The Levant Files

Washington's largest sanctions package to date threatens expulsion from the dollar system. Iran's principal revenue channel left that system years ago. By Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias, TLF Chief Editor, Research Fellow in the Nicosia University Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched Operation Economic Outcast on Monday, designating more than sixty entities, individuals and vessels tied to Iranian oil revenue, missile procurement and cyber operations, and widening secondary sanctions into digital assets, gold, aviation, technology and shipping. Foreign governments were given deadlines to end identified activity or face unilateral American action. Behind all of it stands one enforcement instrument: removal from the United States dollar system. That is where the campaign meets its structural limit. The penalty presupposes dollar exposure, and Iran's principal revenue channel no longer carries any. Washington's own mapping concedes that Chinese payments for Iranian crude are se...

As Washington prepares what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called the "toughest sanctions in history" against Tehran, Iran's ultra-hardline daily Kayhan has responded not with diplomatic protest but with a display of military muscle — publishing an unusually detailed account of the country's underground missile production complex, timed to coincide with National Defense Industry Day. The report deserves scrutiny not just for its content but for its source. Kayhan is not an independent Iranian newspaper. It is directly controlled by the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose representative, Hossein Shariatmadari, has served as its managing editor since 1993. Widely described in Tehran as the "attack dog" of Khamenei's court, Kayhan functions less as a conventional news outlet than as a signaling mechanism for the Islamic Republic's innermost power center — a vehicle through which the Supreme Leader's office tests messaging, projects de...

Three days after Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias argued in TLF that "red snow will fall before Turkey and Israel deliberately enter an open conflict," the diplomatic record of the past 48 hours has moved in exactly the direction that assessment predicted: toward management, not war. On Sunday, a high-level Syrian delegation led by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani — flanked by the chiefs of Syria's General and Military Intelligence services — met a senior Israeli delegation, reportedly headed by Mossad chief Roman Gofman, in Jordan. The talks were brokered by Washington and hosted by Amman, according to Syria's state news agency SANA. The two sides discussed, per SANA, mechanisms to "halt Israeli attacks, arrests and targeting operations," the revival of a broader security agreement, and — critically for the Turkey dimension — "efforts to ease tensions between Israel and Türkiye and to prevent their rivalry from spilling" into Syrian territory. AFP sources ...

Donald Trump's push to strangle Iran's economy just picked up a marquee ally. But the fine print of the UAE's trade freeze suggests the President's "maximum pressure" campaign may be winning a headline while losing the war beneath it. The United Arab Emirates announced on August 18 that it had halted all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice, framed by Abu Dhabi as a response to renewed Iranian missile fire. For the White House, the timing looked like validation. The move came hours after calls between President Trump and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, and between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, and landed squarely inside Washington's narrative of an isolated, cornered Tehran.  There is just one problem: the order Trump is claiming as a win was written with a hole in it. The suspension covers direct dealings. It does not say whether it reach...

A five-year defence roadmap, a “Hexagon of Alliances,” and a Turkey-free corridor to Europe are turning Nicosia into New Delhi’s Mediterranean bridgehead — and Ankara has noticed When President Nikos Christodoulides took to X to celebrate the “concrete strategic partnership” now unfolding between Cyprus and India, the post read like diplomatic pleasantry. It was not. Behind the handshake photographs and the trade-centre ribbon-cuttings lies a five-year defence roadmap, a trilateral military framework binding Cyprus to Greece and Israel, and an emerging corridor architecture that Turkish commentators are now openly describing as a strategic encirclement. India is coming to Cyprus. Turkey is not happy at all. From Courtesy Visit to Strategic Partnership The turning point was Christodoulides’ state visit to India from May 20–23, 2026 — the first since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own landmark stop in Nicosia in June 2025, itself the first visit by an Indian premier to the island in more...

As Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb strain under the weight of the US-Iran war, Japan is stepping off the sidelines — leaning on Oman's mediation channel, tying Gulf resilience to its own Indo-Pacific doctrine, and quietly insuring itself against a second front in Yemen. The map of actors crowding into the Levant and Gulf crisis has, for months, followed a familiar cast: Washington and Tehran locked in an unresolved war since February 28; Ankara, Riyadh, and Islamabad drawing closer through the Mecca Pact's trilateral defense architecture; Israel recalibrating after Idlib; and the Gulf monarchies triaging tanker routes one strait at a time. This week, a new name entered the ledger — and it did not arrive as a bystander counting its losses. It arrived as a broker-in-waiting. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi spent six days, August 17 to 22, moving between Riyadh and Muscat — his first trip to the region since the US-Israeli campaign against Iran began, and only his second Midd...

The Levant Files is probably right that neither Ankara nor Jerusalem wants an open Turkish-Israeli war. But "red snow" sets the bar too high. Abu al-Duhur showed that the real danger is not a deliberate declaration of war, but an Israeli strike that kills Turkish personnel, a Turkish response meant to restore deterrence, and an escalation neither government wanted but neither can politically afford to stop. By Yusuf Kanlı My dear friend Nikolaos Stelgias has supplied a wonderfully memorable answer to those forecasting an approaching Turkish-Israeli war: expect it when red snow falls. The argument he develops in The Levant Files, however, is considerably more serious than the flourish suggests. Turkey and Israel may be increasingly bitter regional competitors, their rhetoric may be turning poisonous, their interests in Syria may be colliding and Gaza may have battered what remained of their political relationship, but neither side has a rational interest in crossing the line f...

In a wide-ranging interview with broadcaster Mario Nawfal on X, Ambassador Tom Barrack floats a political motive behind Israel's Abu al-Duhur airstrike, says Israel still 'occupies' the Golan Heights, and calls for Iran and Hezbollah to be part of any Lebanon settlement — drawing a sharp rebuke from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria and Iraq Tom Barrack has suggested that Israel's airstrike this week on a Syrian military airbase near the Turkish border may have been a deliberate attempt to provoke Ankara ahead of Israel's autumn election, in a wide-ranging interview broadcast on X (formerly Twitter) that has reignited tensions between Washington's senior regional envoy and the Israeli government. Speaking to Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur and broadcaster Mario Nawfal in an interview aired on Friday, August 21, Barrack — who holds the dual role of US ambassador to Ankara and special presidential envoy for S...

Dr. Nikolaos Stelgias TLF Genel Yayın Yönetmeni; Lefkoşa Üniversitesi'nde Türkiye-İran ilişkileri ve rekabeti alanında araştırmacı; tarihçi ve gazeteci Yazının İngilizce versiyonu için tıklayın . Birkaç yıl önce, Fenerbahçe’nin Türkiye Süper Ligi’ne son derece kötü başladığı sezonlardan birinde, kulübün efsane eski futbolcusu Rıdvan Dilmen, kamuoyunun hafızasına kazınan şu sözleri sarf etmişti: “Kırmızı kar yağar, Fenerbahçe küme düşmez.” Bugün ben de özellikle İsrail, Kıbrıs, Türkiye ve Yunanistan’da Türkiye ile İsrail arasında doğrudan bir askerî çatışma yaşanacağını kendinden emin bir şekilde öngören analistlere ve akademisyenlere benzer bir yanıt vermeyi seçiyorum: Bu iki ülke açık bir savaşa girmeden önce kırmızı karın yağmasını beklemeliyiz. Suriye’nin İdlib bölgesinde kısa süre önce yaşanan ciddi olaydan sonra dâhi bu değerlendirmem değişmiş değil. Bu görüş sempatiye, duygulara ya da temennilere dayanmıyor. Sahadaki güç dengesi ile uluslararası ilişkilerde birbiriyle bağlant...