{"id":11219,"date":"2024-07-07T14:13:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T11:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/2024\/07\/me-usa-turkiye-dost\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T20:33:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T17:33:39","slug":"in-seeking-partners-for-postwar-peace-in-the-middle-east-the-us-should-not-ignore-turkiye-pinar-dost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2024\/07\/in-seeking-partners-for-postwar-peace-in-the-middle-east-the-us-should-not-ignore-turkiye-pinar-dost\/","title":{"rendered":"In seeking partners for postwar peace in the Middle East, the US should not ignore T\u00fcrkiye – P\u0131nar Dost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hamas\u2019 terror attacks on October 7 last year\u2014which killed 1,200 people\u2014prompted an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip\u00a0 which caused the death of more than 37,000 Palestinian, escalated regional tensions (Estrin et al., 2024), and created a wave of protests and condemnation against Israel. Many developing countries have sharpened criticism (Haidar, 2024) of Israel for the extended brutality of the military campaign, and even in the US and other Western countries, normally unconditional support for Israeli military actions has been increasingly questioned (Wadhams, 2024). Additionally, contradictory views among Western countries on the International Criminal Court\u2019s (ICC) arrest warrant of Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu and Defence Minister Gallant (Mekelberg, 2024), stimulated a deeper discussion regarding the Western powers’ delegitimizing role of the rules-based international order that they established (Al-Assil, 2024). At the end of eight months of war, even though Israel has successfully, and severely, damaged Hamas militarily, this has not secured an eventual political victory (The Economist, 2024). On the contrary the war increased Hamas\u2019 popularity in the West Bank\u2014and leaves untouched Iran\u2019s regional proxy war (Rubin, A.J. et al, 2024) against Israel and Western presence in the Middle East- conflict that will continue to pose a problem after the war in Gaza ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the United States signaling for over a decade now (Ottaway, 2023) that it wishes to reduce its role as the Middle East\u2019s security manager, we have seen in the last couple years a shift and reset in regional alliances (Kaye, D. D. et al., 2024) and the rise of regional middle powers such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and T\u00fcrkiye which chose to both cooperate and compete with Iran while normalizing or reconsidering normalizing their relations with Israel, thus transforming the inputs of the decades long Iran-Israel proxy war. When a hegemon de-emphasizes or pivots (Cohen, S. et al., 2013) away from a region, it leaves the door open for conflict among potential successor powers. Less natural is a former hegemon leaving an unstable arrangement in which its commitment to its friends and deterrence of rivals is in doubt (Haidar, 2023). The fact that over the last decade the US made out of the Iran-Israel struggle the primary organizing principle for its Middle East strategy, brought instability and crisis.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The zero-sum nature of that equation requires an additional balancing element: a third party, one that is a regional force with economic, military, and diplomatic heft, an interest in supporting the Palestinians, and a policy position not fully aligned with either Iran or Israel. That third force can be a partner in de-escalation, reconstruction, and diplomatic coalition-building processes that can stabilize the region after the war in Gaza. In the words of US Ambassador to T\u00fcrkiye, \u201ca future peace [in Gaza] without some of the regional powers like T\u00fcrkiye playing some role\u201d does not seem foreseeable (Benson, 2024). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a third party exists: It is T\u00fcrkiye. A US administration trying to balance humanitarian, strategic, and domestic concerns would do well to work closely with Ankara not only on the war in Gaza but also on the full array of regional stabilization efforts especially as a regional balancer moving forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current crisis<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Gulf countries have tacitly supported US deterrent measures against Iranian escalation in recent months. Yet that support was only possible because the United States had positioned forces and bases on the Gulf. The current crisis showed that the US \u201cexit\u201d from the Middle East and regional integration between its Gulf Allies and Israel, as underlined in the latest US National Security Strategy (The White House, 2022) are insufficient to balance Iran in the short and middle term. On the one hand, the Israel-Gaza war prevents the Biden administration \u201cto de-emphasize\u201d the Middle East forcing the US to expand its military footprint in the region (Hendrix and al., 2024). On the other hand, the Gulf states have not gone much further (Cloud and al., 2024) than information and intelligence sharing ahead of the Iran April 14 attacks on Israel. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates\u2019 (UAE) restoring diplomatic ties with Iran last year also reflects doubts about US support against Iranian attacks (after Houthi strikes in 2019 against Saudi oil facilities and in 2021 against the Saudi Royal Palace).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some hailed the success of regional coordination (Caspit, 2024) in stopping the hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones that Iran fired towards Israel in April, it was really the United S<\/a>tates, France, United Kingdom, and Jordan who conducted most of the actual intercepts (Federman and al., 2024). Despite the progress made on the Middle East Air Defense partnership (MEADP, a byproduct of the Abraham Accords) aiming to ensure sharing tracking data on Iranian threats between the United States, Israel, and Gulf states, it didn\u2019t come fully operational due to Gulf countries\u2019 political concerns,  and thus exposed the limitation of regional security integration and how it rests upon cessation of hostilities in Gaza and a pathway for Palestine statehood (Pamuk and al., 2024). The latter has been a Saudi condition, since long before October 7, for any potential normalization deal with Israel, the missing link of the Abraham Accords. Following the Iranian attacks on Israel in April, US officials doubled down on their efforts for convincing Gulf states\u2019 defence chiefs to expand their early warning radar systems and to share intelligence among them instead of passing by the US Air Force\u2019s Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar to boost the regional defence integration and to intercept and destroy Iranian-made incoming missiles (Szuba, 2024). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the situation in Gaza is handled and the security is ensured is not separate from the regional power balances in the Middle East and accordingly it can play into the hands of Iran and this is how it is perceived in the region (Atlantic Council, 2024).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-war Gaza and potential scenarios<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the war continues to devastate Gaza and civilians and more than 100 Israeli are still hostage, several day-after scenarios for Gaza have been discussed. The basics of a plan shared by Prime Minister Netanyahu months ago were based on a demilitarized Gaza occupied by Israel and neglecting any role for the Palestinian Authority to run Gaza or any prospect for a two-state solution (Hill, 2024). On the other hand, the US made clear that they would like to see a revitalized Palestinian Authority to run Gaza and that any solution for Gaza needs to at least be in line with a potential pathway for a Palestinian statehood.  The deployment of a US-led multinational peacekeeping force preferably without US boots on the ground was suggested as an interim solution (Hindley, 2024).  A more sophisticated plan (Dayton and al., 2024) with a US-led international force mandated by the UN or a joint force of several countries including US and Israeli troops and in cooperation with Arab nations was also proposed by former US officials. While many of these plans mainly focus on Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia as potential Arab countries to play peacekeeping roles in a transition period,  many of these countries made clear that without the cessation of hostilities, and Hamas being out of the equation as a military force as well as a clear pathway for a Palestinian state, they would not contribute to any policing or stabilization endeavours (Ryan, 2024) as they would not like to bee seen as new occupiers.  For Arab leaders any solution seemingly defending Israel\u2019s or US interests and making Israel a \u201cpuppet master\u201d behind Gaza is unacceptable and the solution needs to be a regional solution and that \u201cthis is Palestinian effort by and for Palestinians\u201d (Atlantic Council, 2024). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arab public opinion is very much guiding these countries\u2019 attitudes. A first of its kind survey (Arab Center Washington DC, 2024) on Arab public opinion about Israel\u2019s war on Gaza showed that Arab perceptions of the US and main European powers\u2019 positions vis-\u00e0-vis the war are very negative. They see the US and Israel as the main threats to the security and stability in the region. The survey also showed that the position of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt were not approved by the majority of respondents. The percentage of respondents who oppose recognizing Israel significantly increased in many countries and sharply in Saudi Arabia. The majority of respondents in many signatories of Abraham Accords oppose their countries recognizing Israel including in Jordan and Egypt. It\u2019s worth remembering that to not to get involved in an escalated regional war (Ottaway, March 2024), and to not to stigmatize their populations\u2019 anger, except Bahrain, US\u2019 Gulf and Arab allies preferred to not to join the US-led Red Sea Task Force following Houthi attacks -including Egypt which greatly suffered from attacks- on a major maritime trade route. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the way forward in Gaza and how the Israeli exit will happen, US strategy (Kempe, 2024) seems to emphasize limited Israeli operations to remove Hamas leaders, an international or Arab-only force to secure Gaza with a clear pathway for a Palestinian statehood. Obviously, before a day-after scenario can be put in place, a permanent ceasefire which ensures the release of all hostages, Israeli forces\u2019 exit from Gaza as well as the reconstruction of the enclave, needs to be concluded. This is what the latest three-phase plan promoted by the United States and presented by US President Biden as the one \u201coffered by Israel\u201d aims to achieve (Hagedorn, 2024). While Netanyahu is advanced the excuse of its government\u2019s hard-line elements objections to minimize significance of the deal (Parasiliti, 2024), Hamas is also reluctant to release hostages without clear guarantees on a permanent ceasefire (International Crisis Group, 2024). The deal omits to handle difficult questions such as postwar security in Gaza, Hamas\u2019 or Israel\u2019s future roles in the postwar governance, and waiting for these issues to be resolved before a ceasefire takes place could seriously prevent it. The delaying of the ceasefire contributes to the increasing violence between Israel and Hezbollah on the Israeli-Lebanon border and carries the risk to escalate into a broader regional conflict involving Iran which the US administration has been trying to prevent.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent United Nations Security Council Resolution supporting the US Gaza ceasefire plan could provide a mandate for NATO intervention in the conflict.  Looking at past peacekeeping operations and missions no one can object to the fact that NATO is the most experienced and successful international organization in crisis prevention and management supporting capacity-building with the best examples in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. A potential NATO peacekeeping mission in  Gaza will also ensure the involvement of most of the European countries and US allies willing to provide forces to the mission and thus limiting the US active engagement alone with Arab forces. On top of this, NATO\u2019s current partnerships in the Southern Neighborhood through Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative including partnerships with main regional actors such as Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE already provide the institutional, legal framework for cooperation between the West and regional countries. Many of these countries have participated in several NATO-led operations and missions and even Saudi Arabia and Oman who are not members joined some selected activities. The timing couldn\u2019t be better as a report (NATO, 2024) on NATO\u2019s engagement with its Southern Neighborhood, commissioned by Secretary General Stoltenberg, has recently been published and concrete suggestions will be discussed at the Washington Summit in July. While drawing attention to \u201cIran\u2019s destabilising and contested role in the region\u201d, the report clearly underlines that NATO \u201chas a strategic interest in averting the further spread of the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean, the Gulf and the Red Sea\u201d and \u201cif approached to support potential security arrangements, NATO could consider offering expertise, sharing experience and, potentially, training and capacity-building to future multinational initiatives\u201d. The Washington Summit presents a great opportunity for allied powers to discuss whether they could get involved in the resolution of the situation in Gaza and contribute to the regional peace as  its absence presents a serious security threat to the whole Euro-Atlantic area.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A potential NATO involvement will also enable T\u00fcrkiye to take part in the solution while helping T\u00fcrkiye and Israel to overcome their differences in a post-Netanyahu period.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While T\u00fcrkiye was among the loudest critics of Israel, the country was also among the most proactive countries in the region to be willing to play its role in securing the future of Gaza and the Palestinian statehood. Despite being absent in any of the proposed scenarios above, the country has even suggested a guarantorship model (Uzer, 2024) for Palestine and showed its willingness to be part of the solution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palestine and the Palestinian cause have an important place in the heart and minds of Turks as there is a shared history of 400 years where Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire until its occupation by the British during the First World War. While T\u00fcrkiye was the first Muslim majority country to recognize Israel in 1949, throughout Turkish history the Palestinian cause has found bipartisan support among Turkish governments and populations. But this didn\u2019t prevent T\u00fcrkiye and Israel to develop a strong economic and security partnership in the 1990s. Close relations with Israel were always a contributing factor to close US-T\u00fcrkiye relations. The US also intervened to enhance the relationship between its both allies and considered T\u00fcrkiye as an important component of the Middle East security to the point that the US officials worked on establishing a former version (\u00d6zcan, 2024) of a Middle East early warning, anti-ballistic air defense partnership between T\u00fcrkiye, Israel and Jordan back in 1997.