Transcription
Turkey, not Iran, has always stood as the primary and most consequential long-term threat to the survival of the Israeli state. That is the deeper reality here.
The confrontation with Iran did not have to become a war at all. Israel pushed this conflict needlessly. And years ago, it had the option to reach an accommodation with the Shiites and with what is commonly called the axis of resistance. That opening existed and it was squandered. So when the broader warning about the Turks is made, that warning is fundamentally correct.
Ask the only question that really matters. Across the last thousand years, who has actually dominated the Middle East for most of that time? Again and again, the answer comes back to either the Turks or the Persians. I have lost count of how many conversations I have had with Turks and Iranians in which both sides insist that what the world casually labels Islamic architecture is really theirs. Turks say it is Turkish. Iranians insist it is Persian. In those same casual exchanges, Arabs are treated as peripheral, pushed aside, diminished. The refrain is always the same. We are the real Islamic states. And that tells you everything. These are the two decisive civilizational powers in the region.
What makes this truly significant is that the issue is no longer whether Israel should be alarmed. It should be. It has every reason to be alarmed because both of those powers are now unmistakably hostile to Israel. For years, the dominant story pushed by Western think tanks and intelligence circles placed Iran at the center of the map as the great regional challenger to the so-called rules-based order. Iran was cast as the existential menace, the everpresent spectre that haunted American and Israeli planners.
But here is what most people fail to understand. An increasing number of independent military analysts and above all retired Colonel Douglas McGregor argue that the entire strategic class has been staring in the wrong direction. While the West, obsessed over containing Iran, a more disciplined, more patient, and more methodical power, was steadily entrenching itself, expanding its military-industrial base, and preparing to emerge as the uncontested heavyweight of a new Middle East. McGregor's conclusion is stark. That power is Turkey.
In a series of blunt and highly consequential interviews, he has overturned the old conventional wisdom and declared with complete certainty that the next Middle Eastern superpower will be neither Iran nor the occupation state, but Turkey. That is a remarkable reversal from a man who once viewed Iran as the region's ascending military giant, a country with a durable population and a serious warfighting doctrine. His assessment has changed and not casually. He now contends that Iran remains important, yes, but Turkey possesses a combination Iran does not fully match. Demographic mass, central geography, domestic arms production and crucially leadership under President Rachep Taip Erdogan that plans not in election cycles but in decades. Ankura is not thinking about the next few months or even the next term. It is plotting the next generation. Its aim is unmistakable to become the dominant power in the Middle East.
Pair that long horizon strategy with a military McGregor ranks among the top five on Earth. And suddenly the military adventurism of the occupation state starts to look less like strength and more like recklessness. And this is the critical point. That is why panic is spreading in Tel Aviv. And that is why the occupation forces are behaving with such frantic lawlessness.
Before going any further, this matters enough to say plainly, share this analysis with anyone who still cares about real geopolitics. Leave a comment, even if it is only a single dot, and support honest, uncensored journalism that reports events as they are rather than as Western media empires package them. Engagement is how these arguments reach beyond the algorithmic walls built to bury them.
McGregor's view is not abstract theory. It is anchored in the brutal facts of the last several months. And nowhere is that power shift more visible than in Syria. After the Assad government was removed, the occupation forces moved with their usual arrogance and contempt for international law. They launched an unprovoked aerial assault on a sovereign country that had just endured a revolution. Naval assets were obliterated. Warplanes were destroyed. Air bases were hit. Weapons depots were dismantled. Even the presidential palace was struck. None of this was defensive. It was naked aggression designed to Syria before it could regain its footing. To guarantee that it would remain weak, broken, and permanently available as a playground for illegal air raids and as a compliant air corridor for operations against Iran.
But they miscalculated badly. They assumed postrevolution Syria would remain an empty space waiting to be filled by their aircraft and armor. It was not. Ankora, which had already played a major role in stabilizing Syria after the upheaval, moved rapidly and decisively. A layered Turkish air defense network is now being established inside Syria, and that changes the strategic equation in a profound way. Reports indicate Turkey is building a serious presence at the T4 air base near Palmyra. This is far more than symbolism. His type air defense systems are being positioned. Surveillance drones and armed drones with extended strike reach are being prepared for deployment. The mission is clear. Provide actual air protection to Syria. monitor Syrian skies and bring the era of unchallenged aerial terror by the occupation forces to a close.
