Interview
“We are in an interregnum without a king”
The global financial crisis followed by the Eurozone crisis, the imperialist intervention in the Middle East followed by the refugee crisis, the Ukraine crisis, the energy crisis… This compound spiral of crises that has spanned almost 15 years seems to have opened the door to a new era in Europe. There is not a single corner where the “death of neoliberalism” has not been proclaimed. We are witnessing not only the collapse of the old economic order but also the collapse of the world of thought, sometimes quietly, sometimes with a great noise.
But the foundations of the order are solid for now. Those who want a new and different construction may not number in the billions, but they are accumulating. For a European thinking about this, about a new architecture, especially if that architecture is about security and geopolitics, the first thing that comes to mind is Russia. “Russia experts” are breathing new life into European thinking. They think that there should be Russians in the new mortar, more or less.
That’s why we spoke to Thomas Fasbender. Fasbender, the geopolitical chief of the Berliner Zeitung, who stood out as a kind of “outsider voice” in the German mainstream media, which had become “one voice” after the Ukraine war and the Gaza invasion, attracted attention with a biography he wrote about Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Fasbender, like Hauke Ritz, has a background in philosophy, perhaps one of the prerequisites for writing about politics in Germany. Like Ritz, but even earlier, he lived in Russia in the turbulent 90s, from 1992 to 2015. He says he was involved in “business”, meaning he came to journalism relatively late.
In his recently published book Der Eurasienkomplex: Warum und wie dem Westen die Zukunft entgleitet [The Eurasian Complex: Why and how the future slipped away from the West] he calls for unity against “Western arrogance”. Based on his own personal experience, he argues that basically people everywhere are pursuing “the same petty goals” as Western Europeans: Individualism, the pursuit of professional and personal success.
It is therefore calling for a kind of “eye level” from Western Europe towards other worlds, for example the Islamic world, for example China, for example India. The West no longer has the power to impose its will and desires on the world. What needs to be done is to abandon the “this-or-that bloc” mentality of the Cold War and place Europe (and Germany) as a bridge between East and West, North and South.
Given your background in philosophy, I think we can also talk about Kantian eternal peace. Which brings us to your book on Eurasia. Can you start by briefly explaining how the future is moving away from the West? I think you also call this the Eurasian complex. What do you think about this Eurasian complex? Because there is always a lot of talk about the decline of the West or the collapse of the West. Western values don’t work anymore, and so on. What do you mean by that?
The future of the West is slipping away. Basically, when we say that the future is slipping away from the West, we start with the basic economic and demographic data.
Let’s start with demographics. European people, if you include Canada, if you include the United States, people of European descent, 100, 150 years ago made up 30% of the world’s population. Today these countries make up less than 15% of the world population. The so-called West, if we include Europe, Australia and North America, accounted for more than 50% of the gross national product, world income, world total production. More or less until 2010. Since 2010, it has fallen below 50%.
If we look at the BRICS countries today, a few years ago, they reached a total production higher than the G7, which has been the club of western developed industrialized countries since the 1970s.
So we are seeing a numerical decline, a numerical shift from a very influential position that Europe and the countries that are Eurocentric or of European origin used to have until it reached its peak in the mid-20th century after the Allied victory in the Second World War.
So is this the Eurasian complex?
It’s not the Eurasian complex, it’s something else. This is just to indicate the starting point of our thinking, why the West is losing its dominance over the world, and we base it on its demography, its economy.
The Eurasian complex is an additional element, because the Eurasian complex means for Europe, for us Europeans, the challenge of accepting the growing power of countries, of Eurasian countries, of Eurasian regions outside Western Europe (even look at Russia today, for example).
We used to see Russia as an important part of Europe, because most of Russia belonged geographically to Europe, to Europeans. But recently, since the beginning of the war, the European idea of ourselves has increasingly excluded Russia. So Russia becomes part of the concept of Eurasia.
In the book we argue that there are different concepts of Eurasia. You can have the Eurasian landmass, which basically stretches from Portugal to Shanghai and covers the entire spread of Eurasian geography.
You can have a concept of Eurasia that spreads in Russia, for example, and covers the region of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, Russia and part of the Caucasus. This is another concept of Eurasia.
We look at Eurasia more from a geographical point of view, but mainly we understand it in the sense that Europeans have to deal with the rest of the Eurasian continent in a new way, not in the way they did in the past.
In the past, as colonial masters, we were ruthless. Basically, we produced the goods, we produced the ideas, ideologies. That was the only thing that came from Europe for 100, 200, 300 years.
And that has stopped. It stopped for the reasons I mentioned earlier, with the economy and demography. But it also stopped because after globalization, non-European, non-Western countries have a new self-confidence all over the world.
This self-confidence maybe only came with the last generation, it is actually based on the experiences of previous generations. But it is this power of asserting oneself that makes the real difference, that creates the real challenge, because now we see people simply standing up and saying: It’s all very well for you Europeans to tell us about liberalism, democracy, values and so on, but it doesn’t interest us anymore.
This is very difficult to digest even for the average member of the European elite, that we find ourselves in a completely new situation in relation to non-Western, non-European peoples, countries, traditions and histories in this huge continent.
So in what way does this concept of Eurasia overlap with the BRICS or the “Global South” or other “non-Western” terms?
Of course, at this point Eurasia becomes a kind of cliché word. It does not really cover everything and everyone.
In terms of geopolitical relevance, it is much more accurate to talk about the West and the “Global South”, for example. But then you also have to deal with the problem that China is not really a southern country and China is not really a developing country.
So all these concepts are simplifications to some extent, but they are necessary simplifications. You have to make them. The total world is so complex that it is completely impossible to grasp it unless you simplify it at least in terms.
So when we say Eurasia, of course there is an overlap with the Global South. There is an overlap with BRICS. There is the SCO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What we see is that underneath these terms, underneath the names that we give, it represents this assertiveness that I just mentioned, transforming itself into new power arrangements.
Because BRICS was a club. They weren’t even a club, it was initially a name, a name given by an American analyst around 1999. And then it transformed. It took on a kind of life of its own and became a conceptual name and then a political reality, and now this economic reality is becoming a political reality, it is gaining traction. It is attracting.
It has already attracted Ethiopia, Iran has been admitted, Egypt and the Emirates, plus now your country, Turkey, has formally requested membership and probably in three weeks, in October in Kazan, Turkey will be admitted. The same goes for Azerbaijan.
And this of course creates a new dynamic, because think of the original BRICS. In 1999, there were no Islamic countries in the original BRICS. Now, the Islamic factor represents an entity in itself, an entity in itself, the Islamic world from Indonesia to Morocco. Now I can say that this Islamic world is also participating in this new distribution of cards.
If we compare geopolitics to a game, there is always a new hand. We always redistribute the cards and one of these cards is of course the Islamic world, whose value is increasing.
Another question is: Can Asia or Eurasia today maintain its strong position in competition with the US or the G7? The US had a very clear position of superiority and even the Soviet Union, for example, could not maintain its superiority. Could Eurasia maintain a position of superiority, not only economically, but also culturally, civilizationally and systemically? Could it at least provide a counterbalance to the Western countries?
We must be careful not to confuse two things here: these are just names. There is no such entity as Eurasia. There is no entity. There is no single entity called the Global South. There is no entity called the West.
We use these labels to describe influences, to describe certain pulls, to describe forces that oppress, compete, antagonize each other.
When we talk about Asia, there is always China, there is always the Sino-Indian conflict as a dividing factor. When we talk about the Islamic world, there will always be competition between Turkey, Iran and the Arab world.
Of course, in the reality of geopolitical gains, each side will take advantage of the rivalries on the other side and try to exploit them. Just like Russia wants to separate the Europeans from us, the Americans or the Israelis will use the rivalries within the Islamic world and try to divide it for their own interests. Everyone will try to pit India and China against each other so that they can keep both of them under control, so that they don’t allow each of them to become too powerful.
So it is very important to see this here. I think the name multipolar world is not a bad name because it simply starts from the fact that there is no single pole that can dominate the world. As you mentioned, of course the US comes from a very strong position. It is still in a very strong position and it will remain in a strong position, a very strong position for a long time to come.
The United States is a young country of 250 years. When we look at the empires in history, they either collapsed very quickly or they were really long-lived, they proved to be long-lived entities.
In this game, the term multipolar allows us to understand a game where there is no single dominant factor, but there are very strong centers of power, centers of power that exert influence, project power, project competitiveness.
Here we have an Islamic world with three centers. The Arab world, the Turkish world and Iran. In Iran, you have Asia with China and India, you have the West with the US and Europe, and you also have Australia.
So what we see is that now the game is being played in a new way. It creates a new, let’s say, interdependent, ever-changing situation, like a puzzle.
That’s what makes this world, the new world, so different from what it was 30 years ago. After the end of the cold war, everything was simple. That’s why a lot of people liked it. Before the end of the cold war it was simple because you had two poles and it was much easier to understand a bipolar world than a multipolar world.
