Beyond Hormuz: The Eurasian implications of the Iran war

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kamran Bokhari is an internationally renowned geopolitical analyst and a strategic forecaster on Eurasia. He serves as a senior director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy & Policy in Washington and is also a Senior Fellow with the Middle East Policy Council. He also teaches a graduate course on Central Asia & Eurasian Geopolitics at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program.

In a period where the conflict with Iran is keeping political and military analysts, news reporters, the world’s energy markets, and ordinary citizens glued to their screens trying to keep track of the outpouring of news from Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem, it is essential to assess the broader strategic landscape taking shape as the Islamic Republic weakens. Understandably, much attention remains fixed on the Strait of Hormuz. Far less attention is being paid to Iran’s northern Eurasian frontier. If Tehran emerges intact but moderates, this could unlock considerable geoeconomic opportunities not only for the Trans-Caspian nations but also for the U.S., the West, and trade in general. If Iran were to shatter, it could pose significant security risks to the states along its northern flank.

While it is too early to call the outcome of the current conflict, Azerbaijan is emerging as a key connector between the South Caucasus and the Persian Gulf, and the springboard beyond the Caspian into Central Asia – critical to shaping the post-conflict order in West Asia. The United States should recognize the role this energy-rich, secular, Turkic-speaking, Shiite Muslim country can play in advancing the region toward greater trade and prosperity while strengthening American influence and help assure that Azerbaijan steps up.

The conflict with Tehran has now spread beyond the Gulf. Iran launched ballistic missiles against a British military base in Cyprus and tried to hit a joint Anglo-American base on the island of Diego Garcia, revealing its ability to strike as far as European capitals in the process. The Caspian Sea basin is now also in play. Israel Defense Forces confirmed on March 19 that the Israeli air force conducted strikes along Iran’s Caspian Sea coast. The operation reportedly targeted five Iranian naval vessels at the port of Bandar Anzali, marking the first time in the current war that the IDF conducted strikes in northern Iran. Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters that dozens of targets were hit, including missile boats, a corvette, a shipyard, and a command center, largely disabling Iran’s naval capabilities in the landlocked sea.

This operation represents an effort to open a northern axis of pressure on Iran, extending the conflict into a strategically sensitive but previously insulated space. The expansion of Israeli strikes into northern Iran risks further inflaming already adversarial relations between Tehran and Baku, particularly given Azerbaijan’s close security ties with Israel. Tensions were sharply elevated on March 5, when Iran launched drone strikes on Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave, hitting a civilian airport and injuring several people.

While the United States focuses on degrading Iran’s capacity to target its Gulf neighbors as a central pillar of countering Iran’s response to the joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign, it must take the risk of spillover along Iran’s northern flank into account as well. The Trump White House will need to ensure that Tehran does not redirect pressure toward Azerbaijan, where the Iranian-Azerbaijani border is one of the regime’s most vulnerable strategic frontiers.

From Tehran’s perceived vulnerability, this Azeri-populated area heightens the temptation to signal resolve through calibrated escalation, despite Ilham Aliyev’s firm stance against participating in regional hostilities. Preventing further Iranian escalation is critical for Washington, as Azerbaijan serves as a key geostrategic bridge between U.S. efforts to consolidate a foothold in the South Caucasus – exemplified by the Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) in southern Armenia – and the broader objective of extending influence eastward into Central Asia.

The risks emanating from Iran’s northern flank must be understood as part of a broader shift in which the simultaneous weakening of Russia and Iran is transforming the post-Soviet order across Eurasia. As Russia’s footprint recedes, the Trans-Caspian region is undergoing a consequential transformation, emerging from the periphery into a central arena of geopolitical and geoeconomic competition. In this evolving landscape, the South Caucasus and Central Asia are becoming the connective core of a new trans-Eurasian system, with Azerbaijan serving as a critical strategic bridge. Preventing Iranian destabilization of the South Caucasus aligns directly with Washington’s objective of leveraging shifting regional dynamics to expand its influence across the Caspian and into Central Asia.

The ongoing war in Iran could fundamentally reshape the country, turning it from a barrier into a potential conduit linking the Trans-Caspian region with the Middle East and the broader Northwest Indian Ocean basin. When the Central Asian and South Caucasus states gained independence after the 1991 Soviet collapse, they remained largely landlocked, as the radical anti-Western, revisionist posture of the Iranian regime, coupled with international sanctions, blocked access to southern trade corridors.

Iran’s current crisis could create an unprecedented window for these nations to unlock long-denied geoeconomic connectivity. If Tehran recalibrates its policies, Azerbaijan and its fellow C6 states, including the two regional leaders, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, could leverage new transit routes, ports and energy corridors to integrate more fully into regional and global networks.

The United States should accelerate its strategic partnership efforts with Azerbaijan. This will be critical to shaping the post-conflict order in West Asia. Achieving this objective requires addressing structural and legislative obstacles, most notably Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, an outdated legal restriction that now constrains American strategic flexibility in the region.

The White House should work closely with Congress to repeal this provision, enabling Washington to provide security assistance, deepen economic ties, and solidify Azerbaijan’s role as a linchpin in north-south connectivity between the Trans-Caspian region and the Middle East, as well as east-west connectivity with Central Asia. By doing so, the U.S can simultaneously safeguard its interests, mitigate risks along Iran’s northern frontier, and exploit the emerging post-conflict realignment to secure energy resources and extend its influence across the South Caucasus and Central Asia.