Thread: If Iran judges that the conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan is creating any instability in Iran or stoking ethnic tensions, it will move quickly to secure a ceasefire via work with Ankara and Moscow based on the Astana model. Those talking about "Turkey vs. Iran" are wrong
Why are they wrong? Because the hidden deal between these countries, who may not always share interests, is no stoking tensions inside sovereign borders of the other. For instance Russia is wary of extremists, Turkey of PKK, Iran of ethnic tensions;
The idea that the conflict which Turkey encouraged between Azerbaijan and Armenia might be used in any way to weaken the Iran regime will stop immediately if Tehran feels this way through quick calls to Ankara and Moscow.
Ankara understands this and plans accordingly. Only some people in the West think there is some mythical idea of Ankara helping the US against the Iran regime, i.e that Turkey supports US sanctions and maximum pressure...no Turkey does not. Ankara works with Iran.
While Ankara, Iran and Russia may partition Syria into areas of influence...when it comes to internal borders...there can be no acceptance of any of these big states meddling inside eachother borders...same with relations with China.
Tehran messaging already is concern over the battles near the border. While some suggested Azerbaijan would be able to take areas of Nagorna-Karabakh or even move along the Iran border towards exclave near Turkey, Iran would be concerned about this.
The correct analysis that Turkey, Iran and Russia are the emerging powerful states is accurate and the era of 10 years of recent wars; or even 30 years of instability and global war on terror; and US hegemony is changing...as powerful states return.
The powerful states share common interests, they want to co-opt extremist groups and use them, contract them, make them proxies, but they don't want chaos and instability. They want to move in to create spheres of influence or frozen conflicts in weak states
They want to stop weak states from spreading extremism, they learned over the years that weak, ungoverned, unstable areas, spread instability. Turkey's obsession now with PKK was a result of seeing that in Syria in 2014-2015. Russia from Chechnya's lessons, Iran from various.
The goal now is for powerful states to grab up areas in other states, like Russia does in Georgia-Ukraine, or Turkey in N. Syria and Libya or Iran in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon. This is how things work. No one will be allowed, by Tehran, to destabilize Iran, certainly not Turkey
Why do we know this. Because Iran also wanted to make sure there are no more Kurdish groups carrying out attacks in Iran, and it sought to stop PJAK and then also KDPI etc. It did that also through pressure and deals abroad.
The idea that the US, stretched as it is with various issue...could use the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict to somehow fan flames inside Iran of protest is unlikely. Turkey won't wan that...Tehran will work to make sure it doesn't happen. And Azerbaijan is on the border, not far away
I always get complaints from Ankara analysts who claim "no, Seth, you're wrong, Ankara is hostile to Iran"...but it isn't. There are no statements by the foreign minister etc. In fact Ankara understands Iran and can work with it and has a way of doing that. It hedges.
Ankara is hostile to Israel, hostile to France...it knows how to put out statements attacking numerous countries, from Holland to Germany, Austria, India, UAE, etc...it almost never critiques Iran.
There is a lot of talk today about sheikhs in Hebron who want to for an "emirate" of Hebron. This is being greeted by some as a positive initiative. Let's take a look at the claims and also what the results could be.
First, the context. Israel is engaged in a 637 day war in Gaza against Hamas. Hamas still controls around 40 percent of Gaza. In Gaza, Israel has backed an initiative to have armed militias involved in some activities in the rest of Gaza. There is one named commander, Abu Shabab (not his real name obviously) and there are rumored to be others.
Some see this as a wise decision to have multiple armed gangs and militias run a post-war Gaza. Israel's current government opposes having the PA run Gaza, so the theory is that armed militias fighting eachother and Hamas is a good future.
In the West Bank the PA has been relatively successful at ruling Palestinian cities and towns for thirty years. However, Israel's current government includes parties that oppose the PA. The PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is aging and there is talk of what comes next.
Israel's Ynet says IDF possibly "preparing for a new phase in its campaign against Hamas on Sunday, as heavy airstrikes pounded northern Gaza and military officials weighed a deeper ground maneuver, potentially including a renewed incursion into Gaza City."
Is this the third "new phase" since March 2025? There was one that began on March 1 after the ceasefire fell apart; it truly began on March 18...then another one began after May 5 with Gideon's Chariots. Now, it's June 29...and yet another.
What the report says is a "deeper" maneuver...the IDF has spent the last months basically re-taking buffer areas around Gaza, leaving Hamas in charge of the central camps and Gaza city. 632 days of war and the IDF basically never went into parts of Gaza city or the central camps.
I remember having a conversation with someone a year ago and I'd said that the IDF still needs to defeat Hamas and remove it. They said "but hasn't Israel taken all of Gaza and defeated Hamas"...I had to remind them that, no...the Israeli offensive always leaves Hamas in charge of around half of Gaza. And it's the same a year later.
Iran's targeting of Qatar appears counter intuitive because Doha has generally been the most friendly country toward Tehran in the Gulf. Unlike the tensions that have existed between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in the past with Iran; and to a lesser extent the UAE; Doha is close to Iran. Al-Udeid US base in Qatar is also just one of MANY US bases in the Gulf; there is also the naval facility in Bahrain, and al-Dhafra in the UAE and sites in Kuwait.
However, on the other hand Iran may assume it has enough political capital built up with Doha, and also cooperation with them in the energy sector; that Iran can do this and climb down after. If Iran focused on Saudi Arabia it could harm the fragile Beijing brokered new relations with Riyadh; it if targeted the UAE this could cause a crisis; also Bahrain could lead to a crisis.
Doha is therefore the least obvious choice. Iran could have targeted Al-Asad base in Iraq, or US bases in Syria, or in the KRG or US naval ships, or many other locations. However, Tehran may have assumed Doha is a kind of safe bet. It could tell Doha before hand what it would do, then there will be a formal complaint but maybe this leads to a deal brokered by Doha and Ankara?
What happened to the Iranian hardliners? Remember back in the era before the JCPOA and also after we were always told that it was important to "empower" the "moderates" in Iran's regime and that if we didn't do everything the regime wanted then the "hardliners" would be empowered? What happened to this fiction?
The narrative of hardliners and moderates was obviously a transparent nonsense designed to cater to the West's need to feel that it can "do X and then Iran will be happy and do Y"...it was sold to the West in a nice package and hundreds of opeds in Western media and commentators employed this paradigm to explain Iran
Notice how Iran's regime never felt it needed to "empower moderates in the US"...or that its behavior, such as attacking Saudi Arabia or Israel or other countries would "empower hardliners." Iran never had to sell itself this fiction because this was a talking point cooked up in the West, probably at a focus-group decades ago, as a way to sell the West, and especially the US, a mythical Iran policy.
In February 2019 Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, who was then the second-in-command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claimed that if a war with Israel took place, then it "will result in Israel’s defeat within three days."