If you think about the possibility of a multipolar world becoming a multipolar world, then it becomes really very difficult.
But my personal view is that the clear and simple structures of 30 years ago are not going to be quickly replaced by something new. So if we say, great, the new world will be bipolar again, the US and China… No, neither the US nor China is strong enough like the Soviet Union and the US were 50, 70, 80 years ago.
So you are pointing to a kind of interregnum.
Geopolitical interregnum is probably the right word: Kingless interregnum. Because even if we assume that the US will remain the dominant power militarily and economically for decades to come, which I think we can assume, at least economically, there is strong competition from China, there is strong competition from India, and militarily the US, despite its 700 or 800 military bases, no longer has the power or the manpower, the willingness, but also the material power to really be everywhere.
Because because of globalization in the world, there are countries that 50 years ago, 70, 80 years ago were quite new when it comes to exerting power in real geopolitics. Africa was colonized and much of Africa and Asia was just dumb, happy to survive, but not claiming any political importance, any political ambition on their own.
This situation has now changed. Countries have started re-entering the international arena. China re-entered; China was the most powerful nation until the first half of the 19th century. India has re-entered in the same way, Iran has re-entered in the same way, Turkey has re-entered in the same way. So these countries have re-entered the international arena and they are reclaiming their historical rights. This adds an additional color to geopolitics. Until the 20th century, geopolitics was quite complex and simple. Now they have evolved into something completely different.
But in this case, could your description, multipolarity, mean more wars? Because you said it could be a kingless interregnum. So if we go into a kingless interregnum, isn’t it more likely that we will have more wars than in past decades?
We already have so many wars. I think you are right that we will have more wars. But the likelihood of a big all-out world war, the so-called Third World War, will probably decrease.
It will be less likely than if we have a world dominated by two or at most three very powerful powers.
This is how the world used to live. The world has always been used to living with a series of regional conflicts, some of them escalating into war, and this is probably a solution or a description of the future situation.
Let’s talk a little bit about your expertise on Russia. In one of your interviews on Vladimir Putin’s autobiography, you said that the state, the concept of the state is the main element that determines the worldview of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. I would like to ask you, is it just pragmatism or Machiavellianism, or does Putin have deeper ideological beliefs? And I would also like to ask at this point: if Europe, and especially Germany, starts to learn from Putin and Russia about this concept of the state, is it possible to predict the consequences? Because the glorification of the state has not led to good results in Europe before.
Russia, unlike the European nation-states, even though it has been cut off from Central Asia, even though it has been cut off from the Caucasus, it is still, in their view, an empire, an imperial sovereign state, not a nation-state.
Russians make up about 80% of Russia’s population. This is, of course, a majority, a large majority, but nevertheless, Russia does not see itself as a nation-state of Russians because of their historical understanding, because of their own views.
Russia has historically had a fragile government, a fragile power, because it has huge territories, it is also sparsely populated, it has traditionally very high disparities, strong differences between rich and poor, and it is very difficult to protect the country, because Russian borders are very big and very few of them are natural borders like rivers or mountain ranges.
So there is always the possibility that the Russian state, as it sees itself, is a threatened entity. That is why Russia is moving very strongly to the west, but not only to the west, but also to the south.
This high degree of distrust, at least potential distrust, is very strong because of the memory of the French occupation in 1812, the memory of the German occupation in 1941. On the one hand, these are artificially cultivated by the state, as part of the state’s cult of history and cult of historical victories. But they also reflect something real, which is a feeling, and this feeling is real, a real sense of insecurity.
This is what many people in the West find difficult to understand, because people in the West start from themselves: They don’t have aggressive feelings towards Russia, they don’t have expansionist feelings… So they say that there is no threat from them to Russia, even if it is NATO or the West. So any insecurity, any perception of threat on the Russian side is just a fantasy, it is not real.
But here we get into psychology. The important thing is to understand that any Russian leader, anybody sitting in the Kremlin, will insist on having a strong and vertically organized state structure, because this has always been the case. This is a tradition that is inherent in the Russian people and in Russian history.
And to expect something like European liberal democracy to work in Russia is a fantasy, it is completely illogical and unrealistic, because in different countries, in Germany, in England, in Russia and other countries, you can have different traditions of self-government. The tradition of self-government in Russia has always been top-down and at the same time vertical and combined with a strong element of power, an element of power only in the sense of being able to implement your own will.
For example, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, [then German Chancellor] Helmut Kohl thought that Gorbachev was willing to decentralize the Soviet Union and that this would be a good, wonderful democratic experience for the Russian people. Many political elites in the West, especially in Germany and the US, thought so. Do you think this is not true?
I think Mikhail Gorbachev himself believed that there could be something like a liberal and more or less democratically organized Russia. But in the end it didn’t happen. Of course, books have been written and will be written about why it couldn’t happen. But the fact is that the security apparatus, the apparatus of power, the state in its purest form, embodied by Vladimir Putin, has regained control.
So I wouldn’t say that everything that Gorbachev tried to achieve and that Yeltsin somehow continued in the 1990s didn’t work at all, because I lived in Russia in the 1990s and there was a lot going on. There was always a great deal of democracy and debate.
But it ended de facto, it ended with the old security power, the Siloviki as the Russians call them, the old KGB structures taking over.
We can regret that. We can speculate whether it was necessary or not. We can try to explain it, but the reality is that the Russian state is run by this mentality and these people, this part of Russian traditional history and this is what Europe has to live with.
So, what is Germany’s reaction or can we learn something from this in Germany? I don’t think Germany will or should learn anything from what is happening in Russia because the two countries are very different. It has a completely different history than Western Europe, Central Europe, the rest of Eurasia. It’s not just Russia, it’s history and history shapes our future.
This is what is sometimes difficult to understand or not fully understood by people: How much our collective history determines our collective future. Because we think we are autonomous and strategically free, “We are free people. We can change our systems.”
Theoretically we can, but it will never work. Russia is an example of why it doesn’t work. Even if you compare it with Germany in 1945, for example, some people tell us that democracy was brought by the allied powers, by the Americans. This is not true. It happened in 1945, but it was re-established from our own democratic traditions going back thousands of years, going back to the self-government of independent German towns.
So we are like the rest of Western Europe. We have 1,500 years of strong democratic tradition. Unless you have this tradition of democracy, you cannot invent democracy. You cannot really create democracy out of nothing in any state. Something has to happen first.
I think the challenge for Germany is first of all to realize that our way of thinking, the way we want to have, with words like liberal, democratic, etc., is something that we can only be happy with if we achieve it in our own country.
But we should never want or expect the rest of the world to follow us in the way we see ourselves. We see an ideal world. This is also true for Russia because when we talk about European values we must always keep in mind that Russia, even today’s Russia, is part of Europe.
When we talk about European values, sometimes I ask people, what are these European values? They say, rule of law, democracy, human rights… And I say, European values are God, family and homeland. These are European values. God, family and homeland are actually the values that governed Europe during the rise of Europe, during the rise of Europe to world power. So what we have in terms of democracy, human rights and the rule of law is a very late development in our European history.
Europeans see these concepts as fixed ideas, not historical ideas, but fixed concepts…
You are right. I don’t know about other European countries, but in Germany we are stuck in a set of ideologies, a set of values that we think are universal. But in fact they are not universal. They are just an expression of our own historical experience, our own historical formation.
And there is no guarantee that in, say, 200 or 300 years time, people will value human rights the way we value them today. Even in other parts of the world, there is no guarantee that people will value human rights the way we value human rights. When you talk to very educated Muslim people, for example. There were a series of conferences on Islamic human rights and these are highly educated and highly intellectual people who will argue that the so-called universal rights of Europeans do not necessarily apply to different cultures and religious traditions; we simply have to accept that as a fact.
The mistake we make is that we say, yes, this is all there, this is what people think, but we are still right. And this is where our own misery begins. Because even if we are right, as the West we are no longer in a position to impose our opinion and impose our will on the rest of the world.
This is the dilemma in which we find ourselves at this very point, in the third century, in the third decade of the 21st century.
And this brings me to a question about German-Russian relations. Let’s talk about that. Can Germany, at odds with Russia, build healthy relations with Eurasia, Asia or the “Global” South? Relations with Russia are unlikely to improve in the short or medium term. And the question arises. What does Germany have to lose by picking a fight with Russia in this context?
Germany is at a crossroads, as I said, we have certain ideas about which values should be universally applicable to everyone. We have certain ideas about the rule of law in international relations. We have certain ideas about international law, the dogmas of international law, territorial integrity, the right of nations to self-determination, and we are very firm in our belief, in our understanding that this should apply to everybody.
Now, Russia feels that it is being attacked, so to speak, on its southwestern front. This approach of the West, from the Russian point of view, trying to cut Ukraine off from the so-called East Slavic world, from the so-called Russian world, whether we accept it or not, is a reality.
