On the night of July 15, 2016, Turkish army officers aligned with the Gülen movement launched a coup d’état attempt against the Erdoğan government. A faction of the armed forces calling themselves the Peace at Home Council took over parts of Ankara and Istanbul, bombed the parliament and the presidential palace, and forced news outlets to read a statement announcing the seizure of control to protect the constitution, rule of law, and secularism.Footnote ¹ The coup plotters, however, failed to extend or secure their hold on the country as civilian masses responded to the elected government’s call to resist. When the dust settled, 300 people had been murdered and more than 2,000 injured, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was secure in his seat. The foiled coup came after about a decade of power struggle between the AKP and Gülenists, who had once allied to undermine Türkiye’s laicist elites as US opinion leaders waxed poetic about their brand of “moderate Islam” (Chapter 5). While the theory that the coup attempt had been a false flag operation became popular among Erdoğan’s opponents, another rumor pointed to Iran. Many Turks and Iranians claimed that, on that night, with military jets attacking his plane, Erdoğan had flown to Iran to seek assistance.

Iranian spokespeople denied that Erdoğan had absconded to Iran on the night of the coup, but the rumor hinted at a political common sense.Footnote ² Iran had immediately and unambiguously sided with the Erdoğan government in their public statements during the coup attempt, despite serious and ongoing disagreements regarding the Syrian War.Footnote ³ The Iranian government was well aware of Gülen’s vocal anti-Iran stance and the history of strained Türkiye–Iran relations under Erdoğan’s now-defanged laicist opponents (Chapter 4). The United States, on the other hand, reportedly “failed the coup test,” with many major news outlets appearing supportive of the coup attempt.Footnote ⁴ The country refused to extradite Fethullah Gülen from his compound in Pennsylvania, further fueling rumors that the United States had planned or encouraged the coup. When Rep. Mike Pompeo tweeted that both Iran and Türkiye were “totalitarian Islamist dictatorships” that year, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif clapped back for Erdoğan: “Turkish people’s brave defense of democracy & their elected government proves that coups have no place in our region and are doomed to fail.” While Pompeo counted on anti-Muslim racism to efface the differences between the two country’s regimes, Zarif constructed a vision of political solidarity that legitimated the Turkish government’s claim that 2016 had been a US-sponsored coup attempt, just like 1953 in Iran.Footnote ⁵

As Türkiye–US relations dipped into a new low in the aftermath of the coup, Türkiye–Iran links appeared more vigorous than ever, signified by the persistence of the rumor that Erdoğan had sought Iranian help on that fateful night. Although I have chosen to end the book in the immediate War on Terror era, this epilogue offers some musings on how the triangulation of Türkiye–Iran relations through the United States may have changed after 2007. Defined by the chaos unleashed by the United States’s “imperial overreach” in the disastrous invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the drone bombings of multiple countries and regions, the squashed promises of the Arab Spring, the Syrian war and the refugee crisis, global economic upheaval, and a pandemic, this period saw increased polemics about the waning of US influence in the region. With the rise of new technologies, Turks and Iranians began consuming each other’s media more than ever, as exemplified by the popularity of Turkish TV series in Iran and Iranian movies in Turkey. At the same time, secret deals influential Turkish and Iranian figures made to violate US sanctions against Iran became public.

For some observers, instances of Türkiye–Iran friendliness will always be doomed to flounder on sectarian grounds, forever replicating the competition between the Shi’a Safavids and the Sunni Ottomans for regional supremacy. As noted in Chapter 1, however, Atatürk and Reza Shah had employed the rhetoric of brotherly love, blocked by imperialist intrigues and ancien régime intransigence, in rebuilding Türkiye–Iran relations. From this perspective, the broad historical trajectory of Türkiye–Iran relations in triangulation with the United States itself resembles a Turkish soap opera: Pressured into Cold War trade and security pacts before the Iranian revolution, they are now pressured away from collaboration, despite significant cultural and economic ties.

