AZE.US
The United States and Israel are pursuing different goals in the Iran crisis, according to Natig Jafarli, chairman of Azerbaijan’s REAL party, who argues that much of the public debate around the war is being shaped by oversimplified and often misleading narratives.
In Jafarli’s reading, one of the most dangerous features of the current moment is that Washington and Tel Aviv are not working toward the same strategic outcome. He also argues that both Israel and Iran are currently governed by forces that use religion as a political instrument, making the crisis even more volatile.
Jafarli says the U.S. objective is tied less to regime change in Tehran than to a broader strategic doctrine centered on global control over energy flows and logistics routes. He argues that Washington wants to reduce costs, cut the number of military bases it maintains around the world and still preserve leverage over critical energy resources and transport corridors. In his view, this approach is closely connected to long-term competition with China.
Israel, by contrast, is trying to use the moment to inflict maximum damage on Iran and, if possible, push toward regime change, Jafarli argues. He describes that policy as being driven by a more radical and less restrained logic, one that is not primarily about managing a balance but about breaking Iran’s capacity as far as possible.
He also rejects the assumption that Washington necessarily wants a different government in Tehran at any price. On the contrary, he suggests that for the United States the key issue is not who rules Iran, but whether a workable arrangement can be maintained. He even argues that a religious hardline regime in Iran may remain useful to Washington insofar as it keeps Arab states and Israel dependent on U.S. protection and strategic backing.
From there, Jafarli pushes back against several narratives circulating widely in Turkish and European media, which he says also influence opinion in Azerbaijan.
One of them is the claim that Donald Trump launched war to distract from the Epstein case. Jafarli argues that this theory does not hold up. He notes that material related to Epstein had already been in the hands of the U.S. Justice Department for years and asks why, if there had been devastating evidence against Trump, it was never fully weaponized against him during Joe Biden’s presidency.
He also dismisses the idea that a possible Iranian move against the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf states or U.S. military facilities came as a surprise to Washington. Such scenarios had been discussed openly for a long time, he argues, and it would be implausible to believe that a country with an extensive intelligence apparatus had somehow failed to anticipate them.
Jafarli likewise rejects the argument that the United States and Israel entered the conflict without a plan and have now become trapped in it. In his view, both states are capable of preparing complex operations over long periods, making the idea of a completely improvised war hard to take seriously.
He links that media environment to a broader concern inside Azerbaijan. Jafarli argues that Turkish television channels now have serious influence over how regional events are understood by Azerbaijani society, partly because the domestic television space has become less compelling and the state has effectively lost ground to the smartphone screen.
That, in his view, has consequences beyond media consumption. When internal debate is narrowed too far, public perceptions begin to be shaped from outside, even by voices that feel culturally close or friendly. For Jafarli, that is no longer just a media issue, but a political one.