since the start of this war, it is unlikely to collapse.
Secondly, the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he wants to eliminate all threats to Israel in the region including obliterating Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas and Hezbollah have refused to disarm and are both showing signs of recovering from the devastating war on Gaza. The recent attacks of Israel by Hezbollah in retaliation to the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei, caught Israel and many in the world by surprise. After heavy bombardment and killing of its leadership by Israel over the past 24 months, they are still capable of sending missiles and drones hitting their targets in Israel. Likewise, Hamas – who got praised by Trump – for their great work in helping to allocate the dead bodies of the Israeli captives in Gaza – are still governing Gaza.
Notwithstanding the devastation of Iran and the killing of its leadership, its political infrastructure is likely to endure. However, as long as the government of Iran continues to function, with all its current political infrastructural framework, it will continue to be targeted by Israel. Moreover, Hamas, Hezbollah have not disarmed. The Houthis in Yemen continue to attack US and Israeli interests in the Red Sea. Basically, notwithstanding the military attacks on these organisations and Iran, they are still standing albeit weaker. This means the “threats” to Israel remain, it also means that future conflicts between Israel and the US on one hand and Iran will continue as long as both Israel and the US refuse to accept the status quo. This reality brings us back to what the former prime minister of Qatar raised i.e., the strategic defence alliance in the region. Second, a need for the reconfiguration of the military arrangement in the region. The recent unprovoked attacks on Iran and its subsequent retaliation have added a momentum to these discussions. The attacks have also raised questions about the significance of the presence of US’s military bases in the region. Particularly, whether countries in the region should continue having strategic military partnerships with the US? Iran has insisted that US military bases in the region are legitimate targets and it will continue targeting them in retaliation and in defense of their people and sovereignty.
The conclusion therefore is that unless there is a reconfiguration of the security arrangements in the region, the US and Israel are likely to attack Iran again. Iran is likely to retaliate in the manner it is currently doing, targeting both Israel and US’s bases and infrastructure in the region. Iran has repeatedly said “it is not targeting its friendly neighbors rather the interests and assets of the US and Israel in the region”. Consequently, Gulf countries hosting these bases will continue to be targeted by Iran.
“Burnt Bridges”: Why Trump’s Plan to Use Kurds Against Iran Is Doomed to Fail
By Mohammed ibn Faisal al-Rashid – New Eastern Outlook – March 7, 2026
Following a series of devastating U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran is engulfed in uncertainty. However, the White House, facing the prospect of a ground operation in mountainous terrain, is betting on an old, tested, but extremely risky tool—Kurdish forces. The Donald Trump administration views the Kurds as ideal “cannon fodder” to ignite a civil war in Iran. But will this plan work? Given Trump’s history of betrayals, deceit, and cynical pragmatism, the attempt to play the Kurdish card might not only fail but could also backfire on the United States itself.
A Proxy Army for a Big War
While the U.S. Air Force continues to bomb Iranian cities and Donald Trump boasts about destroying the enemy’s navy, Washington is soberly assessing the risks. Sending thousands of American soldiers into Iran would be political suicide for a president who promised voters an end to “endless wars.” Analysts agree: the U.S. will not launch a full-scale invasion like in Iraq or Afghanistan due to the mountainous terrain, the risk of high casualties, and a lack of public support.
A solution was quickly found. As early as March 4th, the South Korean publication Donga Ilbo reported that thousands of Kurdish fighters had begun a ground offensive into Iran from Iraqi territory. According to Fox News and CNN, cited by the publication, the operation is coordinated with active participation from the CIA, which is providing weapons and equipment.
But is this really the case? Currently, data on a massive invasion by thousands of Kurdish fighters is contradictory.
The scenario appears logical: The Kurds, who make up about 10% of Iran’s population (approximately 9 million people), have historically faced discrimination within the Shia theocracy. They are concentrated in the western provinces bordering Iraq, making them an ideal foothold. Kurdish parties based in Iraqi Kurdistan have already united into the “Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan,” establishing a unified military command.