In the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, a radical break from the decades-long triangulation of discourses and policies through the United States seemed more plausible than ever. To belabor the shah’s metaphor, perhaps America’s estranged wife and ex-concubine could defy the husband and shack up together after the so-called American Century. Personifying foreign relations with such libidinal analogies is compelling. However, in this instance, as in the others explored throughout this book, aspirations for Türkiye–Iran solidarity against US imperialism come with huge caveats. Below I muse on the complications underlying the popularity of Turkish TV series in Iran and the secret gold-for-oil deals made in defiance of US sanctions as touchpoints in a vision beyond triangulation and comparativism. Taking a cue from the Muslim feminists explored in Chapter 4, I argue that, as long as patriarchal authoritarianism and ethnonationalisms reign, improved cultural, economic, and political relations between Iran and Türkiye will be limited in their liberatory effects.

Forbidden Love I: Aşk-ı Memnu

Over the walls of the old US embassy in Tehran, protestors painted a stunning mural. In the image, a satellite dish stands by a beautiful flower garden depicted in the traditional Iranian style, as a gray, withered hand emerges out of it. The decrepit hand holds a lit match, preparing to incinerate the beautiful Iranian culture represented by vibrant, stylized flowers (Figure E.1). As this book has demonstrated, this is an image with which Iran’s last empress, Farah Pahlavi, might have agreed, as well as a host of regime proponents and opponents who worried about Western cultural imperialism and gharbzadegi. However, it cannot quite capture a relatively new concern about media in Iran. These days, the most popular media imports among Iranians of all backgrounds is less likely to be the latest Hollywood hit than a Turkish TV series, or dizi. If the clash between Western audiovisual propaganda and local culture seemed evident to the original mural’s painter, the effects of a Turkish dizi in neighboring Iran seem a bit murkier. After all, the flowers representing Iranian culture in this mural would not be out of place in a Turkish folk art museum either.

Figure E.1 A protest mural in front of the old U.S. embassy in Tehran (currently a museum) depicts the dangers of Western cultural imperialism. In 2019, the Iranian government painted over the murals to update the public art surrounding the museum. Photo by Parisa Akbari, 2017.

In How to Read Donald Duck (1971), a groundbreaking analysis of the impact of US popular culture on Latin America, Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart noted how, by the late twentieth century, even countries in the same region had come to view each other mainly through imported, stereotypical US representations: “The only means that the Mexican has of knowing Peru is through caricature.”Footnote ⁶ My analysis of the Turkish reception and utilization of the anti-Iranian Hollywood movie Not Without My Daughter (Chapter 4) demonstrates the validity of this claim, albeit with important caveats about the strategic aspects of comparison. As noted, not all Turks felt the same way about the film’s representation of Iran; however, the sheer popularity of the movie turned it into a ubiquitous cultural icon at a time when bestselling Turkish newspapers made little attempt to differentiate between the Persian and Arabic languages.

It would be an overstatement to claim that regionalism has now eclipsed the overwhelming dominance of the English language and American culture industry. Yet, the worldwide triumph of Turkish TV series seems a fascinating Muslim underdog story when viewed against the foil of US media exports. Scholars cite the appearance of Gümüş (Noor) in the Saudi-owned MBC in 2008 as the beginning of the reign of Turkish TV series in Arabic-speaking countries.Footnote ⁷ However, the first blockbuster for Iran came in 2011, when the 2008 Turkish TV series Aşk-ı Memnu (Forbidden Love) appeared on the Iranian satellite network Gem TV. Headquartered in Istanbul, GemTV also began broadcasting the hugely popular Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) the following year, securing the hegemony of Turkish dizi in Iran. These days, audiences can choose from countless options every season.

Whether dubbed into Persian or subtitled, dizi are primarily available via the technically banned but still ubiquitous private satellite networks like Gem TV and all over the Internet. Even the Iranian government television networks have picked up a conservative Turkish dizi from the Islamist TV station Samanyolu.Footnote ⁸ At the same time, Turkish TV series have become popular throughout the region and beyond, including in South and East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even the English-speaking world. Dizi are now reportedly second only to US TV exports in their worldwide ubiquity.Footnote ⁹ This is quite a triumph for a national media industry previously known for depressing, social-realist art films (e.g., Yol, 1982) and low-budget Hollywood knockoffs with cult followings (e.g., Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam, 1982). Like many successful Hollywood exports, dizi boast high production values. They feature beautiful or charming locations and well-lit, impeccably dressed lead actors with captivating looks, hooking the viewers with new on-screen crushes.Footnote ¹⁰ No wonder Kraidy and Al-Ghazzi have argued that the regional popularity of Turkish TV series symbolizes “the promise of literally de-centering Western power in the Middle East.”Footnote ¹¹

