Was President Trump’s appearance at the NATO summit in Turkiye, amidst escalating anti-Iranian rhetoric and increasing orders to attack Iran, merely a participation in a diplomatic meeting on European security? This question is very important because recent developments cannot be understood only at a surface level.
At a deeper level, Trump’s presence signals a recalibration of the United States’ strategic calculations regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran and the “Axis of Resistance.” This realignment is based on the premise that direct military, political, and economic pressure, despite the costs imposed, has failed to bring about the desired changes in Iran’s behavior, power structure, and strategic direction. Washington is therefore gradually moving from a direct pressure paradigm to a hybrid, multi-layered model in which domestic pressure, transformation of Iran’s environment, extra-regional coalition building, and simultaneous realignment of regional instruments form part of a single strategic framework.
The logic behind this strategic shift is that pressure should be applied to Iran not through a single decisive blow, but through a trajectory of simultaneous attrition across multiple levels. The objective is not simply to increase the external costs imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran, but to create a situation in which the country’s decision-making apparatus is forced to devote a greater portion of its capacity to managing overlapping domestic, border, and regional pressures. In other words, the new US strategy is based on simultaneously creating pressure within Iran, in its geopolitical periphery, and across its network of regional connections.
At the domestic level, this strategy relies on increasing social pressure and gradually eroding the resilience of the population. The aim is not simply to cause periodic discontent or severe crises, but to raise the cost of governance by disrupting critical infrastructure and targeting the fundamental systems that sustain daily life, such as energy, water, transportation, and other vital public services and economic hubs. Combined with security and regional constraints, this pressure could divert some of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s decision-making capacity away from broader strategic priorities and toward the exhaustive management of domestic crises.
However, this aspect of the strategy cannot be fully effective without transforming Iran’s surrounding environment. In this light, the United States and Israel are attempting to realign the regional theater by simultaneously engaging Tehran on several peripheral fronts. Recent experience shows that despite extensive military, security, and intelligence operations, Hezbollah has not been excluded from broader power relations, nor has Palestinian resistance been contained. Ansar Allah (the Houthi movement) has not relinquished its position in the region, and forces aligned with the Iraqi resistance have not been excluded from the political and security arena. These failures led the US government to conclude that Iran could only be weakened by simultaneously reconfiguring its surrounding environment.
Within this framework, three complementary trajectories can be identified. The first is to involve Iran within the border ring by activating unstable areas in the west, northwest, southeast, or northeast. The second is to increase pressure on Iran’s regional allies, from Lebanon and Palestine to Iraq and Yemen. Third, secure limited but significant gains on the ground that can be presented as evidence of pushing back Iran or reducing the depth of its regional influence. Within this logic, even limited actions, surgical operations, and pressure on sensitive economic and security nodes in Iran should be seen not as isolated incidents but as components of a broader strategic design.
Against this background, the NATO summit in Turkiye takes on an importance that goes far beyond a regular meeting. This is not just a forum to discuss European security, but also a platform to connect Iranian documents to the broader architecture of Western security. The United States is trying to elevate the Iranian issue beyond a bilateral conflict and turn it into a common concern for the Western coalition. Seen from this perspective, NATO is not just a military alliance, but an instrument for the political, security, and narrative alignment of Western allies vis-à-vis Iran.
In this context, President Trump’s presence at the summit can be understood as serving four interrelated purposes. The first is to strengthen coalition building against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States is using documents such as Ukraine, Energy Security, and Stability of Strategic Trade and Energy Routes to ensure stronger European cooperation against Iran. The strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz and the implications of instability in West Asia for Europe’s economic security allow Washington to link European concerns with its own anti-Iranian priorities. However, the positions adopted by some European countries suggest that the deal remains incomplete and that the United States still faces limitations in turning Europe into a full-fledged partner in its maximum pressure campaign against Iran.
The second purpose is to justify future actions. The U.S. government is acutely aware that unilateral action against Iran would incur significant political and legal costs. By fostering extra-regional coalitions, it therefore seeks to situate any subsequent measures within the framework of a more collective and ostensibly defensible narrative. In this sense, coalition building is not just a mechanism for accumulating power, but also a means for creating legitimacy in the later stages of pressure.
