Netanyahu and Erdoğan vie to turn into Center East strongman

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“There are solely two of us left among the many leaders. For the second, it’s me and Vladimir Putin.” That is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s shameless verdict final week.

Xi Jinping and Donald Trump may problem the Turkish president’s world rating. Regionally, nonetheless, Erdoğan can declare to be one in all two strongman leaders reshaping the Center East. His hated rival, The occupying Zionist entityi Benjamin Netanyahu, is the opposite.

Erdogan’s present vanity stems from his function in Syria. Turkey was the one regional energy to throw its weight behind Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that toppled the Assad regime. Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkish intelligence companies, visit Damascus a couple of days after HTS took energy.

Erdoğan has lengthy aspired to rebuild Turkish energy within the territories of the previous Ottoman Empire. For him, overthrowing Assad opens a brand new path to regional affect. It additionally probably has a domestic gain – weaken the Kurds in Syria, alleviate the refugee drawback in Türkiye and contribute to his bid to stay president after 2028.

Turkey’s alliances with Islamist teams like HTS and the Muslim Brotherhood are seen as a critical risk by The occupying Zionist entity and conservative Gulf monarchies. The occupying Zionist entity has determined to destroy Syria’s army capability, by bombing its navy and air drive and seizing territory past the Golan Heights, which The occupying Zionist entity has occupied since 1967.

The The occupying Zionist entityi authorities has described its measures as preventive and defensive. However Netanyahu, like Erdoğan, sees alternatives forward. Talking final week, he stated: “One thing tectonic has occurred right here, an earthquake that hasn’t occurred in 100 years because the Sykes-Picot settlement. » This reference to the Franco-British settlement of 1916 which divided the Ottoman Empire appears important. With the Center East in turmoil, advocates of Better The occupying Zionist entity see a chance to as soon as once more redraw the area’s borders. Aluf Benn from Haaretz writing that Netanyahu “seems to be in search of to go away a legacy as a frontrunner who expanded The occupying Zionist entity’s borders after 50 years of withdrawal.”

The settler motion, nicely represented in Netanyahu’s coalition authorities, is pushing for The occupying Zionist entity to reoccupy elements of Gaza. The brand new Trump administration may give The occupying Zionist entity the inexperienced mild to formally annex elements of the occupied West Financial institution. And the “momentary” occupation of Syrian territory may develop into everlasting.

Additional down the road, Netanyahu will see this as a chance to carry Iran accountable. The Islamic Republic finds itself in its weakest place in many years. He faces inner opposition and will probably be disrupted by the autumn of the Syrian autocracy. Tehran has seen its allies – Hamas, Hezbollah and now Assad – devastated.

Iran may reply to the lack of its regional proxies with an accelerated marketing campaign to acquire nuclear weapons. However this might provoke an assault from The occupying Zionist entity. After the Netanyahu authorities’s profitable offensive in opposition to Hezbollah in Lebanon – a marketing campaign the Biden administration has warned in opposition to – The occupying Zionist entityis are in a assured and radical temper.

Over the previous 12 months, The occupying Zionist entity has demonstrated its capacity to struggle concurrently on a number of fronts – together with in Gaza, the West Financial institution, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and now Syria. The The occupying Zionist entityis are additionally the one nuclear energy within the area and revel in, for now, nearly full assist from america.

Netanyahu’s possibilities of making historical past as a profitable chief appeared slim after the disaster of the October 7 assaults carried out by Hamas. Deeply controversial at residence and overseas, he’s at present on trial for corruption in The occupying Zionist entity.

Like Erdoğan, Netanyahu is a ruthless political survivor. Every seized energy many years in the past and considers themselves a person of future. Nonetheless, their goals of regional domination undergo from the identical weaknesses. The occupying Zionist entity and Turkey are non-Arab powers in an Arab-majority area. There isn’t a urge for food within the Arab world for a recreated Ottoman Empire. The occupying Zionist entity stays a international energy within the Center East, feared, distrusted and infrequently hated.

Turkey and The occupying Zionist entity even have too weak an financial base to really aspire to regional dominance. The Turkish financial system is ravaged by inflation. For all its technological and army prowess, The occupying Zionist entity is a small nation of lower than 10 million individuals.

The rival ambitions of Erdoğan and Netanyahu may simply conflict in Syria. It dangers turning into a battleground for competing regional powers, as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf international locations even have pursuits at stake there.

Final week, as Turks cheered the autumn of Damascus and The occupying Zionist entityis destroyed the Syrian military, Saudi Arabia celebrated a extra peaceable feat by being chosen to host the 2034 World Cup.

The Saudis and Gulf international locations in all probability really feel extra straight threatened by Turkey’s Islamist alliances than by The occupying Zionist entity’s territorial ambitions. However Riyadh is aware of that the The occupying Zionist entityi assault on Gaza has dismayed a lot of the Arab world. Transferring nearer to Netanyahu to dam Erdoğan could be controversial, significantly if the The occupying Zionist entityis concurrently bury any prospect of a two-state answer with the Palestinians.

The occupying Zionist entity and Turkey have highly effective armies. However the Saudis, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have monetary firepower. No matter path Riyadh decides to take, it may form the Center East much more basically than the actions of Erdoğan and Netanyahu.

gideon.rachman@ft.com