Qatar’s Double-Sided Diplomacy Crumbles in Israeli Airstrike

The Israeli strike in Qatar on Tuesday sent a shockwave rippling far beyond the Middle East. Qatar’s neighbors and several European states rushed to condemn the bombing. Donald Trump was more conflicted, stating, “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States … does not advance Israel or America’s goals. However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.” The United States ultimately signed off on the U.N. Security Council statement that "expressed their condemnation of the recent strikes in Doha" and "underscored that releasing the hostages, including those killed by Hamas, and ending the war and suffering in Gaza must remain our top priority."

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Why President Trump should keep his promise to Armenia



The Armenian nation stands today at the edge of an abyss, facing the very real possibility of extinction. This is not rhetorical exaggeration. What lies just over the horizon in the South Caucasus is another long, expensive conflict that will only materially end in the death of more Christians.

So what’s going on in Armenia, and how is it relevant to larger regional and international current events?

Armenia’s survival is not simply a moral question. It is a test of whether America retains any coherent strategy to shape the balance of power.

A suicidal regime

Since the disastrous 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh, the government of Nikol Pashinyan has systematically dismantled every safeguard that once protected the Armenian people from foreign conquest and internal tyranny. In that war, Pashinyan presided over catastrophic military failures and rushed to surrender swaths of historic Armenian territory, granting major concessions that emboldened Azerbaijan’s ambitions and left hundreds of thousands of Armenians displaced and defenseless.

Those concessions proved to be only the beginning. In 2023, the world watched with a shrug as Azerbaijan, with open material backing from Israel and tacit approval from the United States, completed the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, an ancient Armenian homeland populated by a Christian people whose roots in that soil predate any current Islamic inhabitants by centuries. 120,000 Armenians were forced to leave their homeland, as the Biden administration stuck its head in the sand.

A slap in the face

Today, the Pashinyan regime has shifted its focus inward. He’s not simply failing to defend Armenian sovereignty; he has actively antagonized it. Having sold off Armenia’s territorial integrity, Pashinyan and his cohorts are now targeting the last resilient pillars of Armenian identity: the Armenian Apostolic Church, the memory of the Armenian genocide, and the business leaders capable of sustaining national resistance.

In recent months, senior officials have publicly questioned the historicity of the Armenian genocide, a giant slap in the face to every Armenian who carries the memory of 1.5 million murdered ancestors. They have couched their transparent Turkophilia in euphemisms like “normalizing relations,” as if the only obstacle to peace were Armenian nationalism rather than Turkish ambition.

Most recently, in a move that should alarm every serious observer, Pashinyan met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, only to return home and unleash an unprecedented wave of repression against the Armenian Church and civil society. Armenian authorities have brazenly arrested clergy members, harassed Church institutions, and launched politically motivated prosecutions against billionaire businessmen like Samvel Karapetyan.

Pashinyan’s campaign of intimidation is no accident. It is a coordinated attempt, in collaboration with the Turkish and Azeri governments, to complete the total disenfranchisement of the Armenian people and make room for the ambitions of bigger regional powers.

It’s all very Zelenskyy-esque.

A forgotten American commitment

To understand the situation developing in the South Caucasus and the Middle East more effectively, we need to take a step back and look at the historical context (we always need to look at the historical context).

Once upon a time, the establishment of Armenian sovereignty was not just an abstract cause or a footnote to European diplomacy. It was an explicitly declared American interest, recognized in the highest acts of U.S. foreign policy.

In the aftermath of the First World War and the Armenian genocide, President Woodrow Wilson advanced a proposal for an independent Armenian republic, not merely as an act of moral redress, but as a strategic effort to reshape the post-Ottoman order in America’s favor.

Unlike the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which carved up Ottoman lands for British and French imperial gain, Wilson’s proposal sought to establish Armenia as a stable, pro-Western buffer state at the crossroads of Russian, Turkish, British, and Persian spheres of influence. His decision reflected a clear understanding: Without a sovereign Armenian state anchoring the region, the vacuum would be filled by rival empires.