Israel: Old Ties and New Opportunities
The role of Israel deserves special attention. Tel Aviv has long-standing, complex but generally positive relations with Kurdish movements, viewing them as a natural counterweight to hostile Arab and Iranian regimes. In the current conflict, Israel has taken on the role of “igniter.” According to Middle East Eye, the Israeli Air Force is striking positions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) precisely in Iran’s western provinces, effectively preparing a corridor for the advancement of Kurdish forces.
According to experts, Israeli strategists are actively exploring the option of using Iranian Kurds (specifically groups like PAK, linked to the PKK) as manpower instead of American soldiers. For Israel, this is an opportunity to inflict maximum damage on its primary enemy without getting bogged down in a protracted ground conflict. The calculation is that the Kurdish national movement could become the “Trojan horse” capable of exploding Iran from within.
However, a fundamental contradiction lies here: the interests of Israel and the U.S. are often situational. And if Washington decides its goals are achieved, the Kurds could once again be left alone to face an enraged adversary.
“I Don’t Like the Kurds”: A Bloody History of Betrayals
This is precisely where Trump’s plan begins to unravel. To understand why the Kurds are unlikely to become a pliable tool in the White House’s hands, one need only look at Trump’s relationship with these people.
As early as 2020, the world learned shocking details from the memoirs of former National Security Advisor John Bolton. According to Bolton, Trump stated in a small circle, “I don’t like the Kurds. They run from the Iraqis, they run from the Turks. The only time they don’t run is when we’re bombing everything around them with F-18s.” This statement isn’t mere rudeness; it’s the quintessence of Trump’s approach: he despises those he considers weak and feels no moral obligation towards allies.
The most cynical example was the betrayal of the Syrian Kurds in October 2019. Trump then ordered the withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria, effectively giving a “green light” to the Turkish invasion. The Kurds, who had lost 11,000 fighters battling ISIS and were America’s only reliable partner on the ground, were abandoned to their fate. American officers on the ground were shocked: “They trusted us, and we betrayed that trust,” one of them told The New Arab at the time.
The “1991 Syndrome” is also vivid in Kurdish memory. Then, President George H.W. Bush called on Iraqi Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein but abandoned them when the uprising began, allowing the regime’s army to brutally crush the rebellion with helicopters. Now, this nightmare seems poised to repeat itself in Iran.
Can the U.S. Ignite a Civil War in Iran?
Formally, the prerequisites for unrest exist. Besides ethnic Kurds, Iran is home to disaffected Baluch, Azeris, and Arabs. Following the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the initial strikes, a power vacuum could emerge in the country. The White House has already openly stated its readiness to deal with a “new government” and is discussing who should lead Iran after regime change.
Trump personally called on Iranian diplomats worldwide to seek asylum, promising to help “form a new, better Iran.” It would seem this is the moment of truth: Kurds and other minorities should rise up and overthrow the hated regime.
But reality is more complex.
Fear of History Repeating. As analyst Oral Toga noted in a comment to Middle East Eye, the fact that the U.S. abandoned the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will serve as a lesson for Kurds in Iraq and Iran. “The airstrikes will end someday, but Tehran will remain there forever,” he reminds us.
Lack of Strategy. The U.S. and Israel have no clear vision for Iran’s future. Do they want a unitary state, a federation, or the complete disintegration of the country? Using the Kurds as a battering ram without guaranteeing them autonomy or protection after the war would condemn the region to a bloodbath. The Kurdish leaders themselves understand this. As activist Golaleh Sharafkandi stated, “We have a political program supported by an army, not the other way around.”
Regional Opposition. The creation of a new Kurdish zone of influence in northern Iran would be opposed not only by Iran but also by Turkey and even Azerbaijan, which see it as a threat to their sovereignty and a risk of separatism. Ankara already brutally suppresses any pro-Kurdish movements near its borders. Azerbaijan, which has strategic relations with Turkey and Israel, has already expressed condolences to Iran and called for peace, fearing destabilization.
Operational Difficulties. Several sources, including the Turkish agency Anadolu, report that the information about the offensive has been denied or clarified. The Kurdish factions themselves deny starting a full-scale invasion, and Iranian media report that the border is under control. The groups ready to fight number, by various estimates, between 8,000 and 10,000 people—insufficient to conquer territory without direct air support and U.S. special forces, which Trump is not yet ready to provide.
