Do US bases protect the Gulf or make it a target?

We are on the 8th day of the Zionist attack on Iran. The war that the US and Israel began by massacring 168 girl children can of course have no just side, whatever anyone says. There is no point in constantly reminding of Iran's undoubtedly unjustifiable, plainly sectarian policy in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon during this Zionist aggression. The US and Israel are not attacking Iran today to call it to account for crimes it previously committed in these four countries. Indeed, while Iran was shedding Muslim blood in Syria, the US never made this its concern. Israel, for its part, took a high degree of satisfaction in this situation, and showed that satisfaction precisely when Assad fell and Ahmed al-Sharaa came in his place, by launching serial attacks on Syria.

FOR WHOSE SALVATION, AS WHOSE VICTIMS, DID 168 GIRL CHILDREN DIE?

The reckoning for that is of course seen on another ground, in another context. The aim of the US or Israel is not at all to prevent the injustices Muslims commit within the Muslim world or in their relations with one another, or to put a stop to the shedding of Muslim blood. These were never any concern of the US and Israel. The US tries to legitimize and make attractive all its wars of occupation in the name of democracy, human rights, and, above all, women's rights. While it shamelessly marketed to the whole world, through mass media, a thousand and one kinds of drama about girl children not being educated in Afghanistan, in the Epstein scandal that was exposed we also saw what kind of perversion thousands of primary-school-age girl children were victims of. What does it indicate that it now massacred 168 girl children at the very first step of its intervention in Iran, which for years it has kept under pressure in the name of supposedly protecting the whole world (in fact only Israel) from nuclear weapons? Do we know to whom, to which theological deviation, a world power whose every step and movement has sexual perversion on one side and theological deviation on the other sacrificed 168 little girl children?

AGGRESSION DERIVING FROM SEXUAL PERVERSION AND THEOLOGICAL DEVIATION

There can of course be no side that can be seen as legitimate in this sexually perverted or theologically deviant world power's attack on Iran today. On the contrary, the aim of today's attacks on Iran is the possibility of Iran constituting a threat to Israel, and this possibility is the only aspect left in Iran's favor in the Muslim world. Because today the greatest danger, not only for the Islamic world but for the whole world, is Israel. Today the greatest threat to the well-being, integrity, health and safety of the Islamic world is none other than the Zionist project. The world order that stuck Israel into the Middle East like a knife created a political eco-political system in which it can live, and this eco-political system has for a century been the chief cause of all the suffering, instability, wars, civil wars, coups and dictatorships endured by the people of the region.

The killing, in the very first hours of the war launched against Iran, of Iran's highest-level leaders, above all its religious leaders, who were targeted, was taken to show Iran's excessive weakness beyond what had been supposed and the extraordinary power of the US-Israel front. Indeed it was thought that with this move the war would be ended in a very short time, beyond expectation. Yet in the 8 days that have passed, Iran's rapid recovery and its ability to carry out more effective counterattacks with every passing day and hour have been shown. While every move from Iran gives the impression that it is holding more in reserve, we may now witness the US and Israel, by gradually exhausting their munitions stocks, retreating toward a situation in which they will ask for a ceasefire again.

THE US IS MAKING THE GULF COUNTRIES A HUMAN SHIELD FOR ITSELF

On the other hand, although we said that Iran acted irrationally at the beginning of the attack and widened the front so as to include the Gulf countries in particular, this does not remove the need to read the matter a little more carefully in order to understand Iran's military moves.

First of all, it is of course not possible to say that Iran regards the Gulf monarchies as friends. It has serious political and geopolitical rivalry with these countries, and the close military relations that some Gulf states have with the US are openly regarded by Tehran as a threat. But this does not mean that Iran has adopted a strategy of aggression targeting these countries for no reason. What Iran has done in recent events is not a direct attack on the Gulf countries but targeting the US military bases that are stationed in these countries and have de facto become part of the war against it.

At this point a striking reality emerges: although the American bases in the Gulf countries are often presented as a security umbrella protecting these countries, it must have become thoroughly clear in this process that they are very far from fulfilling that function in practice. Because a significant part of the attacks that have played a decisive role in the rise of military tension in the region are linked to operations conducted from these bases. Especially considering Israel's increasingly aggressive policies in recent years, which push legal limits and increase regional instability, it is seen that these bases, rather than protecting the region, have become part of regional conflicts.

THE GULF COUNTRIES MUST DECIDE: THE US AND ISRAEL NEVER PROTECT, THEY THREATEN

This creates a picture that requires the Gulf countries too to urgently reconsider the situation. On the one hand the presence of these bases is presented as a security guarantee; on the other, these bases turn into the center of regional power struggles and make the countries where they are located potential targets. As seen in recent developments, foreign military bases on a country's soil do not keep that country out of the war; on the contrary, they can include it directly in the equation of conflict.

Therefore, to interpret Iran's recent moves as "attacks on the Gulf countries" offers a framework that oversimplifies the matter. What Iran is targeting is essentially not these countries themselves but the American military presence stationed in these countries and constituting the infrastructure of the military activities conducted against Iran. Iran's strategic message is also largely directed here: if attacks against Iran are being launched from a country's soil, the military infrastructure that is the source of those attacks is also seen as a legitimate target.

Within this framework a broader question arises: does the American military presence in the Gulf really provide regional security, or, while making the region more fragile on the one hand, is it actually turning these countries into a human shield for itself in its own wars? Recent events show that the second possibility is far more valid. The US does not protect these countries; it becomes the very cause of the threat directed at them, and when it comes to war it can protect neither those countries nor itself. Because foreign military bases, instead of providing a security shield to the countries where they are located, can often carry them to the front line of global power struggles.

This is precisely one of the greatest problems the Middle East faces today. As long as regional security is not built on local balances and diplomacy, the military presence of outside powers, instead of guaranteeing peace, often produces new risks of conflict. To understand the background of Iran's recent moves

one should not overlook this broader geopolitical framework.