Think pieces explaining the worldwide popularity of Turkish TV series often contrast them with a stereotypical vision of US media as individualistic, violent, hyper-sexualized, and cynical. It is easy to run through the main lines of comparison, starting with the fact that dizi are less likely to engage in anti-Muslim plotlines. Dizi that have found worldwide success are also unerringly woman-centric. The action often centers around everyday family drama; female characters drive the narrative and exhibit the whole spectrum of human moral conundra. With their lingering musical scores and close-ups of welled-up eyes, dizi place heavy (and earnest) emphasis on emotional turmoil and communal conflict, which make them “moving” – a purported contrast to the merely “entertaining” American sitcoms.Footnote ¹² Many are class-conscious, again in contrast to the largely middle-class settings of mainstream American broadcast TV.

One way of understanding the popularity of Turkish TV series in Iran is through the lens of similitude. “Common history and cultural proximity” is a regular explanation for the popularity of these serials across West Asia and North Africa.Footnote ¹³ Aşk-ı Memnu, for example, was based on a famous Ottoman novel from the turn of the century, and the producers did not even have to change the show’s title since the Ottoman Turkish and Persian phrases were nearly identical. Of course, Azeri-Turkic-speaking Iranians, who comprise a significant portion of Iran’s population, can watch any dizi in the original language.

A lengthy opinion piece published in the regime hardliner Fars News cited similarities ranging from food and social customs to physical appearance between Iranians and Turks, identifying a commercially successful mixture of similarities and differences driving dizi consumption.Footnote ¹⁴ What Iranians find in dizi is “ham khudā, ham khurmā” (lit. both God and eating), explained the author with some discomfort: The people in the series are familiar enough, but also partake in behaviors one would never see on Iranian television networks – such as a sympathetic character drinking alcohol.Footnote ¹⁵

An optimistic reading might suggest the possibility of dizi mending frayed cultural ties between Turks and Iranians, challenging heavily sectarian or ethnonationalist ideologies. However, as this book has demonstrated, an emphasis on similarity does not guarantee solidarity. In addition, since Turkish dizi have a much broader audience in Iran than Iranian films have in Türkiye, any increase in familiarity will be somewhat one-sided. The Turkish citizenry’s ignorance of Iran and the Persian language already constitutes a problem for scholarship and diplomacy, as Chapters 1 and 4 have emphasized.

News reports often construct exported TV series as a significant soft power boost for Türkiye. Building on another vision of similitude, this argument hinges on the ever-persistent idea that Türkiye can form a good model of Muslim modernity. Positive press in Türkiye emphasizes the role Turkish TV series have played in improving Turkish language acquisition, alongside the Yunus Emre Institutes the Erdoğan government has sponsored worldwide to boost education in the Turkish language and culture.Footnote ¹⁶ The perception that Turkish dizi constitute a soft power ploy has even led some Middle Eastern leaders to urge caution, initiate boycotts, or institute bans.Footnote ¹⁷ When GEM TV founder and chairman Saeed Karimian was shot and killed in Istanbul in 2017, fingers immediately pointed at the Iranian regime, which had previously condemned Karimian for disseminating propaganda against the Islamic Republic. The subsequent Turkish investigation ruled out any regime ties and suggested financial trouble as the motive, yet the murder remains ripe for conspiracy theorizing.Footnote ¹⁸

The current Turkish regime, moreover, has a somewhat ambivalent view of dizi and their potential use in public diplomacy. Some of the controversy hinges on whether these texts are all that “Turkish.” According to one Islamist line of critique, dizi do not represent “authentic” Turkish culture but operate as a trojan horse for “other cultures” defined by materialism and moral turpitude.Footnote ¹⁹ Erdoğan’s disdain for the hugely successful Magnificent Century, which depicts the era of Süleyman the Magnificent with a focus on the delights and intrigues of the harem, made international news in 2012. “A sultan on horseback is fine,” quipped Time magazine, “A sultan on a bender is not.”Footnote ²⁰ Soon two new Turkish series appeared on the state television network TRT, fulfilling Erdoğan’s criteria for proper Turkish Muslim representation. Diriliş: Ertuğrul (2014–), which focuses on the founding years of the Ottoman empire, gained fame as the Muslim answer to the “Game of Thrones,” and Payitaht: Abdülhamid (2017–) worked to clean up the reputation of the so-called red sultan, Abdul Hamid II. However, other popular TV series have continued with their usual plotlines centering on adultery, backbiting, and filial disobedience.