The third purpose is to coordinate with Tolkie and utilize its peripheral abilities. Any concessions granted to the Turkish government must be understood within the framework of US efforts to bring Turkiye closer to its regional vision. Border, ethnic, and security dynamics surrounding Iran, particularly in the west and northwest, could play an active role in such a strategy. From this perspective, the US-Turkiye talks cannot simply be understood as an effort to regulate bilateral relations. They are also part of an effort to activate pressure sources along Iran’s periphery.
The fourth objective is to use Syria’s capabilities to influence Lebanon and increase pressure on Hezbollah. Viewed through this lens, developments in Syria are not limited to Syria itself, but could provide the basis for recalibrating the Lebanese equation and putting even greater pressure on the resistance. If we accept the premise that the United States is linking the Syrian, Lebanese, and Turkish documents within a unified framework, these four objectives cannot be viewed in isolation. These are links in a single chain aimed at increasing political, security, and on-the-ground pressure on Iran and the Axis of Resistance.
In addition to these aspects, several additional dossiers have been redefined based on the same strategic architecture. In Gaza, the Zionist regime appears to be moving beyond the conflict over Hamas’ political management. By opposing reconstruction in so-called yellow zones and areas outside the security framework, it is now attempting to entrench new demographic and territorial structures. The problem is not simply the political governance of Gaza, but the transformation of the Gaza Strip into a contained, exhausted and restricted environment that allows Israel to shift its focus to the West Bank. The objective there is to stabilize security, suppress resistance, and prevent the West Bank from developing into a center of active and sustainable conflict. Gaza and the West Bank are therefore not two separate instruments, but two sides of a single strategy to contain Palestinian resistance.
In Yemen, too, there are signs that the Ansar Allah document is entering a new phase. According to this assessment, Israel established a “Yemen desk” within Mossad about eight months ago, a move that signals the document’s growing importance in the Zionist regime’s intelligence and operational calculations. The time may have come to implement some of the desk’s plans, and targeted action by Israel and the United States against Ansar Allah in Yemen is likely in the near future. If this trajectory is activated, Yemen will become another important arena for increasing simultaneous pressure on the axis of resistance.
In Iraq, the containment and weakening of resistance and allied forces remains a challenge for the United States, which becomes even more important when considered in conjunction with developments in other regions. As a result, we are not faced with a collection of disparate crises, but with a nexus of interconnected instruments pursued in a multi-layered plan aimed at reshaping the balance of power in West Asia.
Taken together, these developments demonstrate that the United States is activating an interconnected network of pressures against the Islamic Republic of Iran, rather than relying on a single instrument. Domestic pressure, pressure along Iran’s borders, pressure on regional allies, and pressure exerted through international coalition building all form part of this shared structure. Its ultimate aim is to redefine the balance of power in West Asia in favor of the United States and the Zionist regime, while focusing on managing the overlapping and multidimensional crises in Iran.
However, this strategy is definitely doomed to failure. Recent years have shown that many U.S. and Zionist plans, despite military superiority, political support, and complex security networks, end in exhaustion, confusion, and failure when faced with the realities on the ground, the constraints imposed by local conditions, and the deep-seated determination of resistance forces. Moreover, the millions of people attending the funerals of martyred commanders in Iran and Iraq demonstrated once again that a truly sustainable order in West Asia is built not around technology from outside the United States, but around deep bonds forged through the social will of nations, historical memories of resistance, and opposition to domination. Thus, while Washington seeks to recalibrate the axis of pressure and resistance against Iran through a more complex and multi-layered plan, the political and social realities of the region show that this project, like previous paradigms, faces its own internal limitations, exhaustion, and ultimate defeat. Therefore, the emerging order in West Asia cannot be seen as the product of American will, but rather as the result of the gradual ascendancy of a popular and deeply anti-American order against an imposed and externally engineered project.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
