Did Turkey swallow the bait?

Has Turkey swallowed the bait? From the fall of Assad to confronting Israel, is Iran delaying the birth of a new Middle East?

The question today is no longer: who won the Syrian war, but has become far more complex: who actually benefited from the fall of Bashar al-Assad? And who will pay the price for the vacuum left by the exit of Iran and its allied factions from the Syrian arena?

Here, Turkey emerges as one of the most prominent parties that contributed to changing the Syrian equation, but it may gradually discover that the results it desired are not necessarily the results desired by Israel and the United States.

Turkey entered the Syrian conflict with a clear set of objectives: toppling the Bashar al-Assad regime, ending Iranian influence on its southern border, preventing the establishment of a geographically contiguous armed Kurdish entity, and establishing Turkish political, security, and economic influence within Syria. It also supported Syrian opposition forces and contributed, directly or indirectly, to the environment that ultimately led to the collapse of the former regime.

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But the problem is that toppling a common adversary does not necessarily mean agreeing on the shape of the system that will follow.

Here, Turkey may have fallen into one of the most important strategic dilemmas. It believed that Iran’s exit from Syria would grant it wide space to maneuver, but it failed to notice, or perhaps could not prevent, the vacuum left by the Iranian withdrawal from becoming open to Israel and the United States as well.

Israel had a different objective. For it, removing Iran, Hezbollah, and allied factions from Syria was a major strategic gain, as it weakens one of the most important Iranian supply and influence lines stretching from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut. However, Israel does not want to replace Iranian influence with strong Turkish influence, especially if this influence turns into a permanent military presence, or into a security and political system capable of influencing Syria’s future.

From here, the Turkish–Israeli contradiction began to emerge.

Turkey wants a Syria that is politically strong but strategically linked to it, while Israel wants a Syria that is militarily weak, incapable of threatening its security, and not transformed into a base of influence for a competing regional power.

Thus, what began as an intersection of Turkish and Israeli interests in confronting Iran may turn into a conflict of interests between the two parties themselves.

The more dangerous question is: Did Turkey err when it contributed to spreading and supporting armed groups in Syria, and tried to expand its influence in Iraq?

The answer is not black and white. Turkey was acting according to its own calculations and interests, and was not merely a tool in Israel’s hands. But it may have made a mistake in assessing the post-Assad phase. While toppling the regime may have been an achievable goal, controlling the future of the Syrian state is a completely different matter.

In Iraq, the Turkish attempt collided with a more complex reality. Iraq is not Syria; its political, social, and security composition, along with the Iranian and American presence and internal balances, made replicating the Syrian scenario extremely difficult... And here we arrive at Iran.

Its removal from Syria represents a strategic loss for Tehran, but it does not mean removing it from the regional equation. It still holds multiple cards, and its ability to influence does not depend on a single front. Therefore, Iran’s role may not be able to stop the American–Israeli project, but it can delay it, raise its cost, and force Washington and Tel Aviv to constantly recalculate their positions. This may well be the essence of the current conflict.

The broader American–Israeli objective is not necessarily the occupation of the region’s states, but rather the reshaping of its balance of power: weakening Iran, curtailing the influence of its allies, restructuring Syria, marginalizing Hezbollah, stabilizing Iraq, and establishing a regional order in which Israel plays a central role.

Yet this equation confronts two fundamental factors: Iran on one side, and Turkey on the other.

Iran refuses to accept a region entirely reshaped on an American–Israeli basis, while Turkey will not allow Syria—which it regards as vital to its national security—to become a theater dominated solely by Israel.

Therefore, the real question is not whether Turkey has swallowed the bait, but whether Turkey has contributed to the downfall of its strategic adversary, only to discover that the greatest beneficiary of that downfall may be a new rival.

This is the new Middle Eastern paradox: Israel sought to remove Iran from Syria, and Turkey sought to do the same; yet Iran’s exit could bring Turkey and Israel face to face.

Tehran has lost an important position, but it remains capable of slowing the process of regional restructuring.

Thus, the battle did not end with Assad’s fall; rather, a more dangerous phase may have begun: a contest to determine who will inherit the vacuum and who will draw the borders of the new Middle East.

An Iraqi writer