In a Middle East with a defanged Iran, Israel-Turkey tensions move to the fore

The U.S.-Iran war has reshuffled the Middle East in ways Washington is only beginning to reckon with, sparking a new era of regional geopolitical rivalries at a moment when Iran’s military and its proxies have been knocked off balance.

Israel and Turkey, both key U.S. allies, are accelerating a struggle for regional dominance that has the two longtime antagonists already butting heads from Syria to the Horn of Africa.

With Iran’s military degraded and its economy imploding, the stakes of a new superheated Israeli-Turkish rivalry are soaring.

Some prominent Israelis and pro-Israel voices in the West are working to cast Turkey as a dangerous emerging Islamic power, one that could potentially step into Iran’s role as a terror sponsor as Iran rebuilds.

“A new Turkish threat is emerging … Turkey is the new Iran,” former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in February.

Ankara, meanwhile, has increasingly raised concerns, especially in recent weeks, that Israel is using the war against Iran to justify expansionist designs across the region.

“We are deeply saddened and concerned by the U.S.-Israeli attacks launched against our neighbour Iran as a result of Netanyahu’s provocations,” Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote in a statement in February. “We deplore this morning’s attacks, which not only constitute a clear violation of Iran’s sovereignty but also target the peace and well-being of the friendly and brotherly people of Iran.”

Rhetorical clashes between Israeli and Turkish leaders have intensified since the current U.S.-Israel military assault against Iran began on Feb. 28, underscoring Ankara’s ambition to emerge from the conflict as a regional leader and Jerusalem’s push to convince Washington that the Erdogan government cannot be trusted.

Mr. Erdogan has at times teetered on siding openly with Iran, casting the conflict as an unnecessary war of choice that infringes on Iran’s sovereignty. But Mr. Erdogan has been careful not to blame Washington for the chaos.

Instead, Mr. Erdogan in March accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of starting the war for his own “political survival,” and described Israel’s actions as a “network of mass murders driven by arrogance.”

In his response, Mr. Netanyahu has indirectly likened Turkey to Iran, claiming publicly that the Erdogan government is a supporter of “terror regimes,” and vowing that Israel will continue broadly to “fight Iran’s terror regime and its proxies.”

Israel and Turkey have long had a nuanced and complicated relationship. Historically, Turkey was the first major Muslim nation to recognize Israel diplomatically in 1949. However, the Netanyahu government has for years vented frustration over Ankara’s willingness to host high-level Hamas members in Turkey.

“Israel is led by a network that considers itself superior to others and is gradually dragging the region toward a disaster.” Mr. Erdogan said in March. “We all know that the attacks targeting Gaza first, then Yemen and Lebanon, and most recently Iran, are not solely motivated by security concerns.”

Yet even as Turkey sharpened its anti-Israel posture, Mr. Erdogan has called Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Gulf nations “unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances,” indicating that Ankara is carefully managing its relationships with Washington and its Arab neighbors rather than seeking open confrontation.

Turkey, a NATO member, has decades of experience navigating regional dynamics.

Analysts say Ankara’s current posturing is deliberate. “We are seeing a very pragmatic Erdogan who is not trying to pick fights,” said Gonul Tol, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. “Domestically, whenever he criticizes Israel, it scores him points — we’re talking about a country that is deeply pro-Palestine. But if you look at the deeper regional level, picking military fights with Israel is only going to undermine what he wants to achieve on the foreign policy front.”

Others point to an expanding alignment between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, asserting that the two rivals may have found common ground on a behind-the-scenes effort aimed at containing Israel if only to prevent a widening regional conflict.

“For Turkey, boosting the relations with Saudi Arabia fits into its broader effort of containing Israel and improving ties with key Middle East actors,” according to Emil Avdaliani, a research fellow at the U.S.-based Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia.

“Turkey’s engagement with Saudi Arabia is expected to grow as the two countries’ geopolitical ambitions align from Syria to Sudan to Yemen,” Mr. Avdaliani wrote in February, as the U.S.-Israel attack on Israel commenced.

“Given that Saudi Arabia too has much at stake in Syria’s economic and political rehabilitation as well as in the Horn of Africa, its alignment with Ankara is now accelerating at full speed,” he wrote at the time in an article published by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center.

Diverging visions for Syria

Nowhere is the competition for dominance in a new Middle East more active or consequential than in Syria.

More than a year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Ankara is working to establish Syria as a stable security and trade partner. Israel, meanwhile, remains deeply skeptical of the new Damascus government, now led by former rebel commander Ahmad al-Sharaa.

The war has further weakened Iran’s influence in Syria, leaving Turkey as the dominant outside power in the country. But Israel has retained a significant military footprint in southern Syria since the fall of the Assad government in 2024. It has used the territory to launch what it describes as anti-terror operations — strikes that Mr. al-Sharaa, who has insisted he wants peace with Israel, has condemned as an occupation.

Israel has also moved to cultivate relationships with ethnic minorities it accuses Damascus of targeting. Most notably, the Druze in southern Syria, whom it has vowed to protect against government encroachment. Washington has so far helped prevent direct military confrontation, with Turkish ambassador and Syrian envoy Thomas Barrack mediating between the competing interests.

But those efforts have drawn fierce criticism from Israel and its allies.

“The message to Tom Barrack is simple,” wrote Sinan Ciddi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, in April. “The job of the American ambassador to Turkey is not to make Ankara feel validated. It is to defend U.S. interests, uphold alliances, and confront a partner whose policies have repeatedly empowered America’s adversaries.”

A race to Africa

The competition has also spread beyond the Middle East. In the Horn of Africa, both Israel and Turkey are racing to establish military footholds on opposite sides of the Bab al-Mandeb strait — the narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean that has emerged as one of the world’s most strategically contested choke points.

Iran’s diminished capacity to fund and arm Houthi rebels in Yemen has created a power vacuum that both countries are moving quickly to fill through basing rights and client relationships.

Turkey has accelerated military deployments to Somalia, dispatching F-16 jets and M60 tanks to protect a portfolio of development projects that includes a satellite launch complex on the Indian Ocean coast and the Port of Mogadishu.

In a direct response to Israel’s diplomatic recognition of Somaliland, the self-governing breakaway state just north of Somalia, Mr. Erdogan ordered the acceleration of a new Turkish military base on Somalia’s northern coast. Israel, meanwhile, is in discussions to establish its own military facilities just north of Somali territory.

But neither base is operational, and Israel is facing intense backlash from countries in Africa and the Middle East over its recognition of Somaliland, which could threaten the base’s future.

Both Turkey’s and Israel’s expansionist efforts in the territory offer up new potential targets for the Houthis, who could decide to launch strikes if the bases and military movements are seen as a big enough threat.

Additionally, reports indicate that Houthi authorities have developed strong alliances with Al-Shabaab, the Sunni Islamist political and militant organization based in Somalia. By leveraging known smuggling networks in the Red Sea, Houthi rebels have smuggled weapons and supplies to Al-Shabaab over the past year, according to the Mogadishu-based Saldhig Institute research organization.