When the guns fall silent in the Middle East, it often does not mean that peace has begun.
\nSometimes it is just a breathing space for the next big showdown.
\nThis is precisely the picture we face today.
\nAt first glance, the war seems to have stopped. There is talk of a ceasefire. Diplomatic channels are being reopened. Washington is marketing a \u201cvictory\u201d narrative to its own public. Tel Aviv is trying to keep alive the thesis that it has inflicted heavy damage on Iran. Tehran, on the other hand, is presenting its survival as a psychological and political advantage.
\nBut the truth is much harsher.
\nIn this war, no one has really won.
\nLet's be even more precise:
\nAll sides are trying to cover up their strategic weaknesses by hiding behind the fog produced by their own propaganda apparatus.<\/p>\n
For the US, the issue is clear.
\nWashington has once again paid the price of substituting a show of force for strategy in a process in which it went in with confidence in the size of its military capacity. If in the first 72 hours you are unable to break the command and control backbone of the Iranian regime, the fact that you have started the war does not give you the upper hand; on the contrary, it is a declaration that you have lost the initiative. Because from that moment on, the rhythm, scope and intensity of the conflict will be determined not by you, but by the resistance capacity of the other side.
\nThat's exactly what happened.
\nThe US put forces on the ground but failed to consolidate the political outcome.
\nHe made tactical moves but failed to turn them into strategic gains.
\nIt made the noise of victory but could not build a lasting balance behind that noise.
\nThis is why today's picture is not of an American victory, but of a controlled retreat, embellished with communications engineering.<\/p>\n
The situation is no different on the Israeli front.
\nThe Netanyahu administration thought it could dominate the long-term security equation with short-term military reflexes. However, state wisdom and electoral wisdom are not the same thing. The reflex to buy time through war by leaders stuck in domestic politics sometimes gives their countries a few days of room for maneuver, but often generates strategic costs that can be carried for years.
\nThis is precisely the risk Israel faces today.
\nThe moral and diplomatic cost of the war in Gaza was already heavy. The new front opened under the Iranian heading has increased this bill even more. Military capacity may have been preserved. Some targets may have been hit. Instant deterrence messages may have been sent to regional rivals. But all this is not enough to make Israel's medium and long-term security more robust.
\nOn the contrary.
\nRegional isolation is deepening.
\nInternational legitimacy is eroding.
\nAnd every \u201ctactical success\u201d risks a new \u201cstrategic encirclement\u201d.
\nFor states, it is not just about hitting.
\nThe challenge is to establish a safer geopolitical balance after the strike.
\nToday, it is not possible to say that Israel has achieved this.<\/p>\n
What about Iran?
\nThe most common mistake here is to mistake the survival of the regime as a \u201cvictory\u201d.
\nNo, no, no.
\nSurviving is not winning.
\nToday, the Iranian regime is capitalizing on the strategic blindness and overconfidence of its rivals, presenting the fact that it has not collapsed as a success story. But this is no success; it is merely a breathing space for a regime that has bought time. And more importantly, the real owner of this breathing space is not the regime, but the Iranian people, who continue to be crushed under all this destruction with great wisdom.
\nThe Iranian people who live under oppression, bear the economic costs, bear the psychological burden of the war, and yet show everyone how much the regime's social consent has eroded...
\nThey paid the real price.
\nIf the regime, on the other hand, misreads today's picture, that is, if it sees this outcome as an opportunity to accelerate its nuclear program, to build up its ballistic capacity, to refinance its proxy power networks, and to more recklessly encroach on the region's fragile balances, today's \u201cnot losing\u201d will be a harbinger of tomorrow's much more severe fractures.<\/p>\n
Because sometimes states are not defeated in war;
\nBut he loses the future by drawing the wrong lessons of war.
\nThis is the real question for Iran:
\nWill it make peace with the world and try to maintain its current position?
\nOr will ideological stubbornness turn its relative advantage into a greater strategic risk?
\nIf it opts for the second option, it would weaken the prospects for lasting peace for Iran.
\nUnfortunately, the equation before us today is not the equation of \u201cpeace\u201d.
\nThis is an equation of \u201cdeferred reckoning\u201d.
\nThere is a deep mistrust between US demands and Iranian terms. There is a serious mismatch between the Israeli government's security priorities and regional reality. There is a chronic rift between the internal structure of the Iranian regime and the rational commitments it can make to the outside world.
\nIt is not easy to produce lasting peace in such a situation.
\nAt best, a sustainable ceasefire is possible.
\nBut even that is no guarantee.
\nBecause almost all of the actors at the table are structures that are worn out in domestic politics, whose capacity to generate confidence in foreign policy has eroded, who are used to feeding on crisis and who will not hesitate to be \u201cwhiny\u201d when necessary.
\nTherefore, no matter in whose favor the balance is struck, the attempt to upset that balance will always come from the other side.<\/p>\n
As a result
\nWhat we see in the Middle East today is not the end of the war, but the change of form of the war.
\nThe bullet can stop.
\nThe missiles may stop for a while.
\nLeaders can make victory speeches.
\nDiplomats can set up a table.
\nBut if the strategic threat remains, or even grows in some areas, then there is no real solution.
\nIt is highly likely that only for the time being time has been purchased.
\nAnd buying time sometimes looks like an achievement for governments.
\nBut in the wrong hands, then it becomes the most expensive defeat.
\nThis is what is happening in the Middle East today.
\nThe current situation is not peace, but an interregnum.
\nFor the United States: A crisis of prestige.
\nFor Israel: Legitimacy erosion.
\nFor Iran: A time-buying move that risks a social explosion.
\nFor now, the destruction wrought by the war has stopped.
\nBut the threat has not gone away.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All sides are trying to cover up their strategic weaknesses by hiding behind the fog produced by their own propaganda apparatus.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":284848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[286],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-284847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-yazarlar","tag-manset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284849,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284847\/revisions\/284849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}