Russia violated international law with its invasion on February 24, 2022. There is no doubt about that. It violated its own obligations towards Ukraine, towards the international order. So in many ways it has violated the order that governs Europe and from a German point of view should govern Europe.
So how do we deal with this? We are still trying to secure the victory of the Ukrainians. By securing victory we mean restoring the status quo, the European order as we understand it.
If that doesn’t work, if we are not in a position to secure the victory of the Ukrainians, to restore order, if the conflict ends with, let’s say, a territorial concession that goes completely against all our beliefs in international law… That’s the dilemma I’m talking about. Then we will find ourselves in a situation where we will have to rethink our whole relationship with the world, with the outside world.
How do we deal with Russia if we still hold on to our beliefs in the international order? We cannot talk to the perpetrator. Russia will become a taboo country for us. But not only Russia, China, for example, because of human rights violations; you will find it in Iran, you will find it in many countries; you will find it in Saudi Arabia, even our ally, violates human rights.
So if you really take the intellectual basis of our current policy to the end, we will end up isolated, we will isolate ourselves. We will definitely isolate ourselves. Of course we are not going to isolate ourselves absolutely, because even in Germany there are not only ideologues, there are very rational people. We rely on exports, our economy is more than 50% or around 50% based on exports. So we have to deal with the outside world.
But here you are pointing to something very important, a dilemma, the crossroads I was talking about. We will probably not have the power to impose our ideas of order on the whole world. We will probably not even be in a position to restore the European order in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine, and we will have to accept that. This means that we will have to rethink and rebuild our relations with the outside world on a new set of ideas that will be governed in more realistic terms, moving away, for example, from the idea of universal values.
Apart from the Ukraine and Eastern Europe problem, the situation in the Middle East is also heating up these days. The Israeli invasion of Gaza and now the invasion of southern Lebanon. Even in countries like the UK or the US, there are different voices, different opinions about their country’s support for Israel. But when we look at the German government, when we look at the German state structure, there is even a term for Germany’s support for the state of Israel: Staatsräson [state wisdom]. What do you think Germany is trying to achieve by supporting Israel against the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people, what is the geopolitical reason for this support?
Don’t think that Germany expects to get something. This is not about getting something in exchange for something else. Germany’s commitment to Israel as a state is based entirely on the Holocaust. Not just fundamentally, it is entirely based on the Holocaust, on the fact that we are responsible for it, that Germany is responsible for the extermination of a people as a whole in the only industrially organized way ever in the history of the world.
It is a violation of culture, it is a violation of civilization, it is a violation of all values and rules of all countries and all religions, all cultures, and in that sense it is truly unique. It is genocide in its own singular order, and this of course binds Germany and will bind Germany for generations to come. The great dilemma in which we find ourselves.
So, yes, the great dilemma in which we find ourselves has to do with the question of the extent to which this happened. To what extent does this guilt, this responsibility, compel us to position ourselves in any conflict in which Israel is involved today and in the future? The word Staatsräson was coined by Angela Merkel, who was our chancellor until 2021, I think it was around 2010. This term was coined in a very prosperous, calm, peaceful, relatively calm period of German history. It probably has too much in it, in the sense of linking us as a state to Israel, in the sense of going too far in this regard. I understand very well what Merkel wants to say, I completely agree with her about this special responsibility, this special commitment that we have. The question is: does it limit us to take certain positions? Do we limit ourselves to only taking certain positions, or do we commit ourselves to taking certain actions?
For example, does Staatsräson mean that we should send the Bundeswehr to the Middle East if Israel’s existence is threatened? Israel’s existence can be threatened at any time.
As we are seeing now, we are dealing with a very victorious, confident Israel, which has largely destroyed Hamas, which has destroyed a large part of Hezbollah and its leadership. This will probably show Iran the limits of its power. So you have an Israel that has militarily reestablished, revitalized its power in the region.
The question, and this is a question that Germany cannot answer, is how Israel sees its future surrounded by hostile populations. Was there any other country in the world that for a long time, for decades, for centuries, based its relations with all its neighbors on military superiority? It is a big question mark.
So I think we have to come back to this question when we talk about the fundamental issues that we Germans have to deal with. To what extent do we have to support an Israeli state that focuses itself exclusively or almost exclusively on the use of military force?
I don’t believe that Israel will behave in this way under any government. The current government under Binyamin Netanyahu is responsible for leading Israeli society in this direction. But we have to deal with this democratically elected government, so according to our rules and norms this government is the legitimate government. This legitimate government is behaving in a way that we as Germans feel morally distant from.
Some Germans may say that what was done to the Israeli people, to the Jews on October 7, 2023, justifies or legitimizes any reaction. But the vast majority of the German people will ask the same question: OK, Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people and took hostages on October 7. But does that justify the deaths of 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 people? Where will this end? What is the equivalent of 1,200 Israeli citizens?
I always try to think things through to the end and get to the bottom of things. And the bottom line here is that Germany cannot be obliged to support an uncompromising eye for an eye, ear for an ear policy on Israel’s side. This is a question that our politicians have to answer.
But as you can see, when you talk to Germans, it doesn’t matter if they are from below or from above, everybody feels this dilemma and there are very few people who have a clear position.
I would say, “I tell you: Israel is a disturbing factor. I don’t think there are many Germans who would say, “I’m telling you: Israel is a disturbing factor. It should be eliminated.” No, there may be Arabs in Germany who say that, not Germans, but there are very few Germans who say that everything Israel does is legitimate and justified because of our own German background.
But there is a greater hypocrisy on the part of the German government. Germany can morally separate itself from Russia and Vladimir Putin, but it cannot do the same with the Netanyahu government and what Israel is doing now in Gaza and Lebanon.
I wouldn’t use the word hypocrisy, there are hypocrites, no doubt. But I don’t think they sit in the German government. I accuse our Chancellor Olaf Scholz of being a hypocrite, neither on Israel nor on Ukraine. There are hypocrites in the media, absolutely. There are double standards in the media. Many politicians have double standards.
I think our current government is trying to stay on an equal footing with regard to these two major conflicts. I would say that. And of course, again, we have two commitments. When we look at Ukraine, we have a commitment to the European peace order, to restore the principles of the European peace order. And when we look at the Middle East, there is a commitment to the existence of Israel as a state, and these are constraints that create a framework within which we have to operate.
I wouldn’t say that the German government has actually done a bad job in this regard. Yes, in every conflict there are doves and there are hawks, and sometimes we have hawks in politics and in the media who go too far in saying that everything Israel does is justified, or that Ukraine must win in all circumstances.
These are really double standards that emerge very quickly. For example, I was just wondering these days, because the Russian invasion of Ukraine has always been described by the Russians as a special military operation. The Israeli invasion of South Lebanon was also described, not in those words, but as a limited operation. As far as Russia is concerned, the German media always portrays it as a lie, clearly untrue, because it is a full-scale invasion. Here it is called a full-scale occupation. Nobody is talking about a full-scale invasion of South Lebanon by Israeli forces of the IDF. Maybe there is no full-scale occupation in south Lebanon yet, but even if there is, I don’t think the German media would talk about full-scale occupations.
One last question. Let’s go back to the problem of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Caucasus. I think you have visited both countries recently. I was in Azerbaijan but I did not go to Armenia, I had a meeting with the Armenian Ambassador.
If we include Iran and Turkey, is the situation in the South Caucasus closer to peace or war?
In the South Caucasus, it should be clearly stated that we are talking about the end of 2024, for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union there is a real chance for peace.
It is necessary to say it again and again, because many people don’t like to hear it, that a year ago, in September 2023, Azerbaijan militarily restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty over all its territory, as internationally recognized at the end of 1991.
So what Azerbaijan achieved in the one-day war in 2023, which was preceded by a war in the fall of 2020, is exactly the same as the weapons and billions of dollars that we sent to Ukraine to ensure the restoration of the full sovereignty of the Ukrainian state on the territory of Ukraine from the last day of 1991.
The problem here, of course, is that this part of Nagorno-Karabakh, the disputed part, or the part of Azerbaijan that is being fought over, is inhabited by about 120,000 Armenians. On the other hand, we all know that there are another 100,000 people in Donbass, which is also being fought. There are millions of people living there, identifying themselves as Russians, sympathizing with them.
Therefore, we are facing a more or less similar situation where the borders of the Soviet Union, the internal borders of the Soviet Union, which became the external borders of sovereign states in 1991, in no way reflect or reflect the population, ethnic origins.
So yes, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of Azerbaijan after 1991. This is how history worked, first of all, after 1991 there was a big Armenian-Azeri war. Armenia won the war, or let’s say the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh won the war. They occupied a big part of Azerbaijani territory. People were forced to leave Azerbaijani lands. Azerbaijan regained this country after 30 years.
There is an endless spiral of conflict here. There are atrocities on both sides. There are refugees on both sides. This is a terrible conflict that could theoretically go on forever. The only great chance we have now is that we have a situation where peace is possible internationally, with the restoration of internationally recognized borders between both countries, because the status quo again corresponds to internationally recognized territories. This is the most important difference that has emerged for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union. So peace is possible again.
