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A growing controversy has engulfed United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over his newly launched military recruitment initiative, the “Send Me Tour,” which draws heavily on Christian biblical scripture to frame military service and attract new young soldiers. The initiative centers its messaging on a iconic verse from the Old Testament’s Book of Isaiah Chapter 6 Verse 8, in which the prophet Isaiah responds to God’s question of “Who shall I send?” with the declaration: “Lord, I am here. Send me.”

Over the weekend, Hegseth brought the tour to Texas A&M University, where he was filmed leading a group of college-age students in a war chant that wove the biblical verse into calls for military service. “For 250 years of this country, there have been men and women who raised their right hand and said, ‘Send me,’” Hegseth shouted to the crowd. “Send me to go fight the Redcoats. Send me to go fight the Communists. Send me to go fight the Islamists.”

The blending of religious rhetoric with military recruitment has drawn sharp condemnation from a wide range of groups, including prominent American Christian leaders, religious freedom advocates, and social media observers. Methodist reverend Benjamin Cremer was among the most vocal critics, arguing that the initiative represents both a clear violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment of religion and a blasphemous misappropriation of sacred text. “He is using scripture to frame military service as a kind of Christian religious crusade,” Cremer wrote. He also pointed out the stark double standard at play, noting that if a radical Muslim military leader in another nation used Quranic verses to incite holy war among new recruits, American Christian leaders would issue immediate and severe condemnation. “The hypocrisy is astounding,” Cremer added.

Social media commentators have echoed this criticism, accusing Hegseth of deliberately twisting the original meaning of the Isaiah verse for military ends. One commentator wrote on the platform X that “Pete Hegseth twists Bible quote to justify US wars!” They further explained that the prophet’s original “Send me!” cry was a call to preach repentance and divine judgment to the ancient Israelite people, not an endorsement of large-scale global military conflict.

This incident is far from the first time Hegseth has faced public scrutiny for blending conservative Christianity with US military policy. In April, he drew widespread criticism for reading a fake verse taken from Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 cult film *Pulp Fiction* during one of the regular Christian prayer and worship services he hosts at the Pentagon. He has also previously sparked outrage for framing US military actions, including the ongoing February 2024 war on Iran, as a religious obligation. During one Pentagon prayer service, Hegseth called for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy,” adding: “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”

The use of religious rhetoric around the war on Iran extends beyond Hegseth’s public comments. When the US and Israel launched the conflict in February, top US commanders across all military branches told their troops that the war was “anointed by Jesus” and would trigger his second coming as part of the biblical Armageddon. This messaging prompted hundreds of complaints from active-duty military personnel. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that defends religious freedom for all service members regardless of faith, confirmed to Middle East Eye that it received more than 200 formal complaints from service members across the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force in the wake of those comments.

Hegseth has become one of the most prominent and vocal public advocates for the US war on Iran, and has repeatedly adopted a combative stance when pressed by journalists on issues including ammunition shortages and rising US casualty numbers. He is a member of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a denomination founded in 1998 by evangelical pastor Douglas Wilson, who has a well-documented history of using Islamophobic rhetoric when commenting on Muslim immigration to the United States.

As six months of open conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran have thrown the Middle East into chaos and disrupted global energy supplies, Qatar’s top leader has issued a urgent call for a transformative, inclusive new regional security architecture that directly includes the Islamic Republic.

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum held in New York on Sunday, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani framed the ongoing full-scale war as a critical wake-up call for all regional states to reset decades of fractured relations. “Iran is our neighbour,” Al Thani emphasized. “We have to act together responsibly as a region and to make sure that we are having good relations with Iran. We are hoping this war is a wake-up call for everyone.”

Al Thani’s landmark remarks came just hours after unconfirmed regional reports emerged that Washington was preparing to resume large-scale direct military strikes against Iran, ending months of relatively muted offensive action amid the ongoing conflict. The announcement coincided with a series of unusual developments in Washington: US President Donald Trump cut short a scheduled weekend retreat at Camp David with no formal public explanation, while the US State Department issued a urgent blanket security alert for all American citizens currently residing or traveling across the Middle East.

In comments to Fox News, Trump teased imminent major developments in the region, telling reporters that “very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future.” The president laid out the three broad options his administration is currently weighing: “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically or making a deal.”

The conflict, which began more than six months ago when the US and Israel launched open military action against Iran, has hit Gulf Arab states the hardest, as Iran has launched repeated retaliatory strikes across the region. Multiple Iranian attacks on US military bases stationed in Gulf nations have caused widespread infrastructure damage, photos obtained by Middle East Eye confirm, though the Trump administration has so far refused to publicly disclose the full scale of damage sustained.

Beyond the human and security costs, the war has inflicted severe damage on the global economy, particularly after Iran moved to close the Strait of Hormuz — the world’s most critical chokepoint for global energy trade. Preliminary ship-tracking data compiled by energy analytics firm Kpler shows that traffic through the strategic waterway has plummeted, with just 12 commercial commodity vessels making the crossing over the most recent weekend.

Al Thani’s call for inclusive dialogue was echoed earlier on Sunday by Anwar Gargash, senior diplomatic advisor to the President of the United Arab Emirates, who told a separate event that the region must adopt a “new mindset” to resolve the crisis. Gargash added that any negotiations to end the conflict must include a dedicated Iranian-Arab negotiating track to address longstanding regional grievances.

For Qatar and its Gulf neighbors, the ongoing closure of the strait has evolved from a regional crisis to an immediate existential threat to their national economies. Almost all Gulf states — including Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and the UAE — rely almost exclusively on the Strait of Hormuz for energy exports and critical import shipments. For Qatar, the disruption is already derailing long-planned strategic expansion of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, the backbone of the country’s economy. Earlier this month, Qatar extended a force majeure declaration for LNG shipments through early November, triggered by the effective maritime blockade of the strait.

Recent weeks have also laid bare the extreme vulnerability of any alternative routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West Pipeline, which was designed to allow the kingdom to route oil exports around the strait to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, was disabled last month in a drone attack that Saudi officials blame on Iraqi militias. The attack came amid a sweeping territorial offensive by Yemen’s Houthi movement, which has now seized full control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline. The Houthis have imposed their own blockade on commercial shipping bound for Saudi Arabia, and launched a fresh drone attack on Riyadh’s main international airport over the weekend.

Before the attack, the East-West Pipeline allowed Saudi Arabia to export roughly 4 million barrels of crude per day — around two-thirds of its pre-war production volume — around the strait. Last week, however, Saudi Arabia canceled all scheduled oil loadings at the Yanbu port and notified European refining customers that it would not be able to fulfill its contracted crude allocation commitments for October.

While the UAE has emerged as one of the most vocal supporters of accelerating investment in alternative bypass pipelines to render the Strait of Hormuz less strategically critical, many smaller Gulf producers have far fewer alternative options. Speaking alongside the prime minister at Sunday’s forum, Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi pushed back against US claims that new pipeline investments could eliminate the strait’s strategic importance within just two years, calling the assertion “completely wrong.”

“I mean, maybe this is his view. I think this is completely wrong,” Kaabi said. “We have decided not to do pipelines, and I think the decision in Qatar was based on commercial and technical [reasons], and we are only going to be using the straits,” he added, ruling out any future investments in large-scale alternative gas pipeline projects.

In a sudden move that grabbed international headlines, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) announced Saturday an immediate suspension of all defense and military cooperation with Turkey. While Ugandan local media initially tied the decision to anti-Turkey demonstrations staged outside the Turkish embassy in Kampala by supporters of the Patriotic League of Uganda (PLU) – a group led by Uganda’s top military general Muhoozi Kainerugaba – multiple insiders close to the situation tell a different story to Middle East Eye.

The protests, which centered on a demand that Turkey extradite exiled Ugandan political commentator Fred Lumbuye (who has resided in Turkey since 2013), are nothing more than a convenient public pretext, according to sources. The real root of the rift lies in deep-seated disagreements over the future of Uganda’s long-standing military deployment in Somalia, and Ankara’s rapidly expanding influence over the East African nation’s security landscape.

Uganda currently deploys approximately 4,500 troops to Somalia as part of the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (Aussom), the primary multinational security force backing the Somali national army. An additional 2,000 Ugandan troops are stationed in the country under a separate bilateral agreement, a military source confirmed to Agence France-Presse. For years, this deployment has generated steady, significant revenue for Kampala: insiders report Uganda receives at least $1,000 per deployed soldier each month, a payment stream that underpins a large portion of its military budget for overseas operations.

But that revenue stream is now at severe risk. The entire future of the Aussom mission was thrown into uncertainty back in July, when the United States notified the African Union that it would cut all funding to the UN Support Office in Somalia by the end of 2024. That office provides critical logistical backing for the entire AU mission, and its loss of funding has left the mission’s long-term viability and funding structure up in the air – and put pressure on troop-contributing countries like Uganda to reconsider their deployments.

Compounding this uncertainty, sources tell MEE that the Somali federal government has formally requested Uganda withdraw its military forces, pointing directly to the growing strength of Turkish-trained Somali security units. Over the past decade, Turkey has emerged as the primary external trainer for Somali military personnel: it has trained roughly 25,000 Somali soldiers at facilities in Mogadishu, and an additional 10,000 elite commandos at training bases within Turkey’s own borders. As these trained forces have matured, Somali authorities have increasingly argued they are capable of shouldering the burden of domestic security.

For Kampala, a full withdrawal from Somalia would carry a massive financial cost. Insiders estimate that Uganda stands to lose between $5 million and $6 million per month, or $60 million to $72 million annually, if the AU mission ends and all troops are pulled out. Facing this steep loss, Uganda has opted to pressure Turkey – which Kampala views as the main powerbroker shaping Somalia’s new security order – to intervene and resolve the looming crisis, sources explained.

Tunc Demirtas, a security researcher at the Ankara-based think tank Seta, confirmed that the shifting security landscape in Somalia makes a reduced international presence inevitable. “Somalia’s government is now capable of providing its own security for its capital and surrounding regions and as its state capacity is built up, it requires less support from abroad,” Demirtas told MEE, adding that the long-standing foreign military presence in Somalia has spawned a war economy that has benefited foreign troop contributors including Uganda.

For its part, Turkey is actively working behind the scenes to de-escalate the dispute, according to sources. Ankara is concerned that the breakdown in defense ties could spill over to impact major Turkish commercial projects in Uganda, including large-scale infrastructure and transport contracts. Agence France-Presse reports that Kampala is considering canceling a $3 billion railway contract awarded to leading Turkish construction firm Yapi Merkezi, and could even order the expulsion of Turkish nationals from Ugandan territory – moves that would cause significant economic and diplomatic damage to Ankara.

As world leaders gather in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), a high-stakes bilateral meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham is set to kick off on the first day of UNGA’s general debate this Tuesday. This encounter will mark the first face-to-face interaction between the two leaders since Burnham assumed office in July, coming at a moment of shifting global diplomatic dynamics, particularly in the Middle East.

The meeting takes place just weeks after the UK government implemented new economic sanctions targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, an action that included a formal accusation that Israel’s current administration has intentionally overlooked what UK officials described as ongoing “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian communities by extremist settler groups. This regional policy shift from the UK adds an unscripted layer of geopolitical context to the bilateral discussions, as Turkey has long maintained strong diplomatic and public support for Palestinian statehood.

Against this regional backdrop, bilateral relations between Ankara and London have warmed considerably over the past 18 months. Turkish and UK officials have repeatedly characterized the current bilateral relationship as “excellent,” a shift that followed Ankara’s landmark decision last year to finalize a multibillion-dollar purchase of Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets from a UK-led consortium.