A Greater Armenia, with secure borders and access to the Black Sea, would serve American interests by containing Bolshevik expansion from the north, checking pan-Turkic irredentism from the west, and limiting European colonial dominance from the south. It was a deliberate assertion of American influence in an increasingly competitive Eurasian theater.

Bettman/Getty Images

Wilson's vision

This commitment took concrete form on November 22, 1920, when President Wilson signed the Arbitral Award of the President of the United States of America, formally delineating the frontiers of an Armenian homeland. Wilson’s award assigned to Armenia the provinces of Erzurum, Trebizond, Van, and Bitlis, along with a vital corridor to the Black Sea, territories that had formed the historic heart of the Armenian nation for millennia.

This was not a symbolic declaration. It was a legally binding arbitral decision rendered by the United States’ presidential office, independent of the unratified Treaty of Sèvres.

Yuval Mozes/r/imaginarymaps

Which means that even a century ago, America recognized that a sovereign Armenia served several crucial functions:

  • A strategic counterweight to regional hegemons.
  • A test case of American credibility.
  • A potential logistical hub in Eurasian trade.

Yet over the decades, as the world has descended into new conflicts, the White House’s commitment to Armenia has been quietly set aside. No treaty ever formally annulled the arbitral award (the Treaty of Lausanne superseded the Treaty of Sevres but did not explicitly nullify the Wilsonian arbitral award). No president ever renounced it. It simply disappeared from American memory.

The failure to enforce the award led directly to Armenia’s dismemberment and signaled America’s unwillingness to project power in Eurasia. And in that vacuum, Turkey and its allies have pursued the total subjugation of Armenia.

However, all this is to say is that since America’s push for a sovereign Greater Armenia was driven by strategic interests back then, its memory provides a precedent for realist engagement now.

Armenia as strategic imperative

It would be easy to dismiss Wilson’s arbitral award as an artifact of a vanished world. But doing so ignores the reality that the threats Wilson identified a century ago have not only returned; they’ve only compounded in complex layers of sophistication and danger.

The South Caucasus is not an irrelevant frontier. Especially now, with Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Azerbaijan all jockeying for geopolitical position, it is the epicenter of a new contest among regional powers.

Therefore, Armenia’s survival is not simply a moral question. It is a test of whether America retains any coherent strategy to shape the balance of power. Historical precedents set a century ago and current developments are now converging to create an imperative for renewed, interest-based American engagement.

Consider first the project of pan-Turanism, the ideology that envisions a unified Turkic world stretching from Anatolia to Central Asia, with Armenia standing inconveniently in the middle.

In the past decade, Turkey President Erdogan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev have made no secret of their ambition to dissolve Armenia’s independence once and for all. The conquest of Artsakh was not the endpoint of that campaign. It was just the beginning.

With every concession forced from Yerevan, Ankara and Baku grow bolder in their conviction that the entire Armenian state can be reduced to an even tinier vassal, stripped of all allies, and forced to “normalize relations” on Turkish terms.

Iran and Israel

Iran’s position, meanwhile, seeks to deter full encirclement by the Turkic states, Israel, and the U.S. Iran wants Armenia intact enough to buffer against Turkey and Israel, but not strong enough to become a Western base. This explains why Iran has:

  1. Denounced Azerbaijani claims that Armenia is “Western Azerbaijan.”
  2. Have reported that Israel is using Azerbaijan as a base of operations to launch drones into Iran.

Israel’s role is obvious. It is seeking to surveil, strike, and destabilize Iran and, therefore, will leverage its alliance with Azerbaijan to do so. Armenia’s impending destruction is collateral damage in Israel’s rivalry with Iran.

The United States, meanwhile, has sought to complicate Russian and Iranian corridors and maintain influence, which is why the U.S. has recently proposed an American-run transit corridor through Syunik (that it would take control of under a 100-year lease), signaling support for the Pashinyan regime’s “normalization” efforts with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

American engagement in the region is transactional and ambivalent rather than principled. It tolerates Israel’s arming of Azerbaijan and prioritizes the logistics of the Zangezur corridor over Armenian sovereignty.

