Iran believes that NATO’s new strategic tool is directed against its interests and that it intends in particular to protect Israel. In other words, in the eyes of Iran, this missile defense system is one of the symbols of the West’s antagonist stance against the Tehran regime.
When you look at this matter from Iran’s perspective, maybe their concerns are not totally paranoid. However, one wonders why a powerful military alliance like NATO has decided to target a country like Iran, as the latter is certainly not an equal rival for NATO. Perhaps NATO’s antagonism is not really directed against Iran, but the latter, by its mistakes, attracts all reactions to itself like a lightning rod.
The ongoing crises in Iraq and Syria are only the tip of the iceberg. These are just the parts of a bigger fight in the Middle East in which Turkey and Iran have decisive roles. There is no doubt that Turkey and Iran, even though they don’t have the capacity to determine and control all of the region’s dynamics, will play a crucial role in shaping the region’s future. The main problem is that we already know the name of one of the antagonists in the wider picture, i.e., on the global level; however, the other’s identity is still to be unfolded.
When one talks about Turkey and Iran, one instinctively looks at Israel’s direction as well. Traditionally, Israel and the US have always been considered strategic allies; however, today it seems that there are two distinct Israels: one that is willing to cooperate with the Obama administration and another that is more prone to work with Russia. That is why many events concerning Israel can no longer be understood through old paradigms.
NATO and Russia’s rival missile defense systems prove that further tension is to be expected in the Middle East. The developments push Iran and Turkey to oppose each other, but these are not willing to antagonize each other too much. In order to prevent any uncontrolled escalation between Iran and Turkey, the latter uses its tense relations with Israel: Don’t forget that Ankara’s every reaction against Israel is also a message conveyed to Iran.
We don’t know yet if the ongoing tension between Turkey and Israel will be enough to keep the antagonism between Iran and Turkey at an acceptable level because Turkey’s Western partners, which include both the US and the EU, do not think that Turkey’s moderate policy towards Iran is a reasonable position. That is why Turkey feels caught in the middle, which explains its growing acrimony towards Europe and Israel. There is also the fact that Israel is not helping at all and that its current policy serves Iran’s interests more than anybody else’s.
This overview definitely does not give hope for a peaceful future. All of the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East are part of the search for a new binary balance. The US and Russia may be very enthusiastic about that, but the EU countries are still indecisive about what side to pick, and the Middle Eastern peoples are unhappy to be forced to make such a choice once again. Nevertheless, some Middle Eastern countries are simply not capable of resisting, some may calculate that making a choice will serve their interests too and some others will simply not listen to their people’s will. Maybe the real problem is in Europe, which is incapable right now of making solid choices about its strategic future.