There are big challenges for both sides. Can Armenia live with this defeat? Yes, it was a defeat for the Armenian sides. The exodus of Karabakh Armenians after the one-day war last September was a defeat, a terrible cultural defeat. Basically, Armenia as a people gave up, not a state territory, but a cultural territory that it has had for millennia. So the question again is: can Armenia live with this defeat and transform itself into a more promising future?
And, equally importantly, can Azerbaijan be humble in victory? In both cases, the victorious side needs to show humility. The defeated side also depends on the magnanimity of both sides. If both sides, if both leaders, Mr. Pashinyan on one side and Mr. Aliyev on the other side, if both leaders are historically good, if they realize their potential, they can become historical figures. There is a chance for peace. If they go back to the spiral, the spiral of endless war, they will squander this chance.
On the other hand, we have more regional and bigger actors like Turkey and Iran. You know, Iran does not want the Zangezur corridor against its will. And Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan both militarily and economically. So, if there is a new war in the future, it is likely to be bigger than the previous previous war.
A new war should be avoided. There is no question about it because there will be no chance to reach peace again. And it is very difficult to imagine that a single actor will develop as a dominant winner in this region. Who could this be? This is a very old issue.
This is a region where there has never been one dominant power, or very rarely. Now when we look at the opportunity for peace, I think it is in everybody’s interest. Elements on the Armenian side and elements on the Azeri side may not be able to live with this status quo for emotional reasons. For the Turks, it is a very attractive prospect to have the Armenian border open for the economy, just for trade. The possibility that they can build this Azeri exclave through Nakhchivan, through Nakhchivan and then south through the Zangezur corridor, or some other way through Azerbaijan to Baku and then to China, the middle corridor, is a tremendous opportunity for trade, because today it all has to go north through Georgia to Azerbaijan.
It is the same for the Iranians. Because if Azerbaijan and Armenia live in peace, it will be much easier to realize the idea of a north-south corridor from Russia through Iran to India, through Azerbaijan to Iran.
And the Zangezur corridor that you also mentioned. The problem with the Zangezur corridor is not the Iranians. The Iranians are building a link between Nakhshavan and mainland Azerbaijan on their territory south of the Armenia-Iran border. Therefore, they have no problem with the Zangezur corridor. The problem with the Zangezur corridor is that the Azerbaijanis want to have an uncontrolled and duty-free connection between the mainland and their exclave for their goods and their people. For understandable reasons, Armenia is not in a position to commit to this because it would mean voluntarily giving up its sovereign rights. So this is a point where both countries are still a stepping stone for a possible prolongation of the conflict.
But I don’t think that Turkey or Iran has any negative impact on peace. It depends on Armenia and Azerbaijan. I am sure that both sides understand this, because most of the negotiations are now done bilaterally, without Turkey, Iran, the EU or the US.
You can think geopolitically here, you can expect that there might be some opposition from the US, because the US does not want to give China the opportunity to develop the Belt and Road Initiative, the so-called New Silk Road. Because a peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan would mean an opportunity to build the middle corridor in completely new dimensions. The south, east and west of the Caucasus will be connected through the Caucasus to Central Asia via the Caspian Sea. I don’t know if there are forces, geostrategic thinkers or conspirators in the US who would welcome this about Turkey and its geopolitical role in the multipolar world.
I think you have some thoughts about what Turkey can do in this emerging new league of nations and what Turkey can do in this emerging multipolar world. What do you think about that?
I think Turkey is definitely realizing its potential and its goals right now. As far as I understand, Turkey has said goodbye to the idea of being tied to Western Europe. I would say that EU membership is a fanciful idea. There will be some kind of relationship with the EU and of course Turkey has a strong interest to integrate economically with the Europeans. There is no doubt about that, but without giving up any foreign policy autonomy, foreign policy rights…
Looking at the current perspective of BRICS membership for Turkey, it is clear that Turkey will lead a 360-degree foreign policy. The challenge, which will not make Turkey’s job easier in the meantime, is that on the one hand, Turkey is returning to its traditional high dominance in the geopolitical theater. On the other hand, it is returning to the old rivalries that have made life unbearable for Turkey time and time again. Because the biggest challenge for Turkey is to maximize the number of enemies. The Christian Balkans are a kind of potential enemy. The two countries that have fought the most wars in Europe in the last 400 years are Russia and Turkey, I think eleven or more. Turkish-Iranian rivalry, Turkish-Arab rivalry, Turkish-Egyptian rivalry…
Therefore, for Turkey, the ambition to set a rule in this geopolitical theater and to assert and reassert its sovereignty is logical, necessary and understandable. Otherwise there will be a vacuum in Anatolia around the straits. But this opportunity also brings with it many potential problems and challenges for the Turkish leadership.
I think the biggest threat at the moment, though, is to rediscover old rivalries, for example with Greece. Turkey does not need such a rivalry. That would be foolish.
Another threat is of course Islamism, fundamentalism. This is a threat to the whole Islamic world. Because every step towards fundamentalism leads to deeper rivalries within the Islamic world and deeper enmity with non-Islamic powers.
And perhaps the biggest challenge is for Turkey to navigate its position in relation to the growing West-East, West-Russia hostilities, the growing divide between Western Europe and the NATO world and Russia and China as representatives of the so-called autocrats.
So the more these blocs become hostile blocs, really hostile blocs, the more difficult it will be for Turkey to remain here as a NATO member and there as a BRICS member. And this will always bring with it the danger of unduly straining Turkey’s position.
Foreign affairs writer Lily Lynch discusses the shifting political landscape of Central Europe and the Balkans in this interview with Harici. Lynch, whose work frequently appears in the New Statesman, New Left Review, and The Baffler, addresses a range of topics from Hungary’s recent elections to Serbia’s complex foreign policy maneuvers. A recipient of a 2025 LA Press Club award, she examines the “clarifying effect” of the Ukraine war on regional leadership and the evolving nature of right-wing populism across the continent. The conversation offers a detailed analysis of the challenges facing the European right and the persistent geopolitical tensions in the region.
I would like to begin with Hungary, specifically with the recent electoral victory of the right-wing populist Tisza Party, much like Viktor Orbán and Fidesz, and of its leader, Péter Magyar. What does this victory signify for Hungary’s future? The deep corruption and abuses of power involving Orbán’s circle had also received coverage in the international press. The fact that the country’s three major parties at the top of the electoral list are all right-wing paints a rather bleak picture.
I think that Magyar’s victory demonstrates several things. One is that right-wing ideas are still broadly popular in Hungary. The fact that Magyar is not so different from Orban on issues like immigration demonstrates that. So right-wing politics were not defeated in this election; instead, it is clear now that they are very much entrenched in Hungary and do reflect the sentiments of the public.
At the same time, I think there’s a particular brand of right-wing populism that is starting to cause some fatigue. This is a sort of clownish, personality-driven Trumpian populism that is wedded to Zionism, and which Orban embodied as well. I think Magyar’s success hints at a desire for a more sober and serious right-wing politics, decoupled from MAGA populism, and perhaps somewhat less revisionist: a politics that are anti-immigration and conservative but also more content with the status quo.
The electoral result also suggests that Trump’s brand has grown increasingly toxic, and that Orban’s choice to embrace Trump–going so far as having JD Vance campaign for him ahead of the election–hurt more than it helped. Trump is becoming a burden for the right, particularly in Europe. After Trump’s threats towards Greenland, no one in Europe can say they support Trump and also support respect for sovereignty. Of course, this is exactly what Orban once preached, as he fashioned himself a sovereigntist. In the end, it appeared that he only opposed encroachments from Brussels, but gave Trump’s America a pass.
At the same time, Orban’s deliberate stoking of the culture war ended up producing diminishing returns for him. Without decent economic performance, and with so much perceived corruption, his culture war crusades on issues such as gender simply were not enough to keep him afloat. In addition, Orban’s re-traditionalization efforts failed. The pro-natality policies he put in place were expensive but did little to boost the birth rate. Church attendance under Orban was even lower than it was during the socialist period, when religion was frowned upon by the authorities.
It may also be useful to touch on Serbia. The government led by Aleksandar Vučić appears to be pursuing what is often described as a “multi-vector foreign policy.” On the one hand, there is the prospect of EU membership; on the other, there are Serbia’s historically rooted ties with Russia. Yet in the course of the war in Ukraine, how should we interpret the statements coming from Moscow, particularly the strong reaction led by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to alleged arms deliveries to Kyiv via third parties? How sustainable is this condition of being a “swing state”?