Undoubtedly, dizi, whether devout or irreverent, offer a warped version of Turkish society up for consumption. This is true about media representations in general, but the comparison with US media has given Turkish serials an unearned reputation for truthfulness. During a 2017 visit to Shiraz – often seen as the cultural capital of the Persianate world – I was jarred by a kiosk worker’s question whether, in Türkiye, we all live in yalı or waterfront mansions. I could not tell whether the inquiry was in jest, but the question made me realize that Aşk-ı Memnu and its descendants were selling a bizarre Turkish dream across the world. Although many Turkish TV series, such as the widely popular Fatmagül’ün Suçu Ne (2010), highlight the intersections of gender and class injustice in Türkiye, others, like Aşk-ı Memnu, glorify wealth and privilege, differentiating merely between the crass and classy behaviors of the high-society elite. The Turkish tourism industry has benefited handsomely from selling tours of the magnificent historical mansions featured in these shows. The Turkish government subsidizes tourism to the country, and the fact that dizi-inspired tourism to Türkiye is less expensive than a devotional pilgrimage to holy Shia cities recently made front page news in Iran, prompting government action.Footnote ²¹

The actors that populate the imaginary worlds of Türkiye’s model Muslim modernity are even more famous than the unattainable homes in which they dwell. Iranian opinion pieces bring up the similarity in appearance between the people of the two countries as one of the reasons for the popularity of dizi in the country.Footnote ²² However, there is a clear tempering of “Middle Eastern” features among dizi stars, most evident in the preponderance of button noses and blue eyes. While some (mainly male) actors such as Burak Özçivit epitomize a darker beauty ideal, colorism reigns in the Turkish dizi industry, as elsewhere. Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ (the male lead in Aşk-ı Memnu) and Meyrem Üzerli (the female lead in Muhteşem Yüzyıl) owe at least some of their fame to being natural blondes. Except for devout and/or historical programming, dizi are also likely to have a significantly lower percentage of women in hijab than one would find in most Turkish streets.

As with all media products, audience reception complicates the analysis of dizi messages. A sociological study of Tehran-based women fans of Turkish TV found that they were well aware of the prevailing critiques of dizi as harbingers of consumerism and questionable morals. Many approached their consumption with a deeply critical mindset. Yet, even ambivalent viewers chose to watch select series, citing “entertainment” and “dissatisfaction with local offerings” as the two main reasons.Footnote ²³ Given the current range of dizi offerings, it is difficult to generalize about key messages. There is also never one way of enjoying any given dizi.

Ultimately, no matter the attractiveness of the Turkish (or neo-Ottoman) dream, it holds little power against continuing ethnonationalisms and modern nation-state borders. The relative flexibility of the Türkiye–Iran border (no visas required) makes Türkiye a top initial destination for Iranian refugees. At the same time, refugees may feel less safe because those intent on pursuing them enjoy the same ease of access. Iranian dissidents residing in the country, particularly those from vulnerable communities, live in fear of being deported or assassinated.Footnote ²⁴ Complicating any rosy vision of Türkiye–Iran solidarity is the fact that deportation of political refugees back to Iran becomes more likely whenever Turkish and Iranian regimes improve relations.Footnote ²⁵

Regardless of their mother language, Iranian immigrants face discrimination in Türkiye, as do others from the region. As I write this, in the summer of 2023, xenophobic rhetoric targeting Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees seems to have reached a fever pitch. In the 2023 election, Erdoğan’s chief rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu attempted to get votes by promising to deport all refugees from the country. If anyone had hoped the leader’s Alevi heritage and willingness to align with the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party for this election would temper his party’s brand of Kemalist Turkism, they were severely disappointed. Erdoğan and the AKP, on the other hand, continued to hold up an antiracist vision of Muslim unity in their statements (Chapter 3) while taking Türkiye’s neverending war against Kurdish nationalism across the border, deep into the chaos left by the US interventions in Iraq and Syria.