Because all major powers see Armenia as an instrument and not an end in itself, Armenia’s position becomes uniquely precarious and subject to external manipulation and, therefore, extermination.

Yes, extermination.

RELATED: Archaeologists discover one of the world's oldest Christian churches in history's first Christian country

kosmos111 via iStock/Getty Images

Perpetual hostage

As it stands right now, Armenia is the perpetual hostage of both rival empires and its own corrupt government. One could even say the pan-Turanic empire is complete, as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and the Pashinyan-led Armenia are all aligned in their pursuit of Turkic interests, with the only obstacle standing in the way being the Armenian people and Church.

And with Pashinyan getting set to sign a “peace deal” that would hand over the Zangezur corridor running through the south of Armenian territory to the Turks and Azeris, the very survival of the Armenian people is at stake.

Anadolu/Getty Images

A threat to Christendom

Yet beyond these calculations of pipelines, corridors, and spheres of influence lies something deeper. Amenia is the world’s first Christian nation. Its survival is not simply an Armenian concern. It is a civilizational concern.

The same forces that destroyed the ancient Christian communities of Northern Syria and Iraq are now setting their sights on the Caucasus. If they succeed, the precedent will be clear: Any Christian culture that stands in the path of Turkish, Islamist, or Israeli ambitions will be erased, and the United States will do nothing.

And just for the record, this is not an abstract appeal to policy. It is a reminder of a promise personally made. Days before the 2024 election, Donald Trump spoke by phone with his holiness Aram I, catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, to discuss the crisis in Artsakh and the plight of Armenian prisoners of war. This came weeks after a post on Truth Social clarifying what was at stake:

— (@)

Today, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, faces the threat of intimidation and possible arrest by the Pashinyan regime, a traitorous act that should be recognized for what it is: the criminalization of the faith at the heart of Armenian identity.

Clarity and action

If President Trump still stands by his pledge to defend Christian communities in the Middle East, then this moment demands clarity and action. It’s not enough to speak of solidarity when the lights and cameras are on and then remain silent as the last Christian enclaves are dismantled. And any “peace deal” that tolerates Pashinyan’s continued abuse against the Church and the people is no peace deal at all.

A sensible foreign policy in the region would both protect American interests and defend Christendom from Islamic encroachment. What would this look like in the near term? Here are the steps I would suggest.

1. Recommit to the spirit of the Wilsonian award.

No policy will succeed if it begins from the premise that Armenia must accept perpetual subjugation. The U.S. should officially acknowledge that the Wilsonian arbitral award remains a foundational expression of America’s interest in an independent and territorially secure Armenia. This does not mean an immediate redrawing of borders, but it does mean recognizing that Turkey’s historic ambitions to dominate the South Caucasus have been historically incompatible with U.S. interests.

2. Establish clear red lines for Turkish and Azerbaijani aggression.

The Biden administration’s passivity has emboldened Turkey and Azerbaijan. Trump’s administration must reverse this. Washington should communicate unequivocally that any further attacks on Armenian territory, whether in Syunik, Tavush, or any other region, will trigger targeted sanctions on Turkish and Azerbaijani defense sectors, including the suspension of U.S. military assistance and the freezing of assets linked to senior officials. America did it with Russia at the onset of the Ukraine conflict without hesitation. This should be a no-brainer.

3. Sanction those who persecute the Armenian Church.

In the Global Magnitsky Act, the U.S. has an effective tool to hold human rights violators accountable. Pashinyan and other Armenian officials involved in the arbitrary detention of clergy and the harassment of religious institutions should face immediate personal sanctions: visa bans, asset freezes, and public condemnation.

4. End the pretense of “normalization” without accountability.

It is not normalization when one side holds the knife and the other is forced to surrender everything that makes it a nation. Any U.S. support for Turkish-Armenian rapprochement must be conditioned on verifiable commitments: the recognition of the Armenian genocide, the return of prisoners of war, and the cessation of territorial encroachments.

