ANKARA — As the Trump administration searches for a viable — and victorious — path out of its war against Iran, Turkey is preparing for a new balance of power in the Middle East, including a growing rivalry with Israel, and pushing to build new security partnerships.
For Turkey, a NATO member that shares a 350-mile border with Iran, the war has not only caused deep tensions within the alliance but also highlighted the unpredictability of relations with Washington. Eventually, the U.S. military will pull back, potentially leaving chaos on Turkey’s doorstep as well as an emboldened Israel.
Here in the Turkish capital, the response is a policy that officials are calling “regional ownership” — a call for power brokers to join forces and chart their own course. In its bid for new security pacts, Ankara has held talks in recent weeks with oil-rich Saudi Arabia, nuclear-armed Pakistan and Egypt, most populous nation in the Arab world.
“I think regional ownership is crucial because sometimes external powers alien to the very nature of the region’s problems can create a big mess,” said Tacan Ildem, a former Turkish ambassador to NATO and chairman of Turkish think tank EDAM.
“Countries like the United States of course have a global agenda,” said Ildem, “and we are allies with the U.S., but sometimes the priorities of big powers may not be matching.”
The fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad at the hands of Turkey-backed insurgents, and the weakening of Iran-backed militant groups, created an opportunity for Turkey to step up.
Now, the Iran war is violently reshaping the region in untold ways.
Ankara is seeking to play into the anxieties of some Gulf nations, where a volley of Iranian missiles and drones have raised questions about the limits of U.S. protections. Perhaps most acutely, Turkey is wary of an increasingly unrestrained Israel buoyed by its joint military campaign with the U.S., officials and analysts said.
“We are seeking to increase solidarity among the region’s nations,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Al-Jazeera while visiting Qatar.
“Everyone in the region now knows that if the region’s countries do not resolve their own problems, there is no point in waiting for a solution from dominant powers,” Fidan said last week. He cast this as one of the lessons of this war.
Erdogan has presented Turkey as a mediator that can talk to everyone — Russia and Ukraine, the U.S. and Iran — even as its military at times takes sides.
Turkey is a significant military power, with the second largest armed forces in NATO after the U.S. and a robust defense industry, including signature drones. Ankara’s control over the Bosphorus Strait gateway to the Black Sea, between Europe and Asia, is also a major strategic advantage.
At the same time, Turkey relies on NATO air defenses, which have intercepted four Iranian missiles headed to Turkish airspace since the Iran war began in late February.
Despite ambitions to be a regional force, Turkey does not have the hard power or nearly enough economic muscle to set its terms alone. It’s exploring “mini regional alliances” to help shield its interests, said Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, the Washington-based policy organization.
“I think Turkey is feeling out there all alone and in a very perilous environment, while domestically, the government has been using this narrative of Turkey’s omnipresence,” Aydintasbas said.
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has upended America’s relationships with friends and foes alike.
His administration has bashed European allies at NATO, unleashed another U.S. war of choice in the Middle East after campaigning against such wars, and at times disregarded the interests of America’s traditional partners.
Turkish officials see parallels as U.S. allies, including Canada and European nations, seek to close ranks as a hedge against an ever more unpredictable Washington.
The U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, recently drew pushback for telling a Turkish diplomacy forum that “this part of the world respects only one thing: power.” In some ways, that is how other governments see the Trump administration.
With Trump’s comeback, Turkey hoped for a U.S. reset after years of frostiness including over Ankara’s suspension from the F-35 fighter jet program after purchasing a Russian air defense system, Turkey’s attacks on Syria’s Kurdish region and its crackdown on political opposition.
Relations have warmed under Trump, who has embraced strongmen and gets along with Erdogan. A full reboot, however, remains elusive.
Turkish leaders are also growing nervous about “a region in which Israel’s desire to constantly mow the lawn and suppress its neighbors militarily is accepted by the United States,” Aydintasbas said.
Turkey’s “Plan A would be to improve ties with NATO partners,” she said, “but it has to think of what it can do in the absence of that.”
Ankara’s unease has only grown in the past year as Israel carried out attacks on Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Qatar, while Israeli forces occupied territory in Syria and Lebanon. Turkey sees a strategic rival that is quick to destabilize other nations for its own interests, and that can bring the U.S. onside.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, accuse Turkey of being too aligned with Islamist groups hostile to Israel and see Ankara as a main rival for sway across the Middle East.
Some officials discount the escalating tensions as shadowboxing. Turkey has managed to maintain relations with Moscow, for example, even as its military fought against Russia’s interests in Syria and by supporting Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
But observers see the risk of a growing tug-of-war for influence between two U.S. allies that increasingly regard each other as a threat.
Fidan, Turkey’s foreign minister, has warned that “Netanyahu’s administration” and others were “seeking to declare Turkey the new enemy” after the Iran war.
That followed declarations by former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is seeking a comeback in upcoming elections, that “Turkey is the new Iran.” He accused Ankara of “trying to flip Saudi Arabia against us and establish a hostile Sunni axis with nuclear Pakistan.”
Ties between Israel and Turkey — the first Muslim-majority country to officially recognize Israel — have a long history, featuring joint military exercises and arms sales.
Some channels remain open. But tensions have peaked as Turkey became a strident critic of Israel’s devastation of Gaza, with Erdogan and Netanyahu locked in a war of words.
Israel has also deepened military cooperation with Greece, a European Union member that Turkey has squared off with in the eastern Mediterranean.
Turkish officials say they have no interest in a military conflict with Israel, but Ankara has a message: “We are ready” so don’t even try, one official said.
“That would be folly, a lose-lose situation that defies logic,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. “I would hope it’s just posturing.”
In the past, Washington typically stepped in to “make sure this doesn’t get out of control,” but today seems “not really interested,” said Aydintasbas.
Whatever the outcome in Iran, Turkey and Israel will be the region’s two leading military powers, she added: “How they deal with one another … will also define what happens in the rest of the region.”
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