Iran’s Missile Barrage Fractures Islamic Solidarity and Reorders the Gulf

Early in the morning on February 28, the United States and Israel launched missile strikes on Iranian territory.

In 1926, delegates gathered in Baku for the First Turkological Congress and debated a question that would outlive empires and ideological blocs: could the Turkic world one day share a common alphabet? One hundred years later, in the same city, the idea has returned — not as an abstract aspiration, but as a structured project backed by presidents, parliaments and cultural institutions.

The meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Baku on January 26 was formally presented as an economic engagement ahead of a bilateral business forum. Yet the political significance of the visit extends far beyond trade delegations and memoranda of understanding.

According to U.S. officials and analysts, the United States opted for restraint rather than war amid protests that swept across Iran late last year and peaked by mid-January. The Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the RAND Corporation have concluded that military action would most likely consolidate Tehran’s leadership, destabilize the region, and damage global energy markets, without delivering political change.