5. Get tough on Israel.

This commitment also requires the courage to acknowledge uncomfortable facts. Chief among them is that Israel, a state Trump rightly defended as an ally, has played a decisive role in arming Azerbaijan’s aggression. No serious policy to protect Armenia can ignore this contradiction. If America is willing to tolerate the sale of drones and missiles to a regime that ethnically cleansed Artsakh, then any pledge to defend Christian heritage rings hollow.

Wife of Slain October 7 Mastermind Yahya Sinwar Fled Gaza for Turkey: Report

The wife of slain October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar fled Gaza before her husband was killed and has now gotten remarried in Turkey, according to a report Wednesday.

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Is this Noah's ark? Clues emerge at mysterious remote site



An independent researcher who has devoted his time to exploring a location near Mount Ararat that is believed by some to be the remains of Noah’s ark is speaking out.

Andrew Jones, who runs Noah’s Ark Scans, a group he described as “a loose organization of individuals interested in pursuing scientific work and promoting [the ark site],” said he became interested in the Genesis flood story when he was a child.

'We have the shape, we have the location matching, we have the length matching exactly in the Bible.'

Years later, in college, this intrigue expanded when he visited Turkey and saw the location for himself.

“I’ve been going back and forth ever since,” he said.

Jones said Noah’s Ark Scans works with scientists to explore the Mount Ararat site in an effort to take steps toward discerning whether it truly is the resting place of the massive biblical vessel.

“This last year, we had an Australian soil scientist come out there, and he suggested a soil test that we could do because we noticed, for example, that the grass growing in this boat formation was a different color than right outside the boat object,” he said. “So [he] and the local Turkish geologists designed a test, and they got the samples, and we got some ... really interesting results.”

One of the central questions surrounding the ark site is why, if it’s believed to potentially hold these remains, it has taken so long to do discernible and definitive research.

Jones said a series of issues have held up that process.

“We are just as interested as anyone else in either proving or disproving what this site is,” he said. “There’s many factors involved — some are politics. So this is Eastern Turkey. You do have issues out there that could affect doing scientific work. Then, you have religious issues.”

From Christian claims to Islamic ones, there’s a “competition” of sorts surrounding the story. Mixing that in with a lack of interest in some quarters, among other factors, has created barriers.

“If you’re going to pursue a scientific investigation to this site, you have to work with a local university, which means you need to find a university and professors who are willing to put their career on the line looking for Noah’s ark, which, even for Islamic scholars, that could be a problem,” Jones said. “People think you’re crazy looking for something like this. And so, yeah, it’s very difficult.”

But Jones said he and others continue pushing on, working with local authorities and international partners to analyze and explore the area where they believe the vessel might be located.

As for the location, Jones said the Bible gives a “very brief description” in Genesis. In fact, Genesis 8:4 reads, “And on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.”

Moses’ description, Jones said, isn’t GPS-specific.

“That’d be like me saying today, ‘Noah's ark landed in the mountains of Colorado or the mountains of Canada,'” he said. “It is a general area.”

The site where Jones and others are exploring is in this area, he said. The shape of the site reportedly first caught the attention of a Turkish military official decades ago.

“In a remote corner of Turkey, a unique geological formation, unearthed on September 11, 1959, by Turkish Army Captain Ilhan Durupinar, is raising eyebrows and piquing the interest of biblical scholars and geologists alike,” Noah’s Ark Scans writes in a description. “This boat-shaped geological curiosity, commonly referred to as the Durupinar formation, is considered by some to be the final resting place of Noah’s Ark.”

At the time, the discovery made a media splash, and people immediately began heading out to see for themselves. Eventually, though, Jones said the location was almost “forgotten about” until an American named Ron Wyatt started exploring and promoting it in the 1980s and 1990s before his death.

Jones and others have since picked up that mantle, working with experts to collect evidence. He explained the specific components that lead some to believe this is a good contender for the location of the ark.

“Number one, we have a ship shape,” Jones said, noting that the biblical size also lines up. “We have the shape, we have the location matching, we have the length matching exactly in the Bible.”

He continued, “Right now, the only tests that we can do are non-destructive-type of tests, like geophysical scans. ... GPR, which is ... ground-penetrating radar, ERT, which uses electricity and measures the resistive nature [of] what’s below the ground.”