There was a time when Vučić managed Serbia’s complex geopolitical position relatively well. At the height of the Vučić era, which was already a decade ago now, Serbia had relations with Russia, China, Turkey, the US, and many countries of the Global South that are members of the Non-aligned Movement–all while remaining a candidate for EU membership. But February 2022 changed everything for him. A major war in Europe–no longer confined to Donbass–meant that he was suddenly under much more pressure to harmonize Serbia’s policy with that of other European countries. In practice this meant things like imposing sanctions on Russia, and by voting in lockstep with EU and NATO member countries on resolutions on Ukraine in UN General Assembly votes.
It is true of course that Vucic was permitting indirect Serbian arms sales to Ukraine, which bought him a lot of credibility in Western capitals. With the Russians, meanwhile, he made excuses: He claimed that he was under a tremendous amount of pressure, and basically could not tell the West “no”. For a while I think the Russians accepted this, if grudgingly. But then as the arms sales to Ukraine didn’t stop after Vucic said they would, there were strong reactions in Russia.
I don’t think any of these actors, with the possible exception of China, trust Vucic anymore. For a long time, Vucic was all things to all people. A great example was in a UNGA vote Serbia voted in favor of a resolution on Ukraine, then Vucic immediately issued a statement saying that it had been “a mistake” and that they’d meant to vote against it. This was a deliberate strategy of ambiguity: which message to believe? The actual vote or Vucic’s statement to the press. He was masterful at this, for years: give one message to Washington, one to Moscow, and one to Brussels. I think you can sustain that kind of ambiguity for a time, and perhaps even a long time, but war has a clarifying effect. At a certain point, you just have to choose.
Vucic has also been one of the losers of the second Trump administration. This is the exact opposite of what he had hoped: he expected Serbia to be a natural ally to Trump. Instead, Vucic has been rebuffed by the administration, and repeatedly. Vucic stayed faithful to his mutli-vector foreign policy with the expectation that Trump would come to power and immediately end the war in Ukraine. I think he really believed that would happen–that Trump would end the war in Ukraine immediately. If that happened, Vucic’s job would have been a lot easier: there would be far less pressure on him from the EU, for one. So long story short, two recent developments have imperiled his multi-vector approach. First, the full-scale war in Ukraine in February 2022, and second, Trump winning a second term, and subsequent ambivalent relations with the White House.
It may also be worthwhile here to address the issue of Kosovo, which, as is well known, has in recent years become a fault line that periodically simmers and boils over. In the December elections in Kosovo, Albin Kurti once again returned to the office of prime minister. Would it be possible for you to share some information on this, or perhaps your observations and/or firsthand impressions? It seems likely that this is a place we will be discussing in the years ahead.
Albin Kurti has staked his career in part on his opposition to the creation of something called “the Association of Serbian Municipalities” of “Community of Serbian Municipalities” in northern Kosovo. Northern Kosovo is home to a Serbian-majority population who absolutely do not recognize Kurti’s government as legitimate and largely answer to Belgrade, though they often feel left on their own by the Serbian government as well. According to the 2013 Brussels Agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, the government of Kosovo has to create something called the Association/Community of Serbian Municipalities, a sort of thin layer of sovereignty or self-government that is nonetheless subordinate to Prishtina. Meanwhile, Serbia would extract itself from the north, ceding control of it to the government of Kosovo.
This has always been hugely controversial in Kosovo, as some believe it will create the conditions for eventual Serbian secession. Kurti remaining in office effectively means that there will be little progress made on this front. This is something that has made Western capitals very frustrated with Kurti, and he was under EU sanctions until last year.
However tense the current status quo is, I disagree with those who say a return to full-scale war is imminent or inevitable. There are something like 4,500 peacekeeping troops in Kosovo as a part of KFOR, NATO’s Kosovo peacekeeping force. That said, I am sure there will be the occasional flare up of localized violence. This currently happens every 1-2 years. But I highly doubt that these spasms of violence will lead to a full-scale war. Despite all the acrimonious feelings and distrust, there is little appetite for another big war in the Balkans by any side.
Finally, I am curious about your assessment, in broader terms, of what has given rise to the right-wing populist wave across Europe and/or how it is likely to shape Europe’s future overall. The supposedly “anti-establishment” profile, as in the case of Giorgia Meloni, either ends up directly submitting to the establishment, that is, to the Brussels bureaucracy, or produces state structures of astonishing corruption. This is a genuinely compelling issue, and I would be very interested in your views.
My answer about what has given rise to the right-wing populist wave is not at all original. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this wave was preceded by the 2007-2008 financial crisis, which led to an overall crisis in faith in institutions, experts, and in liberalism. This was fertile ground for a populist backlash against “elites”. Of course, these anti-establishment politicians ride to power on promises to “drain the swamp” or fight the powers that be, and then turn around and adopt very conventional policies once in office. Or, in Orban’s case, they may actually break with established consensus, but turn out even more corrupt than the liberal “elites” they rail against. There is always a rhetoric-policy gap in politics, but it’s especially pronounced on the populist right.
Interview
‘The so-called international order is crumbling; national interest is the only remaining truth’
In this extensive interview with Harici Medya at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Swiss journalist, Editor-in-chief of Die Weltwoche Roger Köppel provides a piercing diagnostic of the fracturing global order. Analyzing the downfall of the so-called “rule-based international system” through the cold lens of realism, Köppel articulates the inherent fragility of modern alliances when confronted by the supremacy of national interests. From the volatile Iran-Israel axis to the internal schisms within NATO, and from China’s emergence as a strategic alternative to the complex interplay between theology and power, each pivotal issue is reshaped by Köppel’s distinct and uncompromising perspective.
The dialogue further explores the friction between the Vatican and the American populist right, interrogating the resurgence of religion as a potent geopolitical instrument. Placing significant emphasis on Türkiye’s central role as a mediator within this “biblical” theater of conflict, Köppel champions the necessity of authentic diplomacy over moralizing rhetoric. Ultimately, this conversation offers a profound intellectual roadmap for navigating the sanctuary of pragmatism in an era redefined by the maneuvers of “great predator countries.”
I’d like to start with the ongoing talks about Iran. There is this current discussions between United States and Iran that they had an agreement about the Strait of Hormuz, but then things soured quite a bit and now Iran claims that they’re going to close the strait again because the American side also is not opening the blockade. So in a more general sense, what do you think about this ceasefire? How do you think it’s going to evolve in the upcoming days?
If I knew, I would have great qualified knowledge. Probably I could be a very rich man because I could foresee the stock market development. Unfortunately, we are in a very difficult situation where national interest, security concerns and even religious convictions are in the field of battle. And I can just hope that at the end of the day, goodwill prevails and that all sides find a way to settle this terrible situation. But how it can be achieved… I’m a Swiss. It’s very, very difficult to give here any kind of advice. I think I can understand all sides. I can understand the security concerns of Israel. I have a lot of sympathy with that. I can understand the American position, which was, since President Reagan, rather clear concerning Iran. And then you have Iran, this amazing civilization, which at least in European eyes, is also on a way, which can be—let’s be very cautious here—which can be considered a threat for other countries, building up ballistic arsenals, experimenting with nuclear explosives. It’s a very, very demanding issue. But somehow I’m still optimistic. I believe that they find a solution. But at the moment, it’s very hard to see how.
The United States and Europe had some sort of conflict between each other when it came to the Iran war. Donald Trump had certain expectations from its European allies, which already had a strained relationship after the Greenland debacle. When it comes to why Europe did not send any help, how do you describe that? Do you think Trump was right? Do you think Europe was right? What is the situation between the two parts of NATO?
I think what we see in the relationship between the EU and the United States is a symptom of the topic that has been discussed at this conference here in Antalya, which is the crumbling, which is the downfall of the so-called international order. And you can see it even on the level of military alliances such as NATO, that these alliances, they mean nothing in today’s world. We are in a world where national interest rules. And I believe that always national interest has ruled. But sometimes there was a lot of hypocrisy and the big talk about international order, rule-based order. But at the end of the day, it was only and always national interest. And we see it now with NATO: when it’s in the national interest that the Europeans can talk and use NATO, they say, “We are NATO members.” If the biggest NATO power, United States, says “Now you have to help us,” the Europeans say “No.” So I don’t want to judge this. I don’t want to say who is right and who is wrong. But I would like to say that this just indicates to us that these international rule-based systems, alliances such as NATO, they give no security today, they give no order today. The only thing that matters are national interest and the capacity of national leaders to sit together and find solutions for conflicts. And this is why this forum here in Antalya is very important. Because in such a world of national interest, where conflicts can pop up any second, any minute, it’s very important to bring back diplomacy, to talk, to create platforms such as these in order to interact. I think this is great that we have on one day the Ukrainian Foreign Minister and on the other day the Russian Foreign Minister. I wish we had more such forums also in Europe. And this is my critique of the European Union. We are too much… The European Union is too much moralizing, telling everybody who is the bad guy, who is the good guy, and is not engaging enough in finding common ground, common solutions via diplomacy.