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s ruling party has particularly owned the Palestinian cause especially after the Gaza blockade following Hamas\u2019 takeover in 2007 and T\u00fcrkiye has been continuously providing humanitarian support (Aslan, 2024) to Palestine since then. After the Mavi Marmara<\/em> flotilla crisis in 2010, where a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid and trying to break the blockade was attacked by Israeli forces and resulted in the death of 10 Turks, Israeli-Turkish diplomatic relations were severed for many years. Throughout this period the ruling party\u2019s ideological affinity with Hamas, and its leaders\u2019 presence in T\u00fcrkiye for many years, raised eyebrows in the West and in Israel, and it also contributed to the worsening of US-T\u00fcrkiye relations.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides, the decision to install the K\u00fcrecik Radar Station, a NATO radar that is \u201cthe core of the entire anti-ballistic missile system defending against Iran\u201d, according to a senior US official (Szuba, 2020), was made at a NATO Summit, six months after the Mavi Marmara<\/em> crisis and its installation in Malatya, 700 km from the border with Iran, took place when all bilateral diplomatic relations were severed. While reportedly T\u00fcrkiye hadn\u2019t played any role in intercepting the Iranian missiles in April, the radar is proof of T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s potential for strengthening regional air defense and collective security\u2014and for deterring Iran, under the right conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since October 7, T\u00fcrkiye has been the 2nd<\/sup> biggest aid provider to Gaza (Tekin and al., 2024).  While T\u00fcrkiye is not at proximity of Gaza Strip like Egypt, the country has the economic and military means and political will to invest in the Gaza strip. Regarding their stance on Israel\u2019s approach to civilians both countries announced that they are considering joining the South Africa\u2019s case at the International Court of Justice. Additionally, in the above mentioned Arab public opinion poll, among all countries\u2019 positions, respondents approved T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s position\u2019s the most. Therefore, T\u00fcrkiye has a role to play both in Gaza\u2019s and the Middle East economic and security futures. However, to be able to play a role in postwar Gaza, Turkish leaders need to be more cautious on their announcements about Hamas and Israel as the rhetoric becomes more radical every day and may result in a complete exclusion of T\u00fcrkiye from all regional calculations and alliances. While supporting Hamas after October 7 may be \u201cperceived as an indirect support to the Iran-led axis of resistance\u201d (Nasi, 2024), T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s communication with Hamas also aimed at aligning with American efforts of addressing the Gaza crisis and diminishing Hamas\u2019 dependence on Iran (Emirates Policy Center, 2024).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also worth underlying that the close relationship between Hamas and Qatar and the strong political and financial support that country provided to the group, didn\u2019t prevent it from being a leading ceasefire broker between Hamas and Israel, alongside Egypt and from closely coordinating with the US (Iordache, 2024). Therefore, sometimes rhetoric counts more than actions. T\u00fcrkiye currently sees an opportunity for a two-state solution in the current context and supports Hamas being part of a postwar solution, and allegedly asserting that its leaders managed to secure the group’s agreement to disarm upon the establishment of an independent Palestinian state (Kayao\u011flu, 2024). This stance which is hard to be acccepted by the US and Israel, could cost T\u00fcrkiye staying out of Gaza security building and reconstruction processes. Therefore, it would be appropriate to avoid irreversibly harsh statements until the situation calms down and power balances are restored in the region. T\u00fcrkiye has experienced the exclusion the hard way when the country has  been left out of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. Following this difficult period of exclusion the country made a shift in its foreign relations and proceeded with a complete reset and developed its relations with the regional countries including the UAE, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00fcrkiye as a regional balancer<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00fcrkiye is party to neither the Abraham Accords nor the Middle East Air Defence partnership, but over the last few years it has normalized and developed its relations with Gulf countries and Israel. T\u00fcrkiye is capable of playing an economic, political, and security role in the Palestinian territories after the war and of serving as a counterweight to Iranian influence in the Middle East. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s relations with Iran have not been well understood in the West, many wrongly arguing that T\u00fcrkiye was mainly pro-Iranian. Iran has been a difficult rival and sectarian neighbor with whom T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s relations have been and will remain a zero-sum game: both sides did and will do their best to avoid into direct confrontation (\u00c7a\u011faptay, 2020). A historical rival and competitor of Iran, T\u00fcrkiye and its rising power and influence in world affairs from Syria, Iraq to Libya and to South Caucasus has been perceived as a threat by Iran. Over the last decade, besides Syria, Ankara and Tehran also had tensions through their supported groups in the South Caucasus and especially in Iraq. After the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, Iran did not refrain of openly accusing Azerbaijan, Israel and T\u00fcrkiye to create an alliance against its interests. In recent years, Turkish outposts and bases were attacked by the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq where competition for influence has become more serious, and where sectarian rivalry and Iran\u2019s support to Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK) continue to oppose both countries against each other. In Iraq, T\u00fcrkiye, like the US and Israel,  supports the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) over the pro-Iranian Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and is trying to prevent Iran from taking control of Sinjar on the Iraq-Syria border to prevent the merging of the PKK in Iraq and its offshot People\u2019s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria (Azizi and al., 2022). Groups backed by T\u00fcrkiye and Iran started to battle in Syria in 2020 where heavy losses were caused by Turkish forces against Iranian proxies in Idlib. Iran now sees T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s presence in Syria as a threat to its influence and tries to prevent any new Turkish operations in northern Syria, as was the case in 2022.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last few years, tensions in Iraq increased and became very much visible after an attack by Iran-backed militias (Salim, 2023) on Turkish military base in Nineveh last year.  Recently, we saw several reports arguing that Iran, particularly uneasy about the recent Turkey-Iraq rapprochement (Anwar, 2024), is getting closer with the PKK, providing funds, weaponry, vehicle and safe havens and helping them gaining legitimacy in Sinjar (Kirenci, 2024). Turkish Defense Minister Ya\u015far G\u00fcler also indicated that Iran is not cooperating with T\u00fcrkiye against the PKK, and it was speculated that Iran may have provided the 358 surface-to-air missiles to PKK, which allegedly used them to shoot down Turkish armed drones (Kemal, 2024). Therefore, it would be better to qualify Iran as T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s frenemy, a difficult rival and neighbor that T\u00fcrkiye will not be willing to openly and directly confront.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not mean that T\u00fcrkiye can\u2019t play a more robust balancing role in the Middle East, hough given the current state of T\u00fcrkiye Israel relations, as the country halted trade with Israel, suspended flights until 2025 and government officials expressed supportive messages regarding S<\/strong>outh Africa\u2019s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the country would likely play such a role only under a post-Netanyahu government. This is not the first bilateral crisis, and it won\u2019t be the last; but these two important US allies, led by realpolitik, have been able to overcome their differences when needed. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s efforts to blame the war on Netanyahu personally is a good indicator that T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s relations will probably improve with the post-Netanyahu Israeli administration. Quiet US coordination with T\u00fcrkiye while this war has unfolded shows the potential for broader bilateral cooperation with the interest of securing the Middle East. A Turkish security source recently revealed that US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns requested the Chief of Turkish Intelligence Agency \u0130brahim Kal\u0131n to mediate between Israel and Iran to prevent escalation ahead of the Iranian attack. According to a Western official, T\u00fcrkiye relayed messages (Reuters, 2024)  between Washington and Tehran following Burns\u2019s request. After Iran\u2019s attack on Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken thanked (U.S. Department of State, 2024) Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan for his ongoing engagement to prevent further escalation in the region.