This data is used to create models and to explore what might be inside the soil. So far, he and other researchers believe there are “angular structures” underground and even a “central tunnel” inside the structure that seems to point to something more than a mere mound of dirt.

Eventually, they hope to excavate when the conditions and parameters allow. Right now, using non-destructive means is important. Jones hopes to continue collecting samples and forging on with a plan to better discern what might be underneath the area.

“We’re hoping that before any excavations are even considered, that we could core drill the site at random locations and at some of these spots that the radar is showing to be like [an] angular structure that ... possibly won’t be considered natural, so maybe man-made-like walls,” he said. “And some of these voids, this tunnel is going down the middle about 4 meters down.”

These samples, Jones said, would give more information and context to better understand what’s happening inside the site. He’s also hoping to do additional soil testing.

Ultimately, based on the size, shape, and data, he believes that this “has to be the remains” of Noah’s ark. He doesn’t expect it will be fully preserved due to the age and time passed, but he sees the site as the “best candidate” at the current time.

This article originally appeared on CBN’s Faithwire.

Russia, Ukraine resume talks for first time in years — all thanks to Trump



Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday, marking the first meeting between the two countries since 2022 due to mounting pressure from President Donald Trump.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan addressed the negotiators at Dolmabahce Palace on Friday, urging the two countries to reach a ceasefire agreement as soon as possible.

"There are two paths ahead of us: One road will take us on a process that will lead to peace, while the other will lead to more destruction and death," Fidan said. "The sides will decide on their own, with their own will, which path they choose."

'Although tensions ran high, progress has been made.'

RELATED: Trump earns unlikely praise from House Democrat: 'I got to give him some kudos there'

(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The war officially began under former President Joe Biden, but there was little movement throughout his term. Now, Trump has taken the lead to resolve the conflict.

Up until Trump's inauguration in January, Ukraine was essentially bankrolled by the United States. That all changed during the infamous Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Although tensions ran high, progress has been made with various proposed peace deals, though none have yet been agreed to by all parties involved.

RELATED: Trump pledges to lift 'brutal and crippling' sanctions on Syria, pushes for Middle East peace talks

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

The Russia-Ukraine War is not the only conflict Trump is trying to resolve. The president spent the week touring the Middle East and meeting with various leaders, like President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

During these meetings, Trump encouraged the leaders to sign onto the Abraham Accords alongside Israel in order to restore peace in the Middle East. Trump also urged the leaders to expel foreign terrorists from Syria, to deport Palestinian terrorists, to aid the United States and prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and to take responsibility for the ISIS detention centers in Syria.

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Trump earns unlikely praise from House Democrat: 'I got to give him some kudos there'



President Donald Trump is no stranger to criticism from the left, but even Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut admits that his foreign policy is praiseworthy.

Trump has spent the last few days meeting with foreign dignitaries in the Middle East, including President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Trump even announced he would be lifting sanctions on Syria, inching closer and closer to a peace deal.

'Himes admits that he is optimistic about Trump's handling of the Middle East this week.'

RELATED: Trump pledges to lift 'brutal and crippling' sanctions on Syria, pushes for Middle East peace talks

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Trump's dovish approach to foreign policy has been praised by some political allies in the Republican Party, but Himes chimed in with a rare message of support from across the aisle.

"I'm not in the habit of praising Donald Trump," Himes said in an interview Thursday. "But I got to tell you ... I think the president has, in this last week or so, played the Middle East pretty darn well."

Himes said he went into the week concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "hell-bent" on going to war with Iran. He also expressed skepticism about Trump's negotiations with the new Syrian leadership. But so far, Himes admits that he is optimistic about Trump's handling of the Middle East this week.

RELATED: Vance tells Glenn Beck Congress needs to 'get serious' about codifying DOGE cuts

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

"My guess is that the prime minister of Israel is cooling his heels a little bit on planning for Iran," Himes said. "My guess is that he's probably thinking through a better situation than he otherwise might want for Gaza, and look, it appears we're going to give al-Sharaa a chance in Syria. That's pretty good stuff."