When you look into the relationship between Europe and Russia or Europe and China, especially with the NATO meetings previously, before the second Trump administration, it was always claimed that these countries are adversaries to the Western order in general. But now, especially strained relations between Europe and the United States, we are seeing many members of the European Union trying to find alternatives to their security arrangements with the United States, which can be considered with China. Especially now we are seeing the Spanish Prime Minister going to China. Emmanuel Macron said something similar. And there were Keir Starmer’s meeting with Xi Jinping in China. So in general, do you see China being an alternative to United States? Do you think that Europe will change its course towards East?
Well, I’m from Switzerland, from a neutral country. And we try not to make enemies. We are too small; we have to be able to defend ourselves. And Switzerland is very much open to the world. We work with everybody. And even our neutrality has a bit suffered in the last years because the European Union has pushed Switzerland a lot in order to participate in the sanctions against Russia, even delivering weapons to Ukraine. Fortunately, we did never that. We were strictly neutral in the juristic sense. But with the sanctions, we have lost a bit our absolute impartiality. So Switzerland is totally open to the world. And I think many European countries should follow this path and should not talk themselves into these kind of confrontational views of the world. Of course, I mean, there might be other interests. If you look at the Baltic states, with their history with the Soviet Union, with Russia, it’s complicated. Poland has another tradition; they have to find out for themselves. But generally speaking, I would say in today’s world, we have to invest in great bilateral relationships. The European countries should cooperate with the United States, of course, with China, with Russia. I mean, Russia is a neighbor of Europe, but Europe, what is Europe? Europe is a group of small and middle countries with different histories and also different national interests. And somehow the EU is a structure which is too heavy-handed for this multiplicity of interests. So I would strongly argue from a Swiss perspective: make peace with Russia as soon as you can. Make no war, no conflict with China. Stop this moralizing attitude and patronizing of others. Just try to be a small bunch of countries who is not in big power politics anymore. Let the others be big powers. We can be big economic powers, big scientific powers, big powers of diplomacy and understanding and leave the rest to the big predator countries that are also on this planet. Of course, the big powers have big problems. We are smaller countries with smaller problems.
There’s a sentiment, there was a sentiment in the first Trump administration that if the European countries hang on tight for as long as possible, there will be eventually a leader that is willing to work together with Europe once again, which was Joe Biden in that. And when Joe Biden was elected, the Ukraine war started. And then we saw a reconsolidation of European countries under NATO umbrella in general. But now we are seeing the strain in the relationship is so hard that things may not go back as much as it can. But still, in the many international meetings, we are seeing figures like Gavin Newsom from California, which could be potentially the next president of the United States. And he was saying, “You need to once again hang on tight until 2028.” Do you think that if a Democrat president or a president that is someone that’s more close to American establishment… Do you think if someone like that gets into the presidency in United States, the concept of “collective West” will come back and Europe and United States will go back to their relationship like it was before?
Well, I hope not that we will go back in the time before Trump in that sense, because Donald Trump made—the American President made—something which was to me overdue: he said we have to talk with Russia again. We have to engage in diplomacy. Under Biden, there was no diplomacy. And if Gavin Newsom wants to be the second Biden—no diplomacy with Russia, the collective West meaning “we, the West, the best against the rest”—then I don’t think that this is a philosophy with which you can win the future. Of course, the United States is a big country; you could say a Godzilla country. And a Godzilla country has a lot of problems. They have a lot of alliances in the region of China, with Taiwan, with Japan, entanglements. It’s not easy. Of course, you have global interests. You have to see what you can do. And I think the reality, the dominating trend in the reality is—and I think Trump has realized this—the time of unilateral dominance of the United States of America is over. That was the case after the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1990. Then the Russians were lying on the ground. China was still very weak after Mao Zedong. I mean, they were starting to recover. Now we have a different world. We have China, which is basically number one economically. We have India, which is growing very fast. Russia has recovered. Russia doesn’t swallow a NATO enlargement to the east, you know, neglecting all the security concerns of Russia. I have great understanding. The Russians say “No, we don’t want this.” The Americans would never tolerate Russians or Chinese with their military structures in Canada or in Mexico. I mean, they wouldn’t wait as President Putin for eight years; they would intervene in eight hours if something like that happens. So Trump has realized America is not strong enough to be the dominant hegemon of the world. So he starts to focus, to concentrate on his prime spheres of influence, which is South America, which is the Middle East with all the oil. He has a rivalry with China. But I think Trump is, ultimately, he’s a pragmatist. Probably he was being overconfident with Iran. I can understand that. He didn’t want… I mean, he doesn’t want… He’s not interested in the interests of the United States and of Israel if Iran gets nuclear weapons. So they had to do something. But you know, they probably overestimated themselves. We will see. I don’t know, but we’re seeing this kind of multipolar world is in the making, and therefore, we need a lot of diplomacy and pragmatism. I think Trump is a pragmatist. I didn’t think that Biden was a pragmatist. I don’t think that Gavin Newsom seems like a pragmatist. I don’t know. So I hope that we see leaders, whoever it might be, who will not go back to the old times with no diplomacy, no talking, with this kind of Western supremacy attitude. This is not good. It’s not good for the West. It’s not good for the rest of the world. It’s not good for everybody.
In the first question, you mentioned a little bit of the religious conflicts. From what I understand, at least, you were talking about the Trump and Pope little fight maybe. So this situation in the last week has really gone out of control. The statements coming from both sides were pretty harsh. Donald Trump and especially a Catholic, J.D. Vance, was telling the Pope that he should be careful when he’s talking about theological matters, which was pretty interesting on its own. But when you look into this, do you think it is happening because Donald Trump saw someone that is critical of himself and he just didn’t want to take that, or you see a more sectarian conflict on the background of the situation? Because we have many figures like Peter Thiel of Palantir having meetings in Rome, talking about the Pope, talking about the Antichrist. And there was Steve Bannon who was mentioning we should overthrow Pope Francis and overthrow Vatican. There are plenty of figures in the American populist right that have a problem with Vatican. So in general, what do you say? Do you think that this is a sectarian issue?
In my first answer, I actually alluded to another biblical conflict, which is the conflict between the Israelites and the Ishmaelites, you know, going back to the great prophet Abraham and those great peoples which emerged from that great father, grandfather of civilization: the Israelites and the Ishmaelites. And Iran, you know, being one of the great empires, of course, also during the Islamic rule of the world. And then, of course, then you got the Jews, God’s chosen people. And I would say that religion is also a big part of Middle Eastern politics. But it’s great, it’s good you mentioned this dimension also in Western politics. Well, I would suggest, I mean, not to take Trump literally, but to take Trump seriously. And not every utterance of people from his camp or from other camps has to be taken totally seriously. I’m a Protestant, but I’m theologically interested. I saw with certain bewilderment these, you could say this wrestling, this verbal wrestling between the Vatican and then we saw these absurd pictures of Donald Trump, the American president, like posing as some kind of Jesus. But we have seen some similar stuff. I mean, there are people who think that Trump is losing his mind. Well, I don’t hope that’s a sign of that. I don’t know. That’s what the Americans have to find out for themselves. But I would say this is, for me, just an absurd indicator of probable—and I hope I’m wrong—nervousness on the side of the American leadership which realizes that things in the Middle East are not going according to plan. And I think that the American President has put himself under no less stress because he said he wants to finish the war in Ukraine. It’s still going on. He has his vision for Israel, he has his vision for the Middle East, he has his Abraham Accords, which is a great achievement. But now they are somehow not, you know, really, really in the spotlight anymore. You see this war in Iran, he doesn’t seem to find an end, an emergency exit. So probably these verbal entanglements are a symptom of stress. But on the other side, we have seen so many things Trump has said and strange stuff, you know, and I wouldn’t take it too seriously. Of course, the Pope, it’s his duty to criticize, to criticize war-making powers. I mean, this is his duty. And he is also… he’s right when he says it’s a crime to use God for politics, which is not only true for Christians; it’s also true for other religions today. Some powers use God to make politics. That’s always dangerous. And I think this is the ultimate sacrilege. As a Protestant, the people who speak about God meaning themselves… that’s a very dangerous species. We should be careful of these guys. So the Pope is right in saying this. And Trump, of course, he wants to present his point. I wouldn’t give too much attention to that. Peter Thiel… I have been to these lectures in Rome. I have listened to them. Yes, of course. I was there and it was confidential, so I shouldn’t say anything. But I’m smiling when I’m reading the newspapers about these lectures, what he was supposed to have said. My father was a Catholic too. Peter Thiel’s notion of the Vatican is not that the Vatican is the Antichrist. That’s not his position. I made an interview with him in my newspaper and he was explaining what he meant with Antichrist. He said the Antichrist is a worldwide bureaucracy which is grabbing power and putting sand into the eyes of the people, saying, “We save you from the apocalypse, we save you from Armageddon, from the climate catastrophe. We will bring eternal peace.” So Peter Thiel is not against the Vatican. Peter Thiel is not against whatever. You know, he’s concerned about the global bureaucratic state, which he identifies from his studies with that what the Bible called the Antichrist. But there are a lot of theologians who would not accept this description. They have a more narrow definition of the Antichrist. But it was a very interesting lecture and it was on a very high intellectual level. And I think not many politicians who criticize Peter Thiel are capable of having such a lecture themselves. So it was very interesting for me to listen to that.