Ultimately, the election ended up being a triumph for the country’s fascists, as some aligned with the victorious Erdoğan and others with the defeated Kılıçdaroğlu and made gains from the economic crisis and rising anti-refugee sentiments.Footnote ²⁶ Whether Iranians, Arabs, Afghans, and others enjoy made-for-TV Turkish narratives and contribute to the country’s tourism sector due to their warm feelings is unlikely to temper xenophobic sentiments and increasing calls for exclusionary laws targeting the regions’ people.

Forbidden Love II: The Reza Zarrab Incident

Turks following pop culture news first came to know Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-born gold trader from a Turkic-speaking family, when he married one of Türkiye’s most famous pop stars, Ebru Gündeş, in 2010. Society pages publicized his courting of Gündeş with expensive gifts before and after the marriage. Among Zarrab’s purchases were three yalı – the type of waterfront mansions made internationally famous by dizi – one of which he gifted to Gündeş when she gave birth to their daughter in 2011. Magazine news about Zarrab’s lavish spending reached such a fever pitch that Gündeş joked in 2012 that her husband would soon buy her the planet Mars.Footnote ²⁷ While even a cursory read of the interview demonstrates that Gündeş intended this as an indictment of the media’s exaggerated reporting, the joke played as a confirmation of the couple’s extravagance.

In December 2013, a high-profile case carried questions regarding Zarrab’s wealth from the tabloids to newspaper columns, as prosecutors charged him with corruption and bribery. According to the indictment, Zarrab had bribed the sons of multiple cabinet ministers to further his business prospects. In response, AKP officials immediately closed ranks. Erdoğan blamed Gülenists in the justice department for launching a fake case, and, in February 2014, Zarrab and the ministers’ sons were released.Footnote ²⁸ The ministers resigned from their positions, but the majority AKP parliament protected them from facing charges. Opposition news noted that Zarrab appeared immune to prosecution under the Erdoğan government.Footnote ²⁹

In 2016, Zarrab was arrested in the United States while on a family trip to Disney World. He was charged with conspiring with the Turkish government to evade US sanctions against Iran.Footnote ³⁰ According to the prosecution, officials associated with the highest cadres of the Erdoğan government had made an oil-for-gold deal with Zarrab in exchange for bribes. Working with the billionaire Iranian businessman Babak Zanjani and using Turkish banks, including the state bank Halkbank, Zarrab had reportedly overseen a vast money-laundering operation, moving billions of dollars “on behalf of the Government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by U.S. sanctions.”Footnote ³¹

With AKP ministers and state officials implicated, President Erdoğan depicted the prosecution as a continuation of the coup attempt, yet another plot by Gülenists in cohesion with the United States. The September 14, 2017, cover of the Turkish humor magazine Uykusuz pictured the president looking yearningly at an autographed poster of Reza Zarrab (Figure E.2).

Figure E.2 A Turkish cartoon president sobs for an Iranian-Turkish gold trader prosecuted by the United States: “We lose our brightest minds to the West.” Uykusuz, September 14, 2017. Used with permission from Uykusuz Magazine.

The poster depicts Zarrab in the style of a famous heartthrob, framed with sparkling stars and hearts like a singer or dizi actor. In response to Zarrab’s arrest, the heartbroken cartoon president sobs, “We lose our brightest minds to the West.” This is the familiar trope of aşk-ı memnu, or forbidden love, referencing the commonplace belief that Türkiye and Iran cannot get closer because of Western interference. The poster personifies and subversively queers the US-imposed rift in Türkiye–Iran relations. Erdoğan’s reference to “minds” is a joke on concerns about brain drain from the country, fueled by AKP policies targeting academics in the wake of the coup. The cartoonist, of course, bets on the readers recognizing Zarrab as not one of Türkiye’s greatest minds but biggest spenders.

The cartoon president need not have worried. Imaginary tears for Zarrab were unnecessary in a political and economic system designed to protect the super-wealthy. Reza Zarrab soon took a plea deal and began enjoying a lavish life in Miami under fake, non-Muslim-sounding names: John Kaplan, Richard Ferrari, and the US government-approved Aaron Goldsmith.Footnote ³² In addition to further obscuring connections to his real identity, Zarrab’s preference for Ashkenazi Jewish or Italian surnames demonstrates a subtle awareness that “brownness” as a political category does not apply to non-Muslim Eastern and Southern Europeans, no matter their coloration (Chapter 3). A longtime horse racing fan, he owns and runs a shiny new equestrian facility in Florida as of this writing.