"Again, not in the habit of praising this president, but I got to give him some kudos there," Himes added.

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Trump pledges to lift 'brutal and crippling' sanctions on Syria, pushes for Middle East peace talks



President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will be lifting sanctions on Syria as he kicks off his tour in the Middle East.

After the fall of the Assad regime in December, Syria's new leaders, like President Ahmed al-Sharaa, hoped America would loosen its grip and lift the sanctions. After Trump announced the sanctions would be lifted, he met with al-Sharaa and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, with President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey joining them over the phone.

RELATED: Biblical warnings fulfilled: The rising persecution of Christians foreshadows global instability

'When Syria is contemplating its future under new leadership, we should want a seat at the table.'

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

During the meeting, Trump urged the leaders to sign onto the Abraham Accords with Israel in an attempt to inch toward peace in the Middle East. Trump also insisted they tell foreign terrorists to leave Syria, to deport Palestinian terrorists, to assist the United States and prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and to take responsibility for the ISIS detention centers in northeastern Syria.

RELATED: Trump rips into reporter for implying Qatar gift is a bribe: 'You should be embarrassed asking that question!'

"Syria, they've had their share of travesty, war, killing in many years," Trump said. "That's why my administration has taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations between the United States and Syria for the first time in more than a decade."

Photo by Amadeusz Mikolaj Swierk/Anadolu via Getty Images

"The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important, really an important function, nevertheless, at the time," Trump added. "But now it's their time to shine. So I say, 'Good luck, Syria.' Show us something very special."

RELATED: GOP Rep. Cory Mills explains why he was married by a radical Islamic cleric

The United States has designated Syria as a terrorist state for decades. But under the new leadership, some lawmakers like Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of Indiana said Syria is potentially shaping up to become a key ally.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

“When Syria is contemplating its future under new leadership, we should want a seat at the table," Stutzman, who met with al-Sharaa in April, told Blaze News. "President al-Sharaa has welcomed the West, allowed women into his Cabinet, and even recognized Israel as a sovereign nation."

"President Trump should be meeting with him not only to help Syria be prosperous, but also to weaken the influence of Russia and China and create another ally and trade partner in the region," Stutzman added.

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Bogged Down

Except for professional historians, I know no one familiar with the Crimean War, which pitted Russia against Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia from 1853-1856. To be sure, a few people recall that during this war Florence Nightingale introduced modern nursing, and Tennyson wrote his thrilling poem about the charge of the Light Brigade. Otherwise, this war seems to have left no trace in Western, and especially American, consciousness.

The post Bogged Down appeared first on .

The strategy behind Trump’s looming NATO withdrawal? A new global order



Recent speculation suggests Donald Trump may withdraw from NATO, while few have explored the reasons he might pursue that path.

Yes, abandoning America's longtime security framework in Europe aligns with promises to cut spending and avoid foreign entanglements — but the motivations run deeper than that.

If the US is moving toward a more transactional foreign policy, then keeping Turkey happy makes sense, especially if it means limiting Russian-Chinese influence in Central Asia.

It's about restructuring the global order.

The U.S. is pivoting toward a more transparently transactional alliance system, one centered on regional powers that can do the heavy lifting while Washington plays arbiter.

The new security and economic bloc forming before our eyes looks like it will involve Russia, Turkey, and Israel.

These are not natural allies in the traditional sense, but they each serve a role in what is shaping up to be a strategic trade-off:

  • Russia gets its Ukraine deal;
  • Turkey gets dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia; and
  • Israel secures its energy routes.

Greece, Armenia, and even Ukraine, meanwhile, are looking more and more like sacrificial pawns in this reshuffling.

Trump has never cared for NATO’s obsession with Ukraine, and he’s likely to cut a deal that brings the war with Russia to an end.

The most probable outcome would be a mineral rights agreement where Russia officially consolidates its control over Eastern Ukraine while the United States walks away with access to key resources and a stabilized energy market.

The war-fatigued West will be sold this as a win ("Trump ended the war!") but in reality, it will be the moment Washington moves past its commitments to Eastern Europe and onto bigger plans.