Consider what this actually means. Syrian airspace had previously functioned as a highway for strikes into Iraq and Iran. That highway is being shut down. With radar systems and air defenses in place, Turkey is effectively constructing a no-fly barrier the occupation forces cannot violate without risking direct confrontation with a modern combat hardened NATO military.
And this is precisely why the idea that the war with Iran is over is so astonishing. It is not over. Anyone in places like Dubai who assumes the danger has passed should think very carefully about the future. Iran may prefer the fighting to end. President Trump may also want it to end. That changes nothing. The conflict is still alive. A massive Iranian missile barrage against Israel carried out in response to Israeli strikes in northern Lebanon has already demonstrated that. So why would anyone conclude the broader region is now insulated from future war? That makes no sense. Start there and stay there. The war with Iran has not ended.
With that in mind, the Israeli minister speaking as though Iran is faded to collapse under American and Israeli military pressure is speaking without evidence. There is no proof for that claim. In fact, the opposite case is stronger. Iran today is militarily stronger and arguably politically stronger than it was when the war began. It is not about to crumble economically. It is backed by powerful partners including China and Russia and that must remain the backdrop for any serious discussion about Turkey.
At the same time, the Israeli science and technology minister was correct on the larger Turkish point. McGregor says he made essentially the same argument back in 2013 on the anniversary of the 1973 war to an Israeli audience and people treated him as though he had lost his mind. They dismissed it as impossible. It is not impossible now. It is reality. Israel now faces the two strongest nation states in the region broadly speaking aligned against it.
And what has President Trump been trying to do from the outset? He has tried to keep Erdogan out of the fight and drive a wedge between Turkey and Iran. That much is obvious. One of the more absurd manifestations of that effort was the idea of sending the Syrian Sunni Islamist elements. The same sort of beheading brigades associated with ISIS to fight Hezbollah. Ordinarily, the Israelis welcome scenarios in which Muslims are turned against one another. They have long preferred that outcome and frequently try to encourage it.
But here is the problem with that scheme. The minute you insert that kind of Syrian force into Lebanon, you are effectively inserting a Turkish subordinate element there as well. Turkey is not asleep. It is positioned just beyond the border, watching every movement in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Azerbaijan. It is preparing for intervention of some kind at some stage because the much larger issue from Ankura's perspective is Kurdistan and the Kurds. On that point, Turks and Iranians are in agreement. Neither side wants Kurdistan.
Yet, what have Washington and the Israelis been doing? They have bent over backward to cultivate Kurdish opposition to both Iran and Turkey. So when Trump says in effect that Erdogan is his friend and they get along wonderfully, that is childish nonsense with no place in statecraft. International politics is not governed by friendship. It is governed by interests. And Turkeykey's interests are not mysterious.
The Israeli description of Turkish motives was accurate. Syria is viewed by Turkey as part of its natural sphere, almost as a Turkish province. Northern Iraq is seen the same way. Turkish generals told American officers during the long, feutal, self-defeating occupation of Iraq that Herbiel is a Turkish city and Kirkuk is a Turkish city. They were not joking and there was no ambiguity in the claim. Look further back and the pattern becomes even more obvious. Who ruled most of the Arabian Peninsula until comparatively recently in historical terms. The Ottomans did. These ambitions are real. These aspirations are not fantasy.
The Turks are disgusted by what they see as the Arab state's failure to mount serious resistance to Israel. And they are deeply irritated that Iran has in effect displaced them as the supposed leader of Islam and the leading anti-Israel champion in the Islamic world. This is why Turkey's NATO membership is in the grander sense almost irrelevant. It may be useful on paper, but it does not define Turkeykey's future. Its cultural roots, historical memory, and strategic orientation lie in the Middle East and Central Asia, not Europe. Ankura is looking east and south, not west. So all the pious talk about NATO misses the point.
And despite all of this, Turkey is not reckless. It does not want war with Russia. That is the last thing it wants. So, it has been cultivating relations with Moscow. And Moscow has every reason to cultivate relations in return. After centuries and countless wars between them, both sides have learned that conflict brings them nothing worthwhile. Which means Turkey now sits in the room as the 600-lb gerilla.
While Washington keeps trying to engineer some bizarre arrangement on Israel's behalf, the Israelis looking at these schemes are effectively saying, "Are you out of your mind? You are inviting the Turks into northern Lebanon." Meanwhile, the Iranians sit there shaking their heads at the Americans, concluding that Washington does not understand the region, its people, or its interests. And on that point, the Iranians are right. The United States does not know what it is doing.
That should already be obvious from the incoherent statements pouring out of Trump and if you change the channel, the equally incoherent statements coming from Vice President Vance. There is no discernable strategy. No one knows what he is actually trying to achieve beyond one immediate impulse. Help Israel. That is why reports of a Syrian military buildup on the Lebanese border became so unsettling, especially because they appeared to accelerate after Trump's comments.
At first, that proposal sounded like one more off-the-cuff remark, just another impulsive statement tossed into the air with no serious planning behind it. Then it surfaced again. When the same foolish idea keeps being repeated, it stops sounding accidental. it starts sounding deliberate. Add to that the reports of movement on the Syrian Lebanese frontier and concern naturally grows. Syria does not possess much of a military at the moment, at least not after the occupation forces bombed it so extensively following Assad's fall. So analysts began offering different explanations. Some said the buildup was a precaution in case pro-Assad forces in Lebanon moved against Syria. Others pointed to the large narcotics trade and suggested the aim was stricter border control. Still others floated the possibility that it was intended to regulate the movement of weapons to Hezbollah through Syrian territory. These theories multiplied because the picture was unclear.
Then came Trump's public praise of Erdogan, his talk about respecting him, liking him, and considering a major gift in the form of F-35s. At that point, the speculation sharpened. Was there an actual conversation underway in which Trump was offering F-35 access in exchange for having Al- Sharah enter Lebanon and fight Hezbollah? And how much independent agency does Al Sharah really have? He himself had made clear that he did not want a war with Hezbollah. And he had even warned the Lebanese not to trust the Israelis. If the matter were left to al- Sharah alone, he likely would not go into Lebanon. If it were left solely to Turkey, it probably would not happen either. The unsettling question was whether sufficiently large incentives could change that calculation.
Trump's approval of a $700 million sale of General Electric jet engines for Turkeykey's con fighter strongly suggests he hopes exactly that. Turkey wants to complete its new fighter aircraft, but it cannot yet manufacture the necessary engines domestically. Trump approved the sale, and there is little doubt he hoped to purchase some kind of political outcome with it. Add to that the constant advice he receives from Israelis who have spent years preaching the same formula. Set these regional actors against one another because the more they fight, the better. And you can see the thinking in the background.
But what Trump fails to grasp is the much larger strategic picture, the very one the Israeli science and technology minister inadvertently outlined. If Erdogan were acting in his own interest, he would gladly take the $700 million engine deal, install the engines and Turkish jets, say whatever flattering words were necessary to keep Trump talking about F-35s or technological access, and then do absolutely nothing for him in Lebanon. He would take the money and walk away. Trump would then sit there asking what happened, just as he has done in other cases, including with the Kurds. Because this whole exercise is nonsense. It merely postpones the inevitable.
There is only one real path out of the disaster Washington has created. Unilateral disengagement. Just leave. Trump knows he is holding a mess in his hands and he is not happy about it. To his credit, he has at moments recognized the stakes particularly when he argued that the straight of Hormuz must remain open because if it does not the world could slide toward a global depression. So he understands certain fundamentals but he is operating under pressure. He is not fully independent. He still has to answer in practice, if not entitle to Netanyahu. And there is every reason to assume JD Vance is also in regular contact with Netanyahu.
From the Israeli point of view, any diplomatic arrangement reached in places like Lousern that ends the fighting between the United States and Iran is itself an existential threat to Israel. In that grim logic, the best possible outcome for Israeli hardliners would be for the talks to disappear altogether, swallowed up by some metaphorical earthquake, because peace is more dangerous to them than continued war. Israel wants Iran destroyed. The United States is expected to serve as the instrument of that destruction. Every Israeli move is designed to push Washington back into that role. So, how do you resolve that contradiction? You do not. It cannot be squared. Trump thinks he can manipulate the pieces and produce a controlled outcome, but he cannot. He lacks that degree of leverage. Yet, he keeps trying. And so, he has now turned toward the idea of buying short-term Turkish cooperation to help Israel in Lebanon. Good luck with that.