Dreams of a Caliphate and the Bitter Truth
Donald Trump’s attempt to use the Kurds as a match to ignite the powder keg of Iran appears to be an adventure based on a denial of reality. Yes, the Kurds hate the Ayatollahs’ regime. Yes, they want autonomy and rights. But they do not want to once again become bargaining chips in a high-stakes game where their physical survival is on the line.
Trump has already twice demonstrated his true attitude towards Kurdish allies—in Iraq and Syria. A third time could be the last, not for the American president’s reputation, but for hundreds of thousands of civilians who would find themselves caught between the hammer of the Iranian army and the anvil of American geopolitical ambitions. The Kurdish leaders, united in a coalition, understand perfectly well: when the situation gets hot, the White House might once again throw up its hands and say, “This is not our war.”
Therefore, despite the loud headlines and CIA leaks, the active use of Kurds in full-scale combat operations is unlikely. Kurds might try to expand their autonomy amidst the chaos, but playing the role of a disciplined U.S. proxy army that can be unleashed on Tehran and then written off—they won’t buy that anymore. The price of trust in America under Trump has proven too high, and paying off those debts may take decades.
Muhammad ibn Faisal al-Rashid, political scientist, expert on the Arab world
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Iran pledges to ‘respect sovereignty of neighbors’, declares US-Israel assets ‘primary targets’
The Cradle | March 7, 2026
The Iranian armed forces warned that US and Israeli military installations across the region remain legitimate targets, as officials seek to ease tensions with neighboring countries.
“Should the previous hostile actions continue, all military bases and interests of criminal America and the fake Zionist regime on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets and will come under the powerful and crushing strikes of the mighty armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement on Saturday.
The warning came alongside a declaration by Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters that Iranian forces “respect the national interests and sovereignty of neighboring countries” and “have not carried out any act of aggression against them.”
Nevertheless, military officials emphasized that installations used by the US or Israel to launch attacks against Iran remain fair game. Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim Zolfaghari said that at least 21 US personnel have been killed and many more injured in attacks on the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet infrastructure, while additional casualties occurred during strikes on Al-Dhafra Air Base.
He also said Iranian forces targeted a US-owned oil tanker in the northern Persian Gulf.
Earlier in the day, President Masoud Pezeshkian announced that Iran’s interim leadership council had ordered the armed forces to cease striking neighboring countries unless attacks originate from their territory.
“The temporary leadership council approved yesterday that neighboring countries should no longer be targeted and missiles should not be fired unless an attack on Iran originates from those countries,” Pezeshkian said in a pre-recorded address.
Pezeshkian’s statement was made amid increasing tensions over regional airspace with Iran’s neighboring countries.
Turkish authorities claimed this week that NATO missile defenses intercepted a ballistic projectile allegedly launched from Iran that crossed Iraqi and Syrian airspace before approaching the northwestern Syria-Turkiye border.
In Azerbaijan, officials accused Tehran of launching a drone attack that struck the Nakhchivan airport terminal, prompting President Ilham Aliyev to warn Iran “will regret it,” while Iranian authorities denied involvement.
Tehran vehemently denied involvement in either of these attacks.
Saudi journalist Adhwan al-Ahmari said in a recent interview with Asharq News that “not all attacks” targeting Gulf states come from Iran, warning the war could be “an American-Israeli trap to implicate the Gulf countries and draw them into a confrontation with Iran.”
Iranian officials told Middle East Eye (MEE) that some recent drone strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure were not carried out by Tehran, with one official describing the attack on Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura facility as “an Israeli effort to sabotage regional peace and alliances between neighbours.”
“I can categorically say that some of the attacks were not carried out by us [Iran],” the anonymous official told MEE.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman have all sustained strikes within their territories due to the presence of US assets within their borders.
Iranian Armed Forces say no missile fired from Iran into Turkey
Press TV – March 5, 2026
Iran’s Armed Forces say they did not fire any missiles into Turkey, stressing Tehran’s respect for the neighboring country’s territorial integrity.
“The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran dismiss firing any missile into Turkey,” the Chief Staff of the Armed Forces said in a statement on Thursday.
It added that the Iranian Armed Forces respect the sovereignty of the neighboring and friendly country of Turkey.
The statement came after Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense claimed that NATO air defense systems had destroyed a ballistic missile fired from Iran and heading into Turkish airspace.