This wouldn’t just be a settlement on Ukraine. It would also serve as the foundation for a broader U.S.-Russia understanding. Russia’s ultimate goal is to weaken NATO’s grip over its near abroad. If Washington gives signals that it won’t interfere in Armenia, Georgia, or even parts of Eastern Europe, Moscow will have no reason to keep its old hostility toward America.

Recalibrating alliances

Then, we have Turkey. Recent rumors that Trump would shut down a U.S. military base in Greece have yet to come to pass. Still, they reflect the region's anxiety concerning Trump's affinity for Turkish President Recep Erdoğan.

Erdoğan has always wanted a freer hand in the Aegean, where Greece controls a massive exclusive economic zone and the most important shipping lanes in the region. If Washington tacitly allows Turkey to pressure Greece, it clears the way for a major shift in power.

At the same time, Israel is tied up in the energy game with Greece through a pipeline linking the two. If Turkey’s aggressive posturing disrupts that project, Israel may find itself needing to recalibrate its alliances.

That’s where we come in. America can broker an arrangement where Israel and Turkey, which have been exchanging fighting words over Palestine for the last year and a half, find common ground, possibly at Greece’s expense.

This isn’t far-fetched. Turkey has been a problem for NATO for years, and yet Washington keeps it close because of its strategic importance.

If the U.S. is moving toward a more transactional foreign policy, then keeping Turkey happy makes sense, especially if it means limiting Russian-Chinese influence in Central Asia.

A geopolitical earthquake

Meanwhile, the West is playing Armenia much like it played Ukraine: dangling EU integration, offering economic deals, and encouraging a break from Russia.

But just like Ukraine, Armenia is expendable. If war breaks out again with Azerbaijan, Armenia will be on its own, isolated from Russia and surrounded by hostile powers.

Here’s the likely scenario: The war starts, and Armenia holds out for a while, but without serious backing, it eventually loses key territory, most importantly the southern region of Syunik.

Then, as with Ukraine, America steps in as the “peacemaker” and negotiates a deal.

The price? Armenia gives up Syunik, allowing Turkey and Azerbaijan to finally complete the Zangezur corridor, uniting the Turkic world from Anatolia to Central Asia.

This would be a geopolitical earthquake. Turkey and Azerbaijan would gain unprecedented control over trade and energy flows, and a new power bloc would emerge stretching across the Caspian.

At first glance, a U.S.-backed Pan-Turanic expansion sounds counterintuitive, but it actually aligns with Washington’s shift toward an interest-based alliance system. A consolidated Turkic bloc led by Turkey, stretching from Anatolia through Azerbaijan and into Central Asia, would serve as a counterbalance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It would give the U.S. leverage over key trade routes while keeping both Russia and China in check.

At the same time, this would spell the end for Armenia as we know it. A landlocked state already struggling to maintain relevance would be completely isolated, boxed in by adversaries, and left with little recourse but to accept a diminished future. The EU’s empty promises won’t save Armenia. If anything, they will only push it further into the abyss.

Who wins, who loses?

Winners:

  • The U.S. moves beyond NATO into a more flexible alliance structure.
  • Russia secures its Ukrainian gains and reduces Western influence near its borders.
  • Turkey achieves its long-term goal of regional dominance and direct access to Central Asia.
  • Azerbaijan cements its position as the dominant power in the South Caucasus.
  • Israel secures its energy interests in a new regional balance.

Losers:

  • Ukraine is left with a frozen conflict and a fractured future.
  • Greece faces renewed pressure from Turkey over shipping lanes and energy control.
  • Armenia loses Syunik and is pushed into permanent isolation.

The bottom line

If Trump follows through on withdrawing from NATO, it won’t be the end of U.S. influence. It will simply be the beginning of a new grand strategy.

The post-1945 world order was built on ideological alliances and the “rules-based order." The next era will be about raw, transparently strategic interests. America doesn’t need NATO if it can secure influence through regional power deals.

Armenia, Greece, and Ukraine are all at risk of being left behind in this transformation. The West no longer fights for weak states unless it directly benefits from doing so. The game is changing, and the players who don’t recognize the shift will be the ones who suffer the most.