Okay, one last question. It’s going to be about Türkiye. More specifically, the latest affairs that we’re seeing all around the region is bringing out a new situation where Türkiye and Israel are the new rivals in the region itself. Iran seems to be taking a little bit of a backside. And now that this is recognized by both sides, by both Türkiye and Israel, the rhetoric is getting stronger. Yesterday Mr. Tom Barrack was here and he was asked this very question and he said that it’s only rhetoric, it’s nothing more. These countries do not have to fight, are not on a path to fight. But he’s of course a side note in this situation and he obviously doesn’t want to see these two countries to get into a quarrel like that. But what do you say about this? Do you think in the near future of Middle East you expect a conflict between Israel and Türkiye?
Well, if I listen to certain statements of involved statesmen, there is not much diplomacy there. It’s very confrontational. We have listened yesterday to the Turkish President. Erdogan was very clear in his views. Also the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, a very thoughtful person, but still with strong words. And I fear that now we are here in a still very serious conflict between Israel and probably Türkiye. I hope as a Swiss, that Türkiye—which under President Erdogan has in a… I’m not talking about interior politics; I don’t want to interfere, this Turks have to sort out themselves what they see appropriate. From outside, I see a very strong head of state, the President, in a smart way, who has positioned Türkiye as a key player of international diplomacy. And I hope that Türkiye can use this weight, this respect it has gained, in order to find a way also to accommodate the legitimate security concerns of Israel. Then I can understand Israel in this sense that Israel has had a lot of wars in the last eight years. It didn’t start these wars. Israel has been built out of a terrible catastrophe which is in the responsibility of the Europeans, especially the Germans, which is the Holocaust. They have created this state of Israel after the Second World War, which was not accepted by some of the nations in the Middle East. And so there were wars; Israel won these wars, they gained territory, they gave this territory back in the philosophy “land for peace.” So they gave the land, they didn’t get the peace. And there is now a new, you can say, more hardline political agenda which says, “Well, after the massacre of Hamas, we switch. We don’t believe in land for peace. Now land is peace.” It’s a bit, you could say, the Russian perspective. Russia was attacked many times. They said, “We need a cordon sanitaire in order to protect ourselves. We start to think in square kilometers.” Problem is, Israel, they start to think the same way. But at the core are legitimate security concerns. I don’t think that Israel is an imperialist power who wants to have an empire reaching from Pakistan to Portugal or, you know, a huge territorial player. But I think there are legitimate security concerns. And Türkiye, as this great moderator, has this great diplomatic force in the center of the world, of this world. I just hope that President Erdogan will find a way in order to bring Israel to the table. Now with Syria, which is very close to Türkiye, they have a great understanding, as far as I could see here, with other powers and the track record of President Erdogan, I think he’s in a unique position to bring here peace. But how this should be, I don’t know. In Switzerland, we say in the Middle East, “This is a biblical conflict.” It’s so hard to find a solution. We are glad that we are not living in this conflict field. We are living in the center of Europe. We had many wars there as well. But thanks God, they are behind us. Let’s hope they are not returning.
If it’s a biblical conflict, then we are all doomed. It’s not a thing.
No, then we are not doomed if it’s a biblical conflict, because then we can say we are all children of God and God didn’t create this world in order that human beings make war all the time. So we just have to find our… There must be a solution. We just haven’t found it yet.
Well, someone said we should be careful when talking about theology, so I should just stop here.
I agree.
Thank you.
Thank you.
In an exclusive exchange conducted by Harici Medya on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy offers a clinical dissection of the shifting tectonic plates in Middle Eastern geopolitics. Amidst the fog of ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran, Levy delineates a region caught between the unpredictable whims of the Trump administration and Israel’s ambitious pursuit of regional hegemony.
Daniel Levy, a senior adviser to the government of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, was part of the Israeli team that attended the Taba summit with the Palestinians in 2001. He also participated in the second Oslo negotiations in 1995 with then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Between 2012 and 2016, Mr Levy served as Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He is currently president of the New York-based think tank US/Middle East Project.
The veteran diplomat provides a sobering analysis of the fragile ceasefires in Lebanon and the intrinsic link between Netanyahu’s political survival and the perpetuation of conflict. Crucially, Levy draws attention to a burgeoning sentiment within the Israeli establishment that increasingly frames Türkiye as a long-term strategic challenge, mirroring the rhetoric once reserved for Iran. This profound dialogue serves as a roadmap for understanding the complex interplay of personal egos, military-industrial interests, and the calculated destabilization of state structures across the Levant.
First of all, of course, the talks are going on right now with Iran and United States. There were certain news coming in the morning. First, Donald Trump claimed that everything is fine, the Strait of Hormuz is open. Then things didn’t go that way. It seems that the Americans didn’t open their own blockade and now the Iranians want to go back to closing the Strait themselves. So, so what do you expect from the ongoing talks right now? Which direction do you think that things will lead into?
I think there are three or four basic possibilities, scenarios. One is there is a deal of some kind. Second is there may be some quiet understandings or expectations, but there’s not something you could really announce as a deal. But the American President decides he’s had enough anyway. He declares victory and walks away. Of course, Iran, with equal, if not greater justification, will also declare victory and everyone will give their speeches. But essentially the ceasefire will hold, there’ll be an arrangement in Hormuz, etc. And that could transition later to negotiations. But, so that’s the second scenario. Third scenario is Trump decides that the way to get a deal is to do one big final strike just to show that he’s still the tough guy, he’s the warmongers. The Israelis and others, those inside his administration, convince him to strike again.
Like an amphibious assault. Like a what?
Well, it could be. What I’m saying is there’s another American-Israeli aggression, maybe from Trump. The goal is you escalate to de-escalate like he did in June of 2025. But once you do that, you’re no longer in control of events because Iran will respond. If that’s the third scenario, then either that segues towards a resumption of a prolonged conflict, or that segues towards walking away, declaring victory. Sorry, negotiation. We seem to be more in the non-escalation trajectory at the moment. Even though there are the things going on in Hormuz, which if the Americans are going to blockade, of course the Iranians are as well. So that’s where we are. The problem is in trying to decipher what will happen next. Of course, there are lots of moving parts, but the thing that makes this most difficult is you have an American president who is not only unpredictable, not only incompetent, but also incoherent. He has no strategy and therefore he doesn’t really know why he went to war, what he wants to get out of the war. I know there are people who think that’s naive to claim that; no, of course, there’s American geostrategy. You’re trying to take hold of an important choke point in world energy. It’s good for the American military-industrial complex. All those arguments are fine. There’s an element of that. But that’s not what’s defined this war. What’s defined this war is the fragile ego, the peculiar personality, easy to manipulate, as we saw with Netanyahu. The reports of how Netanyahu went to the White House, went to the Situation Room, told the American president a story which in any other American administration, the experts would say, “Mr. President, now that our guest, the Israeli Prime Minister, has left, here’s what’s really the story. We’re not doing this.” This president fell into the trap that no other president has before. The trap’s been laid before by the Israeli prime minister. So because of those things, it’s more hard to predict than it would otherwise be. And the president, President Trump, can lurch from, you know, one… he can wake up one morning, he’s spoken to someone, he’s heard an interview on Fox TV and make one decision, and then the next morning makes another one. So it seems that he is fed up with the war. He knows that the politics, the economics are difficult for him to manage. But maybe he thinks he’s Jesus again tomorrow and he carries on the war.
The Lebanon part of the war was really on the spotlight because Pakistan was saying one thing, Iran was saying one thing, then the United States and Israel were saying the complete opposite of what they were claiming. So what we have seen from the beginning of those talks with the ceasefire, it seems that the initial discussion was about actually involving Lebanon, too. And now we come to a point where Israel was reluctant to listen to what Donald Trump or the entirety of American systems tells them to do. But now, for some reason, Donald Trump managed to push Israel to hold a ceasefire on their own. So do you think that this is a failure by Israeli government to not be able to hit their war goals, which was reaching out to the Litani River? What do you think about it?
So, first of all, and this is playing out inside Israel, this doesn’t feel like a win on Lebanon. They’ve destroyed things. That’s their modus operandi. But being told, and especially the very particular language that President Trump uses in his Truth Social postings, “Enough.” This isn’t where Israel thought it would be. It also makes it quite clear that this was part of the deal, that it was the Iranians and the Pakistanis who were telling us the truth on Lebanon. It is also probably the clearest indication we have that Trump actually wants to close the escalatory logic of this war and to be in an ending this deal, de-escalation place because he’s imposed this ceasefire in Lebanon on Israel. It also shows us that if the Americans want to impose something on Israel, they can. Not that we needed any proof of that. Because it’s obvious America has the leverage. America gives them the weapons, America gives them the political support. If America says stop, Israel says yes; it tries everything to avoid that. It will continue to try to provoke. So inside Israel, there is a lot of criticism. First, as usual, Israel overestimated its own capacity and underestimated that of its adversary. You had the Northern Commander of the Israeli military saying, “We were surprised by Hezbollah still having this capacity to send rockets to fire on the ground.” But, and the “but” is important. As usual, it’s a ceasefire, Israel style. And it’s a ceasefire that the Americans have accepted, at least in this respect, Israeli stipulations on the ceasefire. Which means Israel is still physically inside Lebanon. So it doesn’t have the larger security buffer, but it has a significant security buffer. In fact, they took additional land inside Lebanon, bordering Syria, in the hours leading up to this declaration. And Israel, according to the document, the text, can act to prevent immediate operations from the other side. But who defines what that is? Who defines what the threat is? As long as Israel defines the threat, it will define it widely. Nonetheless, Israel has been significantly curtailed, which never happens on the Palestinian front, of course.
With Netanyahu government, there are a lot of, maybe conspiracy theories, maybe more normal comments. But people are claiming that Netanyahu is pursuing more and more war around their neighbors and with Iran because he wants to, you know, just keep going in the political scene. If they stop, maybe he’s going to get into a court case, he’s going to get arrested. Do you think that’s the case or do you think that the Israeli government and Israeli state itself wants to pursue these wars?
So I don’t think it has to be one or the other. It can be both. And I think in this case it is both. Netanyahu, who is alive, by the way, in terms of rumors of conspiracy theories… Well, it’s a weekly rumor. Exactly. It has served him politically since October 7th to be a permanent wartime leader, for Israel to be in perpetual war. Every week he’s still supposed to be in court. Every week he still sends his lawyers to the courthouse to say, “I can’t come this week, I’m busy with the war,” which is genuinely what’s happening. It seems like with the election getting closer, he wants these conditions and he has many options: Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, West Bank. So it’s not just a continuation of war, it’s a continuation of war on multiple fronts. There are other elements to this. Economically, part of how Israel has managed its economy is a version of military Keynesianism, which has been to pump money into the economy not only through the military-industrial complex, but also through the compensation that reservists receive. So part of the money in the Israeli economy at the moment is the very generous packages that those who sign up for more and more and more weeks of military service are getting. And Israel went into this war with a low debt-to-GDP ratio, so it has headspace to keep doing that. But then there is the part of this that’s not about Netanyahu, his personal court case and political management. This is about something that goes much deeper. He has support from the opposition. The opposition criticized: “Why didn’t you get the Americans to do more with us in Lebanon? Why didn’t you build more shelters?” They’re actually mad that they stopped. The opposition are just as belligerent in this respect as the Prime Minister. Back when there were discussions over the Israelis being held in Gaza, the opposition would say, “Get the hostages released and then resume the attack. Why don’t you at least get the hostages released?” So this goes much deeper into Israeli conceptual thinking and how the state has gone on a journey to promoting and then manufacturing societal consent for genocide against the Palestinians and war in the region. And so the way one has to understand this is Israel has a vision for regional domination that requires the weakening and collapsing of surrounding states, of any potential power balances or anything that could emerge as a peer competitor. Of course, Israel’s not the only one that has been involved in encouraging the collapse of states. Israel wasn’t the primary actor in Syria for sure. Israel did then go and smash up what was left of what the Syrian successor leadership could have done after Assad fell. And it even includes trying to… there are some states you’re not going to collapse, but you want to co-opt them. You want them to become dependent on Israel, more vulnerable, like the Gulf. Israel’s desired intentional outcome from this war with Iran was that the Gulf would be more weakened. And of course, the Israeli system is very clear in which country next needs to be weakened; it’s a country called Türkiye.
Yeah, I’ll get to that. But firstly, the cost of doing all of that, the road to regional hegemony, if you will. It’s always claimed that it’s Israel’s reputation and Israel’s friendships, all in the West, in Europe, in the United States and everything. But there’s this idea that if this war stops, somehow, not just Iran, all of that stops. Probably Israel has the idea that things will go back to how it was before. There won’t be any sanctions, there won’t be any, quote-unquote, “hard feelings” with the Western countries. Do you think that’s going to be the case? Because when Germany put sanctions on weapons sales to Israel, they waited for a ceasefire in Gaza, and the moment that it took place, there was just no more sanctions or no more ban for weapons sales. So do you think that’s going to happen with European states who right now are showing negative emotions towards Israel’s actions?
So I think this is a project of overreach, of exaggeration, which is typical of a state that goes to a very extreme place, which is the case in Israel today. But the Israeli, Netanyahu and others’ counter-narrative would be: so far it works. So one thing that’s going on here is while we’re in this moment of fluidity and while he still has Trump onside in the White House, and while everyone else is going, “Oh, my God, what do we do with Trump?”—Europeans, Arab allies, even Tier One Asian-American allies—Netanyahu is saying, “Let’s exploit this moment to strengthen our position to the maximum possible, and then things will settle down again, but we’ll be that much stronger.” So the bet he is placing is if Israel is successful enough, then the others won’t have a choice. They’ll be dealing with a much more powerful Israel. You know, as soon as Germany went one way, it went back the other way. And not only went back the other way, Germany has now signed one of its biggest drone manufacturing deals with an Israeli military arms company. So Netanyahu is saying, “Look, if I can pull this thing enough in my direction, if I get more of the Gulf with me, then India will be less reticent about taking sides. It will be more with me. I have the relations with Greece and Cyprus on energy. Maybe I force Lebanese gas to come this way, maybe I force the Syrians into a similar arrangement. Even if we’ve lost image, even if the reputation looks different, power talks and we can lose the campus and we can lose public opinion, but we can retain enough power that people won’t have a choice. And then they’ll basically accept in Europe as well.” Everyone will look at America as unreliable. This is even thinking for a post… kind of how do we function with an America that has reduced power? If we can assert this, others will fall in line. That’s the gamble. That’s the bet that Netanyahu is placing. There is, to my mind, sadly too much evidence that it’s not a crazy bet. Now, I don’t think it’s going to work. I think there will be blowback. I don’t think he can succeed. But that’s what he’s trying to do. And at the moment it’s not clear that he will fail.
Final question. You already mentioned about their will to, you know, have a quarrel with Türkiye. They’re making it evident in the media, they’re making it evident by their politicians and the claims they do. But at the same time yesterday Mr. Tom Barrack was here and he asked the same question if there will be a fight between Israel and Türkiye. And he said that it’s just rhetoric, there’s nothing serious behind it, that they are just being pushed by people around the leaders like Netanyahu and Erdogan. So I would like to ask you, is there a realistic scenario where Türkiye and Israel are going to face each other and what position the United States will take in such case?
So we’re not talking short term, but this is more than rhetoric. Israeli officials go around the world to their friends and they say, “We need to talk to you about Türkiye, why this country is dangerous.” They are beginning to talk about Türkiye in the way they used to talk about Iran. And Iran was not a short-term project. Iran was a decades-long project of creating the conditions for a confrontation. They warn about the Turkish missile program. That’s the language that they use. But it’s not just that. Türkiye would be not a serious actor in statecraft if it wasn’t now testing on the other side, which I’m sure it is, which is to look at… we’re not talking about war in the short term. What we’re looking at is what vulnerabilities can we begin to create or exploit. One should, for instance, see the energy relationship not only with Greece and Cyprus, but with Egypt. And if they can pull, as I said, Lebanon and maybe try and pull Syria just to test… maybe we can’t, but let’s try. Try the first time. If there is a Syria-Israel relationship, they will see where it can go. Now, I’m not saying that will happen; I don’t think it can. But on Lebanon they will try. They may get further. On Syria, they will try. The relationship on the Kurdish front, Israel got a defeat there when the Americans came in and said, “No, we’re not going to,” when the SDF was forced into the climb down that it was forced into with the Syrian state. So they get setbacks as well. Somaliland, the Israeli recognition of… So there are going to be things happening in places that you go, “What was that about?” and then you say, “Oh, okay.” One of the angles to this story, like the Somaliland story, is a Turkish angle. Israel putting a base somewhere next to where Türkiye has an influence. Sudan. Israel’s not a main actor in Sudan, but Israel’s closest friend in the Gulf is a very main actor in Sudan. So let’s see what we can do there. So you will see sometimes under the surface things going on if Israel is able to continue to pursue this. Now, the counterpoint to that is whether you begin to get an alliance in the region which includes containing and deterring Israel as part of its DNA, as part of its mission statement, if you like. And that’s the subtext to a lot of what is going on is whether Israel can pull more people in its direction or whether we get something that begins to look like containment. But if Israel could continue to pick off country after country, one at a time, then it will continue to escalate its future planning in a belligerent way vis-à-vis Türkiye. If it is forced to roll back some of its ambitious domination project, then the Türkiye thing is too much of a stretch.
Thank you so much, sir.
Pleasure.
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