I'm John Batchler. Turkey. Member of NATO, critical in Asia Minor, dominant power, military, and economic.

And yet, the Iran War caught up in this headline from these last hours.

Turkey deploys third NATO patriot system to repel Iranian missiles.

I welcome Sinan Chidi of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. Patriot System to repel Iranian missiles.

I welcome Sinan Chidi of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

He heads the Turkey program to help me understand where Turkey is in the conflict, watching from the outside, and yet a power in the region, a member of NATO, and now Iran firing missiles at Turkey,

why, and what is Erdogan or the general staff going to do about it, except for more defensive

measures?

Sinana, very good evening to you.

I did not expect Turkey to get involved in the war at any point. And yet Iran is

provoking, accidental, has a button it pushes thinking that Erdogan won't ignore this.

What could be going on in Tehran, given the chaos of the leadership right now, that make

these decisions? Good evening to you.

Good evening, John. Yeah. I'm with you on the notion that Turkey is essentially tried to stay

out of this and it is still trying to stay out of this conflict. Turkey's president, its senior

members of its government have been rather emphatic saying that this is not their war and this,

there has no interest in becoming militarily engaged against Iran.

And those are the despite calls from the US president urging more allies to come and

join in the campaign to bring down the regime in Tehran.

That being said, we have obviously been monitoring a considerable amount of antagonistic

behavior by either the Iranian government itself or elements of the Iranian government, because

although we do not have a clear idea or a definite idea where the missiles launched against

...