Turkeykey's real power does not come down to raw numbers alone. that matters. But it is not the decisive factor. The decisive factor is the leap it has made in indigenous military capability. A leap that is now rattling the west. While the occupation state depends overwhelmingly on American systems. Turkey has spent years building its own defense base and the returns are now becoming unmistakable. The centerpiece of that effort is the Khan, Turkeykey's fifth generation stealth fighter, and the significance goes beyond national prestige. Turkey has already secured a deal to export 48 con fighters to Indonesia, which signals that this is not merely a domestic vanity project. It is an export platform that could challenge Western monopolies in the defense market.
At the same time, there are signs from within the current US administration that some officials understand the need to begin disengaging. They know the United States has to get out. Why? Because what has already been demonstrated is devastating. The most powerful military establishment in the world has been defeated by Iran. That is not because American soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marines failed in their duties. It is because the wrong instrument was chosen for the war.
A competent four-star officer the moment Iran was placed on the table would have opened a map in front of the president and said, "Look at the terrain. Iran is a natural fortress. It is as large as Western Europe. It contains roughly 93 million people, perhaps more. Its southern deserts are nearly impassable and seizing some city at the southern edge of the country would be strategically worthless. Everything that truly matters lies in the north and the north is ringing by mountains. There is no easy route in. So the obvious question should have been asked immediately. What exactly are we supposed to bomb? If the objective is to pound Iran into submission and force it to accept Israeli demands, then point to the targets that would actually accomplish that. Show the sites whose destruction would make the Iranian leadership suddenly capitulate. No such convincing answer ever existed. The war should never have happened. Somebody should have stood up and said plainly that this was insane, that negotiations were the only realistic path and that the country could not be broken this way. Instead, General Kaine, steeped in the belief that air power can always deliver victory, reportedly sold the president on the fantasy that enough bombing would eventually make Iran yield. Then came the same sort of assurances from the Pentagon and the CIA. We have the bomb. We can break them. decapitate the leadership and trigger an uprising. Well, now we are here and all of that was rubbish.
If Trump were serious, he would fire everyone who gave him that advice, clear them out, bring in new people, and begin again from scratch. Until something like that happens, very little will change. And here is the deeper reality. The case for continuing the war has already collapsed. Even if the danger of continuation has not, the regime collapse rhetoric that circulated earlier in the year has evaporated. It is now being demonstrated that Iran can close the straight of Hormuz. It is being demonstrated that Iran maintains underground facilities that cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. It has been demonstrated that Iran can strike Gulf energy infrastructure. Once those facts are acknowledged, the strategic argument for war disappears.
Yet disappearance of the argument does not guarantee disappearance of the war. People are still clinging to the fantasy of maintaining US bases in the region. Trump, moreover, is acutely sensitive to any accusation that he is surrendering or admitting defeat. He hates that framing. But are those bases going to be rebuilt and reoccupied? almost certainly not because they cannot be protected. That is now being shown beyond serious dispute. So the new proposal emerges, perhaps move the bases to the Red Sea as though they would somehow be safer there than they were on the Persian Gulf. That is just doubling down on a failed strategy. And no, the people pushing that line are not merely stupid. They're also following money. There is always a contractor somewhere taking in staggering sums from these deployments and operations. Over the last quarter century of Middle Eastern wars, many fortunes have been made. Quite a few people became billionaires off this machinery of conflict. That is a massive part of the problem. And Trump is hearing those voices, too. What he needs for military adviserss is honesty.
Think about why the United States kept roughly 275,000 soldiers in Germany for nearly 40 years. The logic was brutally simple. It was clear that if war broke out with Russia, the US could not cross the Atlantic quickly enough to save Germany. Russian submarines would tear apart maritime reinforcement routes. Eisenhower himself understood the difficulty of repeating anything like Normandy under modern conditions. So the solution was to place the army there in advance. But that logic no longer works in the missile age. Tactical ballistic missiles, longer range ballistic missiles, hypersonics, unmanned systems in vast numbers, all linked to persistent surveillance and space-based connectivity. These change everything. Iran has demonstrated that clearly. put fixed assets or large troop concentrations inside the enemy strike envelope and they will be destroyed. So could you now station a massive army in Poland or Germany to deter Russia in a future war? No. Russia could eliminate what was on the ground before moving significantly at all. The same principle now applies in the Gulf. move the bases farther away and the response will simply be missiles with greater range and heavier warheads. The effect is the same. None of it makes strategic sense. There is only one rational answer. Disengage, leave, and bring Americans home. Number.