Par
Dost, P. (IFEA)
https://www.uikpanorama.com/blog/2024/07/07/me-usa-turkiye-dost/
Abstract
Hamas’ terror attacks on October 7 last year—which killed 1,200 people—prompted an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip 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’s (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’ popularity in the West Bank—and leaves untouched Iran’s 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.
With the United States signaling for over a decade now (Ottaway, 2023) that it wishes to reduce its role as the Middle East’s 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 Türkiye 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.
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 Türkiye, “a future peace [in Gaza] without some of the regional powers like Türkiye playing some role” does not seem foreseeable (Benson, 2024).
Such a third party exists: It is Türkiye. 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.