The ministry announced on Wednesday that the missile was shot down after passing over Syria and Iraq. The target of the missile has not been determined.
Incirlik Air Base, located in Turkey, is under the control of the country’s air force and operates as a joint Turkish-US airbase.
It is used by foreign military forces, mainly the US and other NATO allies.
Incirlik was a key logistics and air support site for US-led operations in Iraq during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and later as a cargo hub for Iraq and Afghanistan operations.
Iran is defending itself against an uprovoked US-Israeli aggression that started last Saturday. Iranian armed forces have launched multiple drone and missile operations against US military assets across the region since the start of the war.
Israeli Opposition Leader Endorses Greater Israel
The Dissident | February 24, 2026
U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, sparked major backlash during his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, where he openly endorsed the idea of a Greater Israel, stating that “it would be fine” if Israel took large swaths of the Middle East.
In damage control mode, Zionists attempted to paint Huckbee’s claims as fringe or extreme within Israel, but Israel’s opposition leader , Yair Lapid, has confirmed that the prospect of an expansionist Greater Israel is supported even by the more supposedly “liberal” wing of the Israeli political spectrum.
When asked, “The Ambassador Huckabee said this week, and we know the extent of the American administration on the government here, that he supports Israeli control from the Euphrates to the Nile, this means [control] over Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, do you support it or do you think this should be stopped?”, Lapid replied, “I don’t think I have a dispute on the biblical level [about] what the original borders of Israel are.”
Lapid went on to endorse massive Israeli expansion, saying, “support anything that will allow the Jews [to have] a big, vast, strong land, and a safe shelter for us, for our children, and for our children’s children. That’s what I support” adding, “However possible” when asked “How vast?”.
When further asked, “Until Iraq?” Lapid replied, “The discussion is a security discussion. The fact that we are in our ancestral land… Yesh Atid’s position is as follows: Zionism is based on the bible. Our mandate of the land of Israel is biblical. The biblical borders of Israel are clear. There are also considerations of security, of policy, and of time. We were in exile for 2,000 years… you don’t really want all this lecture, right? At least you were not waiting for it… The answer is: there are practical considerations here. Beyond the practical considerations, I believe that our ownership deed over the land of Israel is the bible, therefore the borders are the biblical borders”.
Lapid even advocated that Israel take “as much as possible” of Greater Israel, saying, “Fundamentally, the great, big and vast Israel, as much as possible within the limitations of Israeli security and considerations of Israeli policy”.
Similarly, Benjamin Netanyahu has previously stated that he “subscribed to a ‘vision’ for a ‘Greater Israel’” and “very much”, “felt connected to the ‘Greater Israel’ vision”.
Israeli officials have long been clear that their end goal in Gaza and the West Bank has been total ethnic cleansing and annexation, with Israel’s Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel admitting , “we will make Gaza unlivable for humans until the population leaves, and then we will do the same for the West Bank”.
But Yair Lapid’s comments show that across the spectrum from Netanyahu to his “liberal” opposition, Israel has expansionist ambitions beyond Gaza and the West Bank, and wants to take “as much as possible” of Greater Israel.
Israel ‘dictating terms’ to US – Turkish professor
Washington is following the Jewish State’s demands on Iran and the Middle East as a whole, Hasan Unal has told RT
RT | February 18, 2026
Israel is effectively dictating US foreign policy, particularly on Iran and the wider Middle East, in a way that is historically unprecedented for a global superpower, a Turkish international relations professor has told RT.
Hasan Unal, who teaches at Baskent University in Ankara, spoke to RT’s Rick Sanchez this week about what he described as a highly unusual power imbalance between Israel and the US.
”We are living in a world now where a small country like Israel is dictating terms to a superpower like the United States on anything and everything, particularly anything pertaining to Israel and to the Middle East,” he said, calling the situation “totally unacceptable.”
Unal added that some analysts have even described it as an “occupation” of US policymaking by Israel, a characterization he said was “almost true.”
He went on to say that pro-Israel lobby influence and the personal involvement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were shaping American positions, recalling episodes when Netanyahu “gets on his plane immediately” and flies to Washington “to simply dictate what [US President Donald] Trump should say and should negotiate in the negotiations with the Iranians.”
