October 10, 2024
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In the Middle East Conflict, Opportunities Arise
Iran’s losses could be Turkey’s gains.
By: Kamran Bokhari
The conflict between Iran and Israel has set the Middle East down a path toward a slow but significant strategic shift. Iran’s flagging influence has created an opportunity for the region’s Sunni Arab states to tip the balance of power in their favor, but they will likely be unable to do so. The one country that possibly can is Turkey, mired though it is in its own domestic problems. Either way, the change underway will be a long, messy process.
Iran and Turkey in the Middle East
(click to enlarge)
As of Oct. 9, several escalatory elements are in play. U.S. President Joe Biden is slated to speak on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss how he plans to respond to Iran’s recent missile bombardment. This follows a last-minute decision by Netanyahu to cancel a trip by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to Washington to discuss Israel’s war plans. Elsewhere, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is due to arrive in the Saudi capital of Riyadh to discuss regional security in light of the conflict.
The Biden administration is, of course, on its way out, and it is trying to leverage Israel’s dependence on U.S. military aid to shape the response to Iran. Its goal is to keep Israel from targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and oil infrastructure, as an attack of that kind would create even more problems for the United States and its allies in the region. Israel simply wants Washington to go along with as many of its plans as possible.
Regardless of how severely Israel responds, the reality is that Iran has already sustained heavy blows to its regional position. Its premier proxy, Hezbollah, has been decimated, its leadership and offensive capabilities greatly degraded. It took years for Tehran to build Hezbollah, using resources made scarce by a grueling sanctions regime against it. The group is the foundation of Iranian power projection capability in the Arab world, and it is central to Tehran’s plans to create an arc of influence stretching to the Eastern Mediterranean. For its part, Hezbollah is trying to mitigate the political fallout of the destruction of its military capabilities. It knows it is no longer the weapon it once was, so it needs to preserve its position at home. Iran’s other regional proxies – its militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthis in Yemen – are not as powerful as Hezbollah and are no doubt considering their future, especially as Israel plans to punish their patron.
So far, Iran has managed to maintain a perception of power because it has yet to be hit inside its borders. But the fact that Hezbollah is bearing the brunt of the Israeli assault exposes the limits of Iran’s reliance on proxy warfare and likely undermines the morale of the so-called axis of resistance. Sensing this, Iran’s many regional competitors may be emboldened to take advantage of the situation, which is nothing short of historic. The founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 – itself a consequence of post-world war Sunni fragmentation – ushered in a new era of geosectarian rivalries that had been dormant for centuries. Tehran had already been cultivating ties with Shiite actors throughout the Arab world by the time the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. That war merely accelerated Iran’s proxy project, which enabled Tehran to deeply penetrate the Arab world. The last time Shiites posed a major challenge to a Sunni-majority Middle East was during the early 16th century with the rise of the Safavid Empire. (The Ottomans were in control of Syria and Iraq at the time, so in some ways modern Iran has achieved what no other government has.)
Iran’s regional strategy demanded that it block Turkey where it could. Frustrated, Turkey watched with dismay at how Iran exploited the conflicts in the Arab world, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to advance its ambitions and create crises on Turkey’s southern flank. Iran’s losses in the region, then, are Turkey’s gains. Turkey has already begun to improve its relations with Syria after more than a decade of hostility. The Assad regime has been trying to rehabilitate itself for years. Toward that end, it is happy to reduce its dependence on Iran, Hezbollah and other militias, and it has every interest in distancing itself from the Israeli-Iranian confrontation. Here is where the interests of Ankara and Damascus converge. The only constraint Syria has in pulling away from Iran is the fear of a revived Sunni rebellion. Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah are likely emboldening Sunni rebel groups, but if Turkey, which has backed them in the past, is willing to restrain these groups, then an understanding can be reached.
Turkey and Syria also have overlapping interests in limiting the growth of Syrian Kurdish separatists. Syrian President Bashar Assad wants to regain control of the territory he lost in the northeast, and Ankara wants to weaken Kurdish separatism in Syria because it poses a threat to Turkey. Clearly, Ankara has its work cut out for it, and Tehran will not give up without a fight.
After all, Syria is critical to Iran’s connection with Hezbollah and key to the survival of the pro-Iranian Shiite-dominated regime in Iraq. The presence of a Sunni Arab majority on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi frontier is a threat to Iranian ambitions and a potential asset for Turkey to roll back Iranian influence in the northern rim of the Middle East.
