Zaid M. Belbagi

With a 911 km border with Syria, Turkiye has a direct strategic interest in the country’s stability and Ankara views a unified Syrian state as essential to securing their shared frontier and reducing refugee movements.

The Strait of Hormuz has been closed since late February 2026. Under normal conditions about 20 million barrels of oil a day pass through the strait, close to a fifth of the total global supply, along with about a fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas.

After decades of complete dependence on a single external power, mainly the US, the Gulf countries have concluded that strategic autonomy requires multiple credible relationships and that China, whatever its limitations, now qualifies as an important partner.

The war with Iran has exposed an uncomfortable truth about the global economy: It still runs through a handful of narrow waterways, and the digital layer that sits beneath them is dangerously fragile.