{"id":63398,"date":"2026-06-01T16:34:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/?p=63398"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:34:59","slug":"after-iran-is-turkey-israels-next-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/2026\/06\/01\/after-iran-is-turkey-israels-next-target\/","title":{"rendered":"After Iran, Is Turkey Israel\u2019s Next Target?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qamar Bashir<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Israel\u2019s rising confrontation with Turkey has opened a disturbing new chapter in Middle Eastern geopolitics. After its war with Iran and its continuing campaigns against Hezbollah and other regional actors, Israel now appears to be widening its strategic lens toward Ankara. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett\u2019s warning that \u201cTurkey is the new Iran\u201d was not an isolated slogan; it reflected a growing Israeli security debate that increasingly views Turkey, Qatar, Syria, Hamas, and even Pakistan-linked regional alignments as part of a new strategic challenge to Israeli supremacy.<\/p>\n

This raises a central question: how can a tiny state, with a population smaller than many regional cities, speak with such confidence about confronting Iran, Turkey, and even Pakistan? The answer is not conventional military size alone. Israel\u2019s confidence rests on four pillars: its advanced air force, elite intelligence network, U.S. strategic backing, and, above all, its undeclared nuclear arsenal. Together, these have created a state mentality in which Israel does not merely seek security; it seeks regional dominance.<\/p>\n

Turkey is not Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, or Syria. It is a major NATO power with a large population, deep military traditions, a growing defense industry, advanced drones, naval reach, missile development, and strategic depth. In any conventional comparison, Turkey is not an easy target. Its manpower, geography, industrial base, and NATO membership make a direct Israeli attempt to \u201cdestroy\u201d or subjugate Turkey almost impossible. Turkey has no shared border with Israel, and any major war would require complex operations through Syria, the Mediterranean, or proxy corridors. This is not a battlefield where Israel can easily repeat its air campaigns against weaker or fragmented enemies.<\/p>\n

Yet Israel\u2019s confidence comes from a different calculation. It knows that conventional imbalance can be overturned by nuclear deterrence. Israel\u2019s undeclared nuclear capability is the hidden card behind its regional posture. Even if Turkey is stronger in manpower, tanks, drones, ships, and strategic depth, Israel\u2019s nuclear ambiguity gives it a psychological edge. It tells every regional rival: you may hurt Israel, but you cannot safely push Israel to existential panic. This is the dangerous \u201cmadness card\u201d \u2014 the belief that if Israel feels cornered, it may escalate beyond normal rules.<\/p>\n

This creates a frightening asymmetry. Turkey may dominate a conventional confrontation, but Israel may believe that nuclear shadow power gives it the final word. That is why the Turkey-Israel rivalry cannot be judged only by aircraft, tanks, or soldiers. It must be judged by escalation control. Turkey can defeat pressure, but it must avoid giving Israel the pretext to internationalize, nuclearize, or Americanize the conflict.<\/p>\n

Many argue that conventional military strength, diplomacy, missile defenses, or asymmetric capabilities can compensate for a nuclear imbalance. Yet the modern strategic record suggests that nuclear weapons remain the ultimate deterrent. Countries that possess a credible nuclear capability are rarely subjected to the kind of existential military pressure faced by states that do not. More importantly, when rival states both possess nuclear weapons, the risk of total war often declines because the consequences become catastrophic for both sides.<\/p>\n

The example of India and Pakistan is frequently cited in this context. Before both states became overt nuclear powers, the possibility of large-scale conventional war remained a persistent concern. After nuclearization, despite crises and tensions, leaders on both sides have had to calculate under the shadow of mutually assured destruction. The existence of nuclear weapons has not eliminated conflict, but it has significantly raised the threshold for full-scale war.<\/p>\n

A similar argument is made regarding the Korean Peninsula. North Korea\u2019s strategic leverage does not come from economic strength or global influence. Rather, its nuclear capability has created a deterrent that makes direct military action against it far more difficult to contemplate. Whatever one thinks of the regime, its nuclear arsenal has fundamentally altered how other powers approach it.<\/p>\n

Viewed through this lens, the debate over Iran becomes even more significant. Supporters of nuclear deterrence argue that if a state lacks a nuclear capability while facing a nuclear-armed adversary, it remains vulnerable to coercion and military pressure. They contend that possession of nuclear weapons by both sides can create a balance that discourages war, whereas a monopoly of nuclear power creates strategic inequality.<\/p>\n

For this reason, some analysts believe that the central issue in the Middle East is not simply conventional military superiority but the unequal distribution of nuclear deterrence. As long as one state is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons while its rivals do not, the strategic balance will remain tilted. From this perspective, the debate is less about military hardware and more about whether lasting stability can exist when deterrence is available to some states but denied to others.<\/p>\n

Turkey must therefore think carefully about the changing strategic environment around it. The challenge is not merely military competition with Israel but understanding how nuclear deterrence shapes regional behavior, perceptions of risk, and calculations of power. Whether one supports or opposes nuclear proliferation, it is difficult to ignore the argument that nuclear capability has become one of the most powerful guarantees against external coercion in the modern world.<\/p>\n

Turkey must read the warning signs carefully. Israel\u2019s strategic culture has shifted from survival to expansion, from deterrence to domination, from defense to preemption. A state that sees itself as divinely entitled to security beyond its borders will always identify new enemies after old ones are weakened. Today Iran is the enemy. Tomorrow Turkey is described as the \u201cnew Iran.\u201d After that, Pakistan\u2019s nuclear capability may again be framed as a future threat.<\/p>\n

If Israel continues to treat every independent regional power as the next Iran, it may achieve short-term military successes while creating long-term instability across the Middle East. From Ankara’s perspective, the lesson of recent conflicts is that diplomatic appeals, international institutions, and conventional military capabilities alone may not always be viewed as sufficient safeguards against a state that believes it enjoys overwhelming strategic superiority. Turkey’s challenge, therefore, is to develop a level of strategic deterrence\u2014political, economic, technological, military, and diplomatic and nuclear\u2014that convinces any potential adversary that the costs of confrontation would far outweigh any conceivable gains.<\/p>\n

History suggests that lasting peace is rarely preserved by goodwill alone; it is preserved when both sides recognize that conflict would be mutually damaging and strategically unwinnable. Only such a credible balance can prevent rivalry from escalating into the next great catastrophe of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The writer is Press Secretary to the President (Rtd),Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France,Former Press Attach\u00e9 to Malaysia\u00a0and Former MD, SRBC.He is living in \u00a0Macomb, Michigan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qamar Bashir Israel\u2019s rising confrontation with Turkey has opened a disturbing new chapter in Middle Eastern geopolitics. After its war with Iran and its continuing campaigns against Hezbollah and other regional actors, Israel now appears to be widening its strategic lens toward Ankara. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett\u2019s warning that \u201cTurkey is the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[986,39],"class_list":["post-63398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorial-articles","tag-after-iran-is-turkey-israels-next-target","tag-qamar-bashir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63399,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63398\/revisions\/63399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}