As the Iran War persists without a realistic pathway toward an agreement to truly end the stalemate, Ankara is responding by forging energy agreements and lashing out at “Israeli aggression”—while Israel continues its incursions into Syria and politicians warn that Turkey will be “the next Iran.” New studies released by Middle East Policy closely examine Turkey’s ambitions for using its energy sector to gain geopolitical advantage and the immense risks of its conflict with Israel, from the eastern Mediterranean to the Euphrates.
Middle East Policy has just released its 167th issue, with analyses of testimony from Palestinian women jailed by Israel, the unresolved question of sovereignty in Jerusalem, and shifting relations between Turkey and the Gulf powers. Readers can still access our free special issue, Washington’s War on Iran, featuring 14 examinations of the conflict, including Tehran’s response to the June 2025 military action, the voices of protesters against the Islamic Republic, and parallels with the 2003 Iraq invasion, especially the groupthink that produced the American folly. Please forward this article to others you believe will benefit; register to receive our weekly updates here. And please follow us on the social media platforms X and LinkedIn.
In his examination of the broadening cold war between Israel and Turkey, Mehmet Doğan Üçok argues that, since the Assad regime’s collapse in 2024, Israel has sought to consolidate regional hegemony. It has expanded into Syria through airstrikes, seizure of strategic territory, and military entrenchment, especially around the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon. And it has aimed to control maritime zones linked to Gaza and Lebanon, including the Gaza Marine, Karish, and Qana gas fields. All of this has been carried out with American cooperation on defense and intelligence, as well as military operations against Iran.
“Turkey has responded with its own doctrine of strategic denial,” Üçok demonstrates, “seeking to block Israeli and US-aligned actors from establishing uncontested footholds across northern Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.” This “counter-containment” strategy includes:
- cross-border military operations against Kurdish proxies in northern Syria, including Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch, Peace Spring, and the seizure of Manbij near the Turkish border
- expanding its influence in the eastern Mediterranean through naval deployments and competing claims over offshore waters and energy resources
- diplomatic and strategic balancing through partnerships with Libya, Qatar, and regional actors
- alternative pipeline and transit projects such as the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and TurkStream.
Several features of the strategy are part of Ankara’s ambition to become a central node in the regional energy system, which has only grown more important since President Donald Trump launched the Iran War. As Umud Shokri explains in his open-access article for Middle East Policy, if Turkey can transform itself from a passive transit state into an autonomous hub, it can influence both European energy security and broader Eurasian geopolitics. To achieve this, Ankara must combine geographic advantages, pipeline infrastructure, and diplomatic balancing with investments in renewables, nuclear energy, and domestic gas production.
Shokri marshals compelling evidence to demonstrate the key domestic and diplomatic maneuvