Iran threatens peaceful Turkey: Risk of a Saddam or Assad scenario?

By Ahmet Taş | Wise News Press

ANKARA, TURKEY — Turkey, which has been conducting intense shuttle diplomacy to de-escalate tensions in the region and prioritizing a policy of "good relations" with its neighbors, has become the target of an implicit threat following Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's statement that Iran would "strike US bases on their soil." Despite Ankara's peaceful diplomacy with Washington and its efforts to prevent a new war in the region, these aggressive voices rising from Tehran recall the tragic ends of Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown by his own people, and Bashar al-Assad, who was forced to flee his country.

A fist against the hand of peace

Foreign Minister Araghchi's announcement that Iran would target American bases in neighboring countries in the event of a conflict with the US constitutes a direct security threat to Turkey, which hosts critical facilities such as the Incirlik and Kürecik bases. Turkey, however, has long assumed a constructive role in the eyes of both the US and regional countries to extinguish the fire in the region.

The Tehran administration's threat against Turkish territory via the Incirlik Air Base, despite Turkey's prudent approach and laws of good neighborliness, is evaluated as "ingratitude" contrary to diplomatic conventions. Experts point out that Iran's aggressive stance will increase its isolation in the region rather than protect the regime.

The common fate of dictators: The Saddam and Assad examples

Iran's strategy of throwing its neighbors into the fire for its own survival is reminiscent of scenarios previously tried in Middle East history that ended in frustration. Iraq's ousted leader Saddam Hussein similarly threatened Turkey and regional countries with missiles during the Gulf War. The Saddam regime, which forced the people of Adana and Çukurova to stockpile "atropine" injections and condemned the public to gas masks, collapsed like a "paper tiger." Saddam, who showed no mercy to his own people, was ultimately executed by them.

Bashar al-Assad experienced a similar fate in Syria. Assad, who clashed with his neighbors, rained bombs on his own people, and turned his country into ruins, eventually lost power and was forced to flee his country. The threats issued by Iranian officials today evoke the ends of these dictators who devastated their peoples.

Regimes pumping fear into the public

While Iran's statements aim to trigger the trauma of the Gulf War in the memory of the Turkish people, historical facts show that such threats often backfire on the threatener. The climate of fear created by Saddam's Scud missiles drove the Iraqi people into misery. Today, Iran is trying to bill its neighbors for the arm-wrestling match it has entered with the US over uranium enrichment and its ballistic missile program.

While Turkey attempts to resolve its issues with the US at the diplomatic table and defends stability in the region, Tehran's rhetoric of "we will strike" is interpreted as a projection of the Iranian regime's internal squeeze into external aggression. History shows that regimes that point guns at their neighbors eventually find the barrel of that gun at their own temples.

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