Posted on July 20, 2026 by Ali Tuygan
July 20, 2026
The world remains occupied with the wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and their global repercussions.
With the sharp military escalation between Iran and the US and President Trump’s threats and conflicting remarks, it was another chaotic week in the Middle East. Before the war, tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz carried around a fifth of the world’s oil consumption. Today, countries are looking at alternative routes and considering building new pipelines. On top of Iran’s nuclear program, passage through the Strait has become a major issue.
In France, this year’s July 14th parade was the largest ever, as President Macron rallied European allies behind Ukraine in a strong show of unity among the Coalition of the Willing. Minister of Foreign Affairs Fidan attended the Leaders’ Summit on behalf of President Erdoğan. The Bastille Day military parade last week reminded me of the celebrations on July 14, 2008, when Syrian President Bashar Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were among President Sarkozy’s guests.
At the end of March, “The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead,” Trump said. He suggested that Iran had moved onto its “third regime,” and that American negotiators were speaking to “a whole different group of people,” who have “been very reasonable.”[i]
Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Khomeini, remained in power from 1979 until he died in 1989. His successor, Khamenei, ruled Iran with absolute authority for thirty-seven years, until he was killed on February 28, 2026, the first day of the US-Israeli attacks against Iran. Until now, despite issuing written statements, the current Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has remained hidden from public view.
Some observers of Iran continue to analyze the power struggle in Tehran, as it was not only Khamenei who was killed but also scores of others, including a prominent figure, Brigadier General Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. Since then, the general impression is that the IRGC now has more control over the regime.
Thus, it seems that neither Mojtaba Khamenei nor his eventual successors, despite their being called “Supreme Leader”, are likely to enjoy the authority of their predecessors. They will essentially be the symbols of the 1979 revolution.
What is important for the current regime in Tehran is to appear as “the party having the upper hand” in the conflict, if not final victory. Because they know, like others, that the confrontation between Iran on the one hand, and Israel and the US on the other, will continue in the foreseeable future, regardless of an eventual agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and a “modus vivendi” about the Strait of Hormuz, imposed by the immense cost of the war.
At present, Vice President Vance, a potential contender for the US presidency in 2028, continues to advocate a solution to the Iran conflict, and he has accused some people within the Israeli government of “manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely”.
Another likely contender is Secretary of State Rubio. A recent New York Times article said that he “has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, holding sway over a sovereign nation in a way that no American official has since L. Paul Bremer III arrived in Baghdad in 2003 to run U.S.-occupied Iraq.”[ii] His next target appears to be Cuba.
Rubio has now launched a campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC). Reportedly, souring on Vance, many Jewish Republicans are rallying behind Marco Rubio for 2028.
As for the war in Ukraine, again, there is little hope for an agreement anytime soon. Kyiv, emboldened by its drone strikes on Russia and European support, is now targeting Russian ships in a campaign to cut off Crimea, disrupt fuel supplies, and pressure Moscow to end the war.
On July 14, 2026, during remarks to the media at a joint news conference following talks with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chad, in Moscow, and referring to “a new series of fairly serious attacks by Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels against Turkish ships, including tankers and other vessels transporting Turkish cargo,” he said:
“We have asked our Turkish colleagues how they plan to respond. We hope they will publicly assess these incidents and send a firm and unequivocal message to the terrorist Kiev regime.” [iii]
If I have counted them correctly, in a little more than three years, from July 2022 to November 2025, Presidents Erdoğan and Putin had thirty telephone conversations. So far, in 2026, they have had only one, on April 3, 2026. And interestingly, the Kremlin statement on the call said:
“ Vladimir Putin thanked Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his unfaltering willingness to facilitate the relevant negotiations. In light of the Kiev regime’s attempts to target gas transportation infrastructure linking Russia and Turkiye as well as commercial ships in the Black Sea, the leaders emphasised the importance of taking coordinated measures aimed at ensuring all-around security in and around the Black Sea.” [iv]
On 26 September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Russia-Germany Nord Stream 1 (NS1) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) gas pipelines were rendered inoperable through an act of sabotage.
Since then, the Turkish government must have stressed to Kyiv, more than once, in friendly language, that an act of sabotage on the Russian-Turkish energy pipelines will be tantamount to an act of war. On his last visit to Kyiv, Foreign Minister Fidan, who was awarded the Order of Merit, II class by President Zelensky, must have raised the issue with him.
As for attacks on vessels and harbors, last week, Reuters reported that Ukraine has lost about a third of its capacity to export grain via the Black Sea due to intensifying Russian missile and drone attacks. The Kyiv Independent reported that Ukrainian drones struck 12 Russian ‘shadow fleet’ vessels in the Black Sea as Crimea came under a large-scale attack. A recent Politico article titled “Russian shadow fleet enabled by EU-linked insurers, investigators say” sheds light on the dark side of the oil trade.[v] In brief, shipments of grain from Ukraine and oil from Russia from Black Sea ports would again be problematic. Besides, attacks on tankers carry environmental risks.
Beyond these immediate challenges, statements by President Putin and Sergey Lavrov suggest some unease in relations between Ankara and Moscow.
Unfortunately, all that can be achieved in the foreseeable future, both in Iran and Ukraine, would only be a “no war, no peace” situation. Some would call them “forever wars”. The question is, “Were they inevitable?”
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/us/politics/how-marco-rubio-runs-venezuela.html?smid=em-share
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