Austria’s struggle with mass migration holds a lesson for America



The croissant isn’t French — it’s an Austrian culinary rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. Since the 13th century, Austrian bakers have been shaping the croissant’s predecessor, the crescent-shaped kipferl, mimicking the Ottoman moon, which, according to popular lore, was used to celebrate the Habsburgs' final standoff against Turkish invaders after the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

Austria’s long-standing defiance against the Turks is as integral to its national identity as Charlemagne’s victory over the Muslim Moors is to France. As Christendom’s last line of defense against Islamic expansion into Europe, Austria held the line. Yet today, Turkish kebab shops fill nearly every street in central Vienna, competing with bakeries that once symbolized the Ottoman Empire’s defeat. The contrast is striking.

Parallel societies will inevitably form without a clear path for immigrants to adopt a national identity.

The Turkish community has become Austria’s largest minority. As of 2023, approximately 500,000 residents of Turkish origin live in the country, a sharp rise from 39,000 in 2001 — a 1,200% increase.

Does this shift reflect modern-day “tolerance” ending nearly 1,000 years of imperial rivalry, or are deeper forces at work?

Tolerance or dire straits?

Popular explanations of Europe’s recent mass migration credit events like the Syrian war in 2015 or the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, which prompted waves of asylum-seekers. However, mass migration in Austria dates back to the aftermath of World War II, when the country lay in rubble with a diminished male population.

To rebuild, Austria sought foreign workers. With the Iron Curtain blocking labor from Eastern Europe, the former Catholic empire turned to its historical rival across the Bosphorus. Austria actively recruited Turkish workers in the following decades, promising employment and economic opportunities.

One local Turkish resident, Metin, remembers, as a child in the 1980s, seeing Austrian embassy billboards in Istanbul promoting jobs and benefits — a golden ticket. Like tens of thousands of others, his family eagerly accepted the offer. However, both Austrians and Turks miscalculated. Austrians assumed the Turks would return home when the job was over. The Turks believed they would be welcomed in their new land. Neither were correct.

“I quickly realized that I wasn’t wanted,” Metin recounted. “My work was wanted, but I wasn’t.”

What started as a temporary workforce has transformed Austria. Turks have established their own parallel society, which continues to grow in influence and numbers. Today, Muslim immigrants, particularly from Turkey, are surpassing Austrians in birth rates while preserving a strong religious and cultural identity from their home country.

Meanwhile, the once-Catholic imperial stronghold is becoming increasingly secular, stepping away from the faith that once defined its national identity. This demographic shift has profound implications — not just for Austria but for all of Europe.

What America can learn

The United States can learn valuable lessons from countries that have dealt with mass migration for generations. Today, 14.9% of the U.S. population is foreign-born, the highest percentage since the immigration surge of 1910.

While left-leaning arguments favor foreign workers to boost the economy, the long-term challenges cannot be ignored. Postwar Austria may have benefited from such policies, but history shows that immigration requires more than economic justification — it demands integration and assimilation.

As Turkish-born Metin warns, welcoming workers means welcoming people. Parallel societies will inevitably form without a clear path for immigrants to adopt a national identity. At best, they may coexist peacefully, leaving the long-term impact dependent on demographics. At worst, clashing cultural norms could threaten national cohesion for generations.

The United States holds a key advantage over Austria in shaping national identity. Unlike European nations, which often tie identity to ethnic heritage, America, for good or ill, does allow for hyphenated identities, such as African-American or Mexican-American. In Austria, one is either Turkish or Austrian — there is no equivalent of a blended national identity. As a result, Turks and Austrians live as separate cultures rather than uniting around shared ideals. Over time, Austria’s future will not be determined by external threats but by shifting demographics within its borders.

America’s strength lies in its ability to forge a national identity independent of ethnicity. In theory, people from all backgrounds can participate in the American experiment, but assimilation does not happen automatically. If we continue to welcome immigrants, we must also provide the framework for integration — otherwise, we risk facing the same challenges Austria now confronts.