The Levant Files

Analysts Warn of Pattern Where Small Conflicts Spiral Beyond Control, Trapping Democracies in Protracted Engagements The Trump administration's military campaign in Iran faces a dangerous trajectory that could transform the conflict into what Foreign Affairs analyst Robert D. Kaplan calls a "middle-sized war"—a category of engagement that has historically proven catastrophic for American foreign policy and democratic institutions. Writing for Foreign Affairs, Kaplan argues that middle-sized wars present a unique paradox for democracies. These conflicts are "big enough to cause immense destruction and bloodshed but small enough that they do not engage the full home front," Kaplan explains, citing military historian James Stokesbury's observation that democracies excel at small, professional operations or total war mobilization—but struggle decisively in the ambiguous middle ground. The pattern is disquietingly familiar. Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq a...

Tehran Adopts Strategy of Economic Pressure Even as Neighbors Avoid Direct Military Confrontation The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran's new Supreme Leader has marked a significant shift in Tehran's approach to its escalating conflict with Israel and the United States, with the Islamic Republic now betting on a brutal economic war of attrition to destabilize the region, according to Haaretz Analysis. Khamenei Jr., 56, who assumed power following his father's death, has quickly consolidated authority with the backing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). While speculation initially focused on whether the new leader would pursue direct military escalation, the emerging strategy appears to prioritize economic pressure over widening the battlefield, Haaretz Analysis reports. The approach centers on exploiting Iran's ability to disrupt global energy markets. Oil prices surged to $115 per barrel on Monday after Iraq announced a 60 percent production cut, fol...

⚠️ U.S. Orders Emergency Exit from Southern Turkey The United States has issued a shocking emergency directive, ordering the immediate departure of all non-emergency personnel from its Consulate General in Adana, Türkiye, effective March 9.  This unprecedented move—marking the first time a "mandatory departure" has been ordered for U.S. staff in a NATO ally—comes after a ballistic missile launched from Iran was intercepted by NATO defenses over Turkish airspace, with debris falling in Hatay province.  The U.S. State Department confirmed that Americans in southeast Türkiye are "strongly encouraged to depart now" as the region faces extreme danger from armed conflict and terrorism.  The U.S. Consulate in Adana has suspended all operations, leaving citizens in the region with no direct consular support.  The crisis centers on Incirlik Air Base, a critical NATO installation just 10 kilometers from Adana, which intelligence sources confirm was the intended target of the ...

As U.S. and Israeli strikes enter their second week, a leading defense scholar argues the Trump administration is prosecuting a war without a coherent political strategy — and that history warns of the consequences. Since U.S. and Israeli forces launched joint strikes on Iran on February 28, the military campaign has been sweeping in its reach. According to Trump, speaking to Republican lawmakers, the operation has targeted over 5,000 locations, neutralized much of Iran's missile arsenal, and eliminated drone production sites. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo, with Iran subsequently naming his hardline son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his successor. Yet for all the tactical momentum, a fundamental question hangs unanswered: what does Washington actually want from this war? Writing in Foreign Affairs on March 10, Colin H. Kahl — Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for ...

In a significant escalation of the Middle East conflict, Saudi Arabia has formally invoked its Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) with Pakistan following a series of Iranian missile and drone attacks on Saudi territory.  The pact, signed in September 2025, commits both nations to treat any aggression against one as an attack on both, mirroring NATO’s Article 5. The invocation came after Iran targeted key Saudi infrastructure, including the Ras Tanura oil refinery and Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts thousands of U.S. troops.  Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman confirmed the move during a high-level meeting with Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, on March 7.  “We discussed Iranian attacks on the Kingdom and the measures needed to halt them within the framework of our Joint Strategic Defense Agreement,” Prince Khalid stated on social media. The meeting marked the first operational test of the pact, which includes joint deterrence, intell...

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The clearest takeaway from the latest public remarks is that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are now signaling two different political timelines for the same war. On March 9, Trump told CBS News that the war was “very complete, pretty much,” argued that Iran had “nothing left in a military sense,” and said the operation was “very far ahead of schedule,” while separately telling reporters that it would be “ended soon.”  On March 10, by contrast, Netanyahu said Israel was “breaking their bones — and we are not done yet,” framing the campaign not as a near-finished operation but as an ongoing effort to weaken Iran’s ruling system and encourage internal political rupture.  That difference matters because both leaders are speaking to different strategic pressures. Trump’s language reads like an attempt to compress expectations, reassure markets, and show that U.S. objectives are limited and largely achieved.  Even when he warned that Iran would face far harder blows if it ...

The People’s Daily — the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the most authoritative vehicle for Beijing’s policy positions — recently published an editorial-length commentary condemning the US-Israeli military strikes against Iran. The piece, which carries the unmistakable imprimatur of the Party’s propaganda apparatus, constitutes one of the most explicit Chinese articulations to date of how Beijing interprets the unfolding crisis and, more broadly, of how it wishes to position itself within the resulting geopolitical realignment. The Core Argument: International Law as a Red Line The People’s Daily article is built around a single organising principle: that the US-Israeli strikes, conducted without the authorisation of the United Nations Security Council, represent a fundamental violation of international law and the norms governing interstate relations. The commentary traces the prohibition on the use of force back to the Kellogg-Briand Pac...

Writing in the Russian daily Izvestia, economist Nikita Illeritsky — a senior research fellow at the Centre for Central Asian Studies of the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences — offered from Moscow’s perspective a sweeping energy-geopolitical reading of the current US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. The article, entitled “By Right of the Strong”, frames the American posture toward both Iran and Venezuela as fundamentally driven by Washington’s long-term energy insecurity, rather than by the Arab-Israeli conflict or nonproliferation concerns per se. Iran’s Untapped Gas: A Strategic Prize Illeritsky’s central argument, as articulated in Izvestia, is that Iran remains the last major holder of natural gas reserves — an estimated 33 trillion cubic metres, or roughly 17% of the global total — that have yet to be monetised on international markets. Despite Tehran’s considerable progress in developing its gas sector over the past three and a hal...