Unal claimed such a pattern has left Washington “dogging behind the Israeli demands all the time” and cautioned that it risks further destabilizing the Middle East.
Netanyahu has made multiple high profile visits to Washington to engage directly with senior US officials on regional policy. In the past year alone, he has met Trump at the White House at least six times to discuss issues ranging from Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program to military cooperation. His latest trip took place last week, ahead of the second round of indirect US Iran talks in Geneva. Netanyahu later said he had pressed Trump to ensure that Tehran is barred from enriching uranium. The renewed diplomatic push followed joint Israeli-US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last year, officially justified as an attempt to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – an ambition the Islamic Republic denies.
Trump has since sent an ‘armada’ to the Middle East and threatened further attacks unless Iran agrees to a deal on both its nuclear and missile programs. Last week, he raised the prospect of regime change and announced a second carrier strike group deployment, with media reports claiming the US military was ordered to prepare for a sustained multi-week operation if talks fail.
Asked whether Iran poses a direct threat to the US, Unal replied that Tehran does not seek to attack American assets as such and that many of the tensions are tied to Israel’s security calculations.
Unal also suggested what he called the gradual collapse of a “big empire,” referring to the Western-led order, and the emergence of a more multipolar system in which countries such as Russia, China, and Türkiye have greater room to maneuver. – video
Erdogan wants nukes: What a Turkish bomb would mean for the Middle East
Ankara is telling the world that a selective and force-driven approach to the Iranian nuclear issue could ignite a chain reaction
By Murad Sadygzade | RT | February 18, 2026
In Ankara, the idea of Türkiye one day seeking a nuclear weapons option has never been entirely absent from strategic conversation. Yet in recent days it has acquired a sharper edge, as the region around Türkiye is sliding toward a logic in which raw deterrence begins to look like the only dependable language left.
Türkiye’s foreign policy has expanded far beyond the cautious, status-quo posture that once defined it. It has positioned itself as a mediator on Ukraine and Gaza, pursued hard security aims through sustained operations and influence in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, and inserted itself into competitive theaters from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long framed this activism as a corrective to an international order he portrays as structurally unfair. His slogan that the world is bigger than five – referring to the UN Security Council – is a statement of grievance against a system in which a narrow group of powers retains permanent privileges, including an exclusive claim to ultimate military capability.
Within that narrative, nuclear inequality occupies a special place. Erdogan has repeatedly pointed to the double standards of the global nuclear order, arguing that some states are punished for ambiguity while others are insulated from scrutiny. His references to Israel are central here, because Israel’s assumed but undeclared nuclear status is widely treated as an open secret that does not trigger the same enforcement instincts as suspected proliferation elsewhere. That asymmetry has long irritated Ankara, but it became more politically potent after the war in Gaza that began in 2023, when Erdogan openly highlighted Israel’s arsenal and questioned why international inspection mechanisms do not apply in practice to all regional actors.
Still, for years this was mostly an argument about fairness and legitimacy rather than a declaration of intent. What has changed is the sense that the regional security architecture itself is cracking, and that the cracks are widening at the very moment the US and Israel are escalating pressure on Iran. Türkiye’s leadership has warned that if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, others in the region will rush to follow, and Türkiye may be forced into the race as well, even if it does not want dramatic shifts in the balance.
This is the key to understanding the new intensity of the debate. Ankara’s signaling is not primarily an emotional reaction to Tehran. Türkiye and Iran remain competitors, but their frictions have also been managed through pragmatic diplomacy, and Türkiye has consistently argued against a military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. Erdogan has again presented Türkiye as a mediator, insisting on de-escalation and rejecting military steps that could drag the region into wider chaos.
The driver is the fear that the rules are no longer the rules. When enforcement becomes selective, and when coercion is applied in ways that appear to disregard broader stability, the incentives change for every middle power caught in the blast radius. The signal from Ankara is that if the Middle East moves into a world where nuclear capability is treated as the only ironclad guarantee against regime-threatening force, then Türkiye cannot afford to remain the exception.