Not everyone has come out so unscathed in the wake of the scandal. Zarrab’s now-ex-wife Ebru Gündeş was ridiculed as her Mars joke recirculated in a new context marked by schadenfreude and gendered class antagonism. After she divorced Zarrab, the news depicted a contrite Turkish woman, a single mother, learning to live within her (still considerable) means. Like a hard-on-its luck dizi family, she and her daughter reportedly even had to sell the yalı.Footnote ³³ While Gündeş suffered psychological and financial damage in being cast as a haughty, out-of-touch, rich woman humbled by her husband’s downfall, the Turkish Halkbank official associated with the case was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

As usual, the actual victims of the Reza Zarrab scandal were the people of Türkiye and Iran. Neither population had gotten any say in the deals cut between Zarrab, AKP officials, and Halkbank. Although Iran prosecuted Zanjani, the billionaire businessman involved in the money laundering operation, his connections with regime insiders remained hidden.Footnote ³⁴ If Iranians benefited from these deals, which moved their country’s wealth across borders, we do not know when and how. Iran’s people continue to face economic hardship, despite their country’s considerable natural resources. Türkiye’s once-thriving economy has also tanked, partially due to Erdoğan’s frayed relations with the United States and partially due to the AKP government’s unorthodox economic policies. The political and financial elite who benefited from the scandal have likely only gotten richer.

A power-conscious transnational feminist analysis should note that the Reza Zarrab crisis was made possible by a fundamental injustice connected to US imperialism: sanctions against Iran. Marketed as a way to target the Iranian regime and bring about democracy by sparking a popular uprising, sanctions hurt the Iranian people and embolden regime hardliners.Footnote ³⁵ Much like the War on Terror, US sanctions against Iran endanger women and children while claiming to usher in an era of liberal feminist freedom for them.Footnote ³⁶

In addition to the harmful effects of sanctions on Iranians, which must be the primary focus of any critique, one can note a breach of national sovereignty for Türkiye in this case. What legal and economic structures made it possible for one nation-state, that is, the United States, to dictate to another independent nation-state how it may or may not trade with its neighbor? The issue hinges on “secondary sanctions,” by which the United States seeks to control other countries’ economic relations with Iran. Unlike “primary sanctions,” which punish participation by US persons or companies, “secondary sanctions” seek to isolate Iran from the global economy even in the absence of direct US involvement. To quote the American Iranian Council, “due to US ‘secondary sanctions,’ even foreign companies that may technically be able to service sanctioned countries often choose not to in order to avoid the hassle of navigating complex OFAC regulations or losing access to a large market like the US.”Footnote ³⁷ Iranian people lose vital healthcare services due to secondary sanctions, which make it difficult to even extend humanitarian aid to the country.Footnote ³⁸ Similarly, although US sanctions against Iran are deeply unpopular in Türkiye, the world economy’s dependence on the dollar makes it nearly impossible for the country to trade freely with its neighbor. The overwhelming financial influence of the United States on the economic policies of other countries and global companies should make anyone question whether the supposed waning of US power in the new century has been oversold.

From one perspective, any policy of Iran–Türkiye collaboration that skirts US sanctions reclaims national sovereignty, opposing an inequitable global financial system. “The world is not only about the U.S.,” Erdoğan snapped in response to the Reza Zarrab trial, standing by his government’s actions in furthering “trade and energy relations with Iran.”Footnote ³⁹ While we may celebrate the offense to US economic imperialism, the way to justice appears blocked, not just by the continuing power of the United States but also by the prevailing patriarchal authoritarianism in the two countries. The two forms of coercive politics are, of course, linked. Hawkish US policies in West Asia and North Africa and global economic injustice boost the political careers of the harshest nationalists. They also make it unlikely that the Turkish and Iranian regimes will expose further bilateral deals to popular scrutiny and parliamentary oversight.

If there is an equitable way out of the Türkiye–Iran–US triangulation after the American century, it will have to include a multipronged, transnational feminist challenge to global capitalism, racism, imperialism, and local authoritarianism. This is one dizi for which a happy ending cannot be guaranteed.