\u202f  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Ankara has been busy communicating with Western leaders, it has also undertaken efforts that demonstrate its intention of promoting economic growth, dialogue, and mutual reassurance in the pursuit of stability across the Middle East. Fidan visited Doha to meet Qatari officials and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh and Egyptian Foreign Minister Shukri each traveled to T\u00fcrkiye in April for separate talks on Gaza and a potential ceasefire. More importantly, Erdo\u011fan\u2019s February trip to Egypt and his invitation to the Egyptian president to visit T\u00fcrkiye  marked a rapprochement between the two regional power players (Ak\u0131n, 2024), with T\u00fcrkiye and Egypt promising to widen cooperation in Libya, Gaza, and other places where their respective national positions overlap a great deal. Turkish reconciliation with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (Reuters, March 21 2024), as well as more recent initiatives with Iraq (Gostoli, 2024), are also elements of Ankara\u2019s intention for regional stability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the current state of its relations with Israel (Walsh, 2024), T\u00fcrkiye can\u2019t be a mediator between Hamas and Israel regarding the war in Gaza. But neither the United States nor the region needs T\u00fcrkiye to be a mediator in that war. And it wouldn\u2019t help for Ankara pick a side or position that the Turkish population wouldn\u2019t endorse. The need is for a T\u00fcrkiye that\u2014for its own reasons\u2014counterbalances Iran, while also supporting a long-term and positive relationship with a post-Netanyahu Israel. Turkish leaders\u2019 commitment to the Palestinian cause, relations with both Fatah and Hamas, and efforts to bolster ties with Arab neighbors strengthen the likelihood that T\u00fcrkiye can play a constructive role in what lies ahead in Gaza, even if not directly or immediately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Same integration goals, different tracks<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Middle East and its complex rivalries have delayed Washington\u2019s desire to pivot from the region. Before the Hamas attack on Israel in October, the Middle East was seen as an area of decreasing security threats (Rogers, 2024). Israel had normalized relations and expanded cooperation with several Gulf countries. The United States, in its most recent attempt to expand the Abraham Accords, was facilitating diplomatic normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia (Ravid, 2023), which seemingly (Nissenbaum, 2023) was making progress and is still .  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though T\u00fcrkiye was not included in previous US attempts at regional integration, Ankara has pursued its own regional initiatives (Valansi, 2021) to normalize its relations with the UAE, Israel (Dost, 2022), Saudi Arabia (Dost and al., 2022), and Egypt. It has entered into economic and defense cooperation (Bakir, 2023) with others, including joint drone production (Iddon, 2023) with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The United States and T\u00fcrkiye have been pursuing regional integration along separate tracks, with many of the same partners and with the same general goals: prosperity, stability, and preventing tensions caused by Iran or Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A more durable regional security architecture must go beyond the dual approach of supporting Israel and deterring Iran\u2014or the Biden administration\u2019s variant of that, restraining Israel and mollifying Iran.  More than a decade ago, geopolitical strategist George Friedman (Friedman, 2010) suggested that the way to balance Iran and secure US allies\u2019 interests in the Middle East was to promote Israel\u2019s normalization with the Gulf countries, but asserted that strategy could only succeed if it included T\u00fcrkiye. Friedman argued that the United States should have a close alliance with T\u00fcrkiye against Russia in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and against Iran in the Middle East. This does not require full alignment between T\u00fcrkiye and Israel, only that both work comfortably with the same sets of allies\u2014and that T\u00fcrkiye brings to bear its own considerable economic, diplomatic, and military resources to both engage with and deter Iran, in much the same way as it does Russia in the Black Sea region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion: The triangular balancing act and the way forward in Gaza<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a subtle task for an extra-regional hegemon, and for that matter a reluctant or weakening hegemon, to play balancing games in a region so far away. Yet that appears to be the fate of the US in the Middle East this century. It has tried direct orchestration through regime change and intrusive counterterrorism. It has tried \u201cleading from behind\u201d (Lizza, 2011) while regional partners or adversaries sort things out. It has tried to pivot from heavy engagement altogether. And it has tried consolidation of regional security ties on the dualistic basis of fostering an Israel \u201cfriends group\u201d and deploying carrots and sticks with an antithetical \u201cenemies group\u201d led by Iran\u2014while attempting to reduce US expenses. If attaining regional stability or securing US interests was the goal, the US administration\u2019s approaches don\u2019t seem to be working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the US has not yet tried a holistic and realistic approach to Middle East security