That logic is dangerous precisely because it is contagious. It turns proliferation into an insurance policy. In an unstable region where trust is thin and the memory of war is always fresh, the idea of nuclear weapons as a shield against interference can sound brutally rational. If possessing the bomb raises the cost of intervention to unacceptable levels, it can be perceived as the ultimate deterrent, a guarantee that outsiders will think twice. But the same logic that appears to promise safety for one actor produces insecurity for everyone else. In practice it fuels an arms race whose end state is not stability, but a crowded deterrence environment in which miscalculation becomes more likely, crisis management becomes harder, and conventional conflicts become more combustible because nuclear shadows hover over every escalation ladder.
The renewed urgency also reflects a broader global drift. Arms competition is intensifying well beyond the Middle East. The erosion of arms control habits, the normalization of sanctions as a tool of strategic coercion, and the return of bloc-like thinking in many theaters all contribute to a sense that restraint is no longer rewarded. For Türkiye, a state that sees itself as too large to be merely a client and too exposed to be fully autonomous, the temptation is to seek leverage that cannot be negotiated away. Nuclear latency, even without an actual bomb, can function as a strategic bargaining chip.
Yet the jump from ambition to capability is not straightforward. Türkiye does have important ingredients for a serious civil nuclear profile, and those capabilities matter because they shape perceptions. The country has been building human capital in nuclear engineering and developing an ecosystem of research institutions, reactors for training and experimentation, accelerator facilities, and nuclear medicine applications. Most visibly, the Akkuyu nuclear power plant project with Russia has served as an engine for training and institutional learning, even if technology transfer is limited and the project remains embedded in external dependence.
Türkiye also highlights domestic resource potential, including uranium and especially thorium, which is often discussed as a long-term strategic asset. Resource endowments do not automatically translate into weapons capability, but they reduce one barrier, the need for sustained and vulnerable supply chains. As a result, Türkiye can credibly present itself as a state that could, if it chose, move from peaceful nuclear competence toward a latent weapons posture.
The real bottleneck is not simply material. It is political and legal. Türkiye is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it operates inside a web of international commitments that would make an overt weapons program extremely costly. Withdrawal from the treaty or large-scale violations would almost certainly trigger sweeping sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and a rupture with major economic partners. Unlike states that have adapted their economies to long-term siege conditions, Türkiye is deeply integrated into global trade, finance, and logistics. The short-term shock of a proliferation crisis would be severe, and Ankara knows it.
This is why the most plausible path, if Türkiye ever moved in this direction, would not be a dramatic public sprint. It would be a careful, ambiguous strategy that expands latency while preserving diplomatic maneuvering room. Latency can mean investing in expertise, dual-use infrastructure, missile and space capabilities that could be adapted, and fuel cycle options that remain justifiable on civilian grounds. It can also mean cultivating external relationships that shorten timelines without leaving fingerprints.
Here the debate becomes even more sensitive, because proliferation risk is not only about what a country can build, but also about what it can receive. The Middle East has long been haunted by the possibility of clandestine technology transfer, whether through black markets, covert state support, or unofficial security arrangements. In recent months, discussions around Pakistan have become particularly salient, not least because Islamabad is one of the few Muslim majority nuclear powers and has historically maintained close security ties with Gulf monarchies.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly signaled that it will not accept a regional balance in which Iran alone holds a nuclear weapon. Saudi leaders have at times implied that if Iran acquires the bomb, Riyadh would feel compelled to match it for reasons of security and balance. Those statements are not proof of an active weapons program, but they are political preparation, shaping expectations and normalizing the idea that proliferation could be framed as defensive rather than destabilizing.
There have also been unusually explicit hints in regional discourse about nuclear protection arrangements, including arguments that Pakistan could, in some scenario, extend a form of deterrence cover to Saudi Arabia. Even when such claims are partly performative, they underscore how the region’s strategic conversation is shifting from taboo to contingency planning.
Once that door is open, Türkiye inevitably enters the picture in regional imagination. Türkiye, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia are linked through overlapping defense cooperation and political coordination, and analysts increasingly discuss the emergence of flexible security groupings that sit alongside or partially outside formal Western frameworks. The idea that technology, know-how, or deterrence guarantees could circulate within such networks is precisely the nightmare scenario for nonproliferation regimes, because it compresses timelines and reduces the visibility that international monitors depend on.
For Ankara, this creates both opportunity and risk. The opportunity is that Türkiye could enhance its deterrent posture without bearing the full cost of overt development. The risk is that Türkiye could become entangled in a proliferation cascade that it cannot control, while simultaneously inviting a Western backlash that would reshape its economy and alliances.
This is where the question becomes deeply geopolitical. A nuclear-armed Türkiye would not simply change the Middle East. It would alter Europe’s security landscape and challenge the logic that has governed Türkiye’s relationship with the West for decades. Western capitals have tolerated, managed, and constrained Türkiye through a mixture of incentives, institutional ties, defense cooperation, and pressure. Türkiye’s NATO membership, its economic links to Europe, and the presence of US nuclear weapons stored at Incirlik as part of alliance arrangements have all been elements of a broader strategic framework in which Türkiye was seen as anchored, even when politically difficult.
If Türkiye acquired its own nuclear weapons, that anchoring would weaken dramatically. Ankara would gain a form of autonomy that no sanction threat could fully erase. It would also gain the capacity to take risks under a nuclear umbrella, a dynamic that worries Western capitals because it could embolden more confrontational regional behavior. Türkiye’s disputes with Western partners are already intense on issues ranging from Eastern Mediterranean energy politics to Syria, defense procurement, and the boundaries of alliance solidarity. A nuclear deterrent could make those disputes harder to manage because the ultimate escalation dominance would no longer sit exclusively with the traditional nuclear powers.
At the same time, a Turkish bomb could accelerate Türkiye’s drift away from the West, not only because the West would react with pressure, but because the very act of building such a capability would be an ideological statement that Türkiye rejects a Western-defined hierarchy. It would be Ankara’s most dramatic way of saying that it will not accept a subordinate place in a system it considers hypocritical.
None of this means Türkiye is on the verge of producing a weapon. Political obstacles remain huge, and technical challenges would be substantial if Ankara had to do everything indigenously while under scrutiny. A credible weapons program requires enrichment or plutonium pathways, specialized engineering, reliable warhead design, rigorous testing regimes or sophisticated simulation capabilities, secure command and control, and delivery systems that can survive and penetrate. Türkiye has missile programs that could in theory be adapted, but turning a regional missile force into a robust nuclear delivery architecture is not trivial.
The more immediate danger is not that Türkiye will suddenly unveil a bomb, but that the region is moving toward a threshold era, in which multiple states cultivate the ability to become nuclear on short notice. In such an environment, crises become more perilous because leaders assume worst-case intentions, and because external powers may feel pressure to strike early rather than wait. The irony is that a weapon meant to prevent intervention can increase the likelihood of intervention if adversaries fear they are running out of time.
The escalation by the US and Israel against Iran, combined with the broader arms race logic spreading across the Middle East and globally, is making this spiral more plausible. Uncertainty is the fuel of proliferation, because it convinces states that the future will be more dangerous than the present, and that waiting is a strategic mistake.
Türkiye’s rhetoric should therefore be read as a warning as much as a threat. Ankara is telling the world that a selective and force-driven approach to the Iranian nuclear issue could ignite a chain reaction. It is also telling regional rivals that Türkiye will not accept a future in which it is strategically exposed in a neighborhood where others have ultimate insurance.
The tragedy is that this is exactly how nuclear orders unravel. They do not collapse when one state wakes up and decides to gamble. They collapse when multiple states simultaneously conclude that the existing rules no longer protect them, and that deterrence, however dangerous, is the only available substitute. In a stable region, that conclusion might be resisted. In the Middle East, where wars overlap, alliances shift, and trust is scarce, it can quickly become conventional wisdom.
If the goal is to prevent a regional nuclear cascade, the first requirement is to restore credibility to the idea that rules apply to everyone and that security can be achieved without crossing the nuclear threshold. That means lowering the temperature around Iran while also addressing the deeper asymmetries that make the system look illegitimate in the eyes of ambitious middle powers. Without that, Türkiye’s nuclear debate will not remain an abstract exercise. It will become part of a wider regional recalculation, one that risks turning an already unstable region into a nuclearized arena where every crisis carries the possibility of catastrophe.
Murad Sadygzade, President of the Middle East Studies Center, Visiting Lecturer, HSE University (Moscow).
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