New escalation in regional conflict

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The killing of three American soldiers in Jordan by pro-Iran militias via UAV strikes initiated …
  • As the municipal election campaign gained momentum with the unveiling of mayoral candidates and the fine-tuning of their campaigns, two major developments took place in foreign policy: the Turkish Parliament’s approval of Sweden’s NATO admission on Tuesday and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to the Turkish capital, where Türkiye and Iran signed 10 agreements.
  • Traditionally, Türkiye-Iran relations have been defined by a mix of competition and cooperation. Sharing a long land border and possessing a multidimensional historical depth, numerous dynamics simultaneously affect the relationship between the two countries.
  • Against the backdrop of Israel's massacre in Gaza, attention has been shifting to Iran. Following the bombardment of the Houthis by the United States and the United Kingdom for disrupting commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Iran and Pakistan experienced an escalation, with both sides firing missiles over terrorism. Moreover, Israel killed five members of the Revolutionary Guards Corps in Damascus last weekend, resuming its past operations against the Iranian presence in Syria. The seeming purpose of such strikes is to stop Iran from sending military aid to the Axis of Resistance – namely Hezbollah and Hamas. More important, however, is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's commitment to ensuring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's regionwide spillover – which contradicts the Biden administration.

Bu Konuda Daha Fazla

  • A series of attacks and clashes sent shockwaves through the Middle East over the last week. Israel's massacres in Gaza and low-intensity conflict with Hezbollah at the Lebanese border remain underway. Meanwhile, in the Red Sea, the United States and Britain bombed Yemen's Houthis for the fourth time on Thursday. Washington also relisted the Houthis as a global terrorist group.

  • The recent developments in the Middle East region have led to a deepening instability, with the possibility of conflict increasing day by day. In 2023, we witnessed a period of relative normalization in the Middle East. While countries in the region were trying to minimize the potential for conflict, they had come a long way in developing common potential.

  • As Israel stands accused of genocide in The Hague, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spreads to the broader region. On Thursday, the United States and the United Kingdom bombed 72 targets in Yemen, retaliating against Houthi attacks on commercial vessels heading to Israel via the Red Sea to protest the Gaza massacre.

  • President Biden's message during his visit to a church in the state of South Carolina and the reactions of some protesters seemed like a summary of the dilemma he will face in preparing for the presidential elections. In 2015, a perpetrator advocating white supremacy killed 9 black citizens who came to the church for worship, a message that was discussed in the public eye as a result of Trump's message on the eve of the 2016 presidential elections. By starting his 2024 campaign with a visit to this church, Biden tried to show that black votes would be critical. By making a reference to Trump's expressions about immigrants 'poisoning' the country's blood, he conveyed the message that the real 'poison' is the idea of white supremacy. The messages given to the political electorate in South Carolina, a critical state that brought Biden to candidacy in 2016, stand out as an effort to reach out to black voters, which will play a critical role in the upcoming election.

  • The Middle East rang in the new year with assassinations and terror attacks. Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy leader of Hamas' political bureau, was assassinated in Beirut last Tuesday. The following day, two bombings in Kirman, Iran (for which Daesh has claimed responsibility) killed 103 people. As those attacks shifted everyone’s attention to Israel, Iran and Hezbollah pledged to exact “revenge and a heavy price.”