that plays to US strengths with Israel, the Gulf, and T\u00fcrkiye all at once. This would involve a combination of the expansive thinking of the Trump administration\u2019s coalition building efforts realized in the Abraham Accords and the moderating impulses of the Biden administration regarding both Israel and T\u00fcrkiye. It would also need to reconcile great power competition with the current crises in the Middle East considering China\u2019s expanding military influence and T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s and Israel\u2019s potential to challenge China\u2019s arms exports to the region. The US must square the circle by bringing together its regional allies\u2014T\u00fcrkiye but also Egypt and the Gulf states\u2014that are reconcilable with Israel but disturbed by the current course of the war in Gaza.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conclude, if Washington is wise enough to seek a partner for peace-building in the region after the war in Gaza\u2014one that has the resources, ties, and inclination to turn conflict into a regional stabilization program\u2014that partner can be found in T\u00fcrkiye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*I would like to thank Dr. Rich Outzen, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY for his valuable comments and suggestions to improve this paper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ak\u0131n, E. (February 14, 2024). Turkey\u2019s Erdogan receives red-carpet reception in Egypt, calls Sisi ‘brother’<\/em>. Al-Monitor. https:\/\/www.al-monitor.com\/originals\/2024\/02\/turkeys-erdogan-receives-red-carpet-reception-egypt-calls-sisi-brother#ixzz8dhlFYVaO<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atlantic Council (May 14, 2024). Report launch: A plan for post-war Gaza [Video].\u202fYouTube.\u202fhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QqRoi9330Rg<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Assil, I. (June 13, 2024). Sanctioning the ICC over Israel is a strategic misstep for the US. MENASource. <\/em>Atlantic Council.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0https:\/\/www.atlanticcouncil.org\/blogs\/menasource\/icc-israel-misstep-netanyahu-gallant\/?network_account=Atlantic+Council&utm_campaign=read&utm_content=20240615&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=linkedin<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. P\u0131nar Dost <\/h5>\n\n\n\n

P\u0131nar Dost is a nonresident fellow at Atlantic Council IN T\u00fcrkiye and an associated researcher with the French Institute for Anatolian Studies (IFEA). A historian of international relations, she is also the former deputy director of Atlantic Council IN T\u00fcrkiye. Her research interests are mainly focused on the fields of modern Turkish diplomatic history, US-Turkish relations, Turkish foreign policy and relations with the Middle East and NATO as well as Turkish migration policies. Throughout her career, she has combined experience from academia and research organizations and managed several research and publication projects. Dost holds a PhD and an MA in the history of international relations from Sciences Po Paris and a BA in political science from Galatasaray University in Istanbul. Her dissertation is entitled, \u201cThe Origins of the American Preponderance in Turkey from 1939 to 1947.\u201d She is the author of Le bon dictateur. L\u2019image de Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk en France (1919?-1938) (Libra, 2014) and contributed to various books and academic journals with articles on her research areas. Follow her on LinkedIn. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent those of the organizations the author is associated with.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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To cite this work:<\/strong>\u00a0P\u0131nar Dost, “In seeking partners for postwar peace in the Middle East, the US should not ignore T\u00fcrkiye “,\u00a0Panorama<\/em>, Online, 7 July 2024, https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/blog\/2024\/07\/07\/me-usa-turkiye-dost\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Copyright@UIKPanorama All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in works published by the Panorama<\/em> belongs to the authors alone unless otherwise stated, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, Global Academy, or the Editors\/Editorial Board of Panorama. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hamas\u2019 terror attacks on October 7 last year\u2014which killed 1,200 people\u2014prompted an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip\u00a0 which caused the death of more than 37,000 Palestinian, escalated regional tensions (Estrin et al., 2024), and created a wave of protests and condemnation against Israel. Many developing countries have sharpened criticism (Haidar, 2024) of Israel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":10652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[506,486],"tags":[656,586,650,641],"class_list":["post-11219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mena","category-opinion","tag-english","tag-middle-east","tag-turkiye","tag-united-states-us"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}