A deal struck this week between Israel and Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR, has underscored a geopolitical reality often overlooked: Azerbaijan’s emerging role as a strategic player in the evolving Middle East.

While the Abraham Accords reshaped regional alliances under the first administration of US President Donald Trump, a second Trump term will usher in what some analysts call a “New Middle East” — one that prioritizes regional security cooperation to counter Iran while favoring diplomacy over conflict, all while recalibrating America’s presence in the region.

At the heart of this shifting landscape is Azerbaijan, a country that shares hundreds of border miles with Iran while maintaining deep ties with both Israel and Turkey, straddling multiple power blocs in ways that could prove crucial to Trump’s ambitions.

According to Ze’ev Khanin, a professor of Eurasian geopolitics at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Azerbaijan is a key part of strategic alliances that he calls “unclosed triangles,” with Baku comprising the missing link.