The deepening of cooperation has unfolded through a series of formal agreements this year. Back in April, the two countries signed a broad Strategic Partnership Framework, designed to formalize closer dialogue and collaborative action across sectors as NATO allies and committed strategic partners. This foundational agreement was followed by a dedicated security and defence partnership pact signed in July on the margins of the NATO summit hosted in Ankara. A senior Turkish official speaking to Middle East Eye at the time of the signing confirmed that the agreement binds both nations to mutual support across all defence-related priorities, including integrated defence industrial collaboration, counterterrorism coordination, collective response to hybrid threats, and joint cybersecurity initiatives.

Beyond the high-profile meeting with Burnham, Erdogan has packed his New York schedule with a series of key bilateral engagements with global and regional leaders. Erdogan arrived in New York on Sunday to prepare for the week of diplomacy. On Monday, he is scheduled to hold talks with Mohamed al-Menfi, chairman of Libya’s Presidential Council, as well as Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Sabah. After his opening day meeting with Burnham on Tuesday, Erdogan will hold his first bilateral meeting with newly inaugurated Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Wednesday will bring meetings with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Zayid, respectively. Sources familiar with the internal planning of Erdogan’s trip note that additional bilateral meetings with other global heads of state could still be added to the itinerary, including a potential last-minute pull-aside encounter with former US President and current 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Against a backdrop of plummeting public support for Israel across the United States and growing global backlash over its military campaign in Gaza, a prominent Washington-based pro-Israel think tank has laid out a controversial plan to protect Israel from potential international sanctions by weaving the country closer into the United States’ military, technological, intelligence, and economic frameworks. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), founded in 2001 with the explicit goal of boosting Israel’s image in North America and funded by high-profile pro-Israel American donors, says deeper integration would make any future sanctions against Israel too costly for the U.S. to implement, effectively sanction-proofing the Israeli state.

FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz outlined the proposal earlier this month, warning that the same financial sanctions infrastructure the U.S. built over two decades to pressure Iran could eventually be turned against Israel as shifting public opinion erodes Israel’s long-held political protection in Washington. “For two decades, the United States built a formidable financial warfare machine designed to cripple Iran. Ironically, parts of that same machinery are now being assembled against Israel,” Dubowitz argued in his analysis.

He drew a direct parallel to the Iran sanctions model, noting that the campaign against Tehran worked not just because of official government restrictions, but because private financial institutions overcomplied with sanctions to avoid angering Washington. “The model used against Iran was devastating because it operated like a steadily tightening noose,” Dubowitz warned. “Sanctions set the process in motion, but the real damage was inflicted by banks and investors who, fearful of incurring Washington’s wrath, went far beyond what US law actually required.”

This warning comes amid a dramatic shift in U.S. public opinion toward Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023. Recent polling from Pew Research Center shows that six in 10 Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% in 2023 and just 42% in 2022. This decline in support crosses party lines: even among younger Republicans, 57% now view Israel unfavorably, and for the first time in decades, more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis.

Dubowitz acknowledged that this shift in public sentiment is already eroding Israel’s political capital in Washington. “Israel’s political shield is also eroding,” he wrote, noting that U.S. politicians increasingly feel free to take tougher stances on Israel than they have in previous generations. He outlined a worst-case scenario for Israel: a future U.S. president hostile to Israeli interests takes office, the U.S. ends its automatic diplomatic shield for Israel at the United Nations, and both European and American sanctions are imposed. In that scenario, Dubowitz argued, Wall Street’s overcompliance with sanctions would deliver the final blow to Israel’s economy, just as it did to Iran’s.

To prevent this outcome, Dubowitz is calling for a fundamental deepening of bilateral ties, binding the two countries’ core security and economic systems so closely together that any action targeting Israel would automatically impose significant costs on the United States itself. “If that bond is tight enough, no U.S. administration would be able to impose meaningful sanctions because the economic and political fallout for America would be too great,” he argued.

The FDD, which says its mission includes strengthening U.S. national security, was founded by wealthy pro-Israel donors Leonard Abramson, Michael Steinhardt, and Edgar Bronfman, with major past funding from other prominent pro-Israel philanthropists including Bernard Marcus, Paul Singer, and the late Sheldon Adelson, who collectively poured millions of dollars into the organization’s work.