Middle East at boiling point: Türkiye, the U.S. and Chekhov’s gun

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on August 12 and, summarizing from the American State Department’s statement, asked Türkiye to use its influence to get Hamas to return to the negotiation table with Israel on August 15. Fidan, as I summarize from Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Öncü Keçeli’s statement, told him to put pressure on Israel.

You’d think Israel is ready for peace and just waiting for Türkiye to make Hamas say yes; or conversely, that Hamas is ready and waiting for the U.S. to make Israel say yes.

Türkiye and Hamas

First, we need to establish this: After Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran on July 31, Yahya Sinvar was elected to replace him, and the new leadership is now burning with a desire for revenge while also on high alert to avoid being targeted by a new Israeli attack.

The U.S. has deployed new aircraft carriers to the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf – along with weapons like F-22s that it hasn’t even sold to Israel or the UK – in case Iran retaliates against Israel. The administration of Masoud Pezeshkian, who was attacked by an Israeli-sourced strike on his first day in office in Tehran, is falling apart; caught between retaliating and risking a U.S. attack. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Pezeshkian, urging him to “refrain from attacking Israel.”

The UK, France, Germany, and Italy called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement on August 12. But in the same statement, they said they would continue to defend Israel, targeted Iran, and asked for help from Egyptian President Sisi and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim.

The U.S., under these conditions, is asking Türkiye for help in convincing Hamas.

Chekhov’s gun: The U.S. isn’t amassing all these weapons for nothing

Let’s say that following this call, Fidan or National Intelligence Office (MİT) Chief İbrahim Kalın will meet with Hamas, whose leadership is based in Qatar, home to the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. And then do you expect Khaled Mashal and Sinvar who spent years honing their resolve in Israeli prisons, to just say “okay then” and accept Israel’s demands? Is that how it’s supposed to work?

The U.S. has amassed this many weapons in the Middle East twice before; both times were before Iraq operations. Chekhov’s Gun rule in theater applies to war too; when a gun appears on stage, that gun fires. There’s a cost to bringing this many weapons this far, and no army deploys weapons to a certain place for no reason, or in other words, if it won’t recover the cost.

It’s reported that long-range cruise missiles are among the weapons deployed to the region.

I’m sure the Russian General Staff, who decided to evacuate the strategic city of Kursk following Ukraine’s unexpected attack, has also calculated these weapons’ capacity to hit their territory without needing to pass through the Straits and violate the Montreux Convention.

Risks are increasing in Ukraine and Syria

It was predicted that the Russia-Ukraine war would intensify in August, but it wasn’t widely predicted that this would escalate with Ukraine’s Kursk operation into Russian territory. (Those who want to remember the strategic significance of Kursk in Russian history can follow this link.)

Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Kursk move was a Western attack through Ukraine and would not go unanswered. Moscow seems to have concluded that the U.S. weapons buildup in the region is not just about Israel. When we say region, we don’t just mean the Middle East; Türkiye is right in the middle of a ring of fire.

A tension between the U.S. and Russia that greatly concerns Türkiye is also escalating in Syria.

Journalist Namık Durukan has been writing in T24 for days about clashes between Iranian-backed Syrian regime forces and pro-Damascus Arab tribes with PKK-controlled and U.S.-protected SDF forces. Washington is also reinforcing its power in Eastern Syria. If U.S. planes get involved, Russian planes might too.

Ankara is also preparing for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech in the Turkish Grand National Assembly on August 15. But there’s a high possibility that Abbas will deliver his main messages during his meeting with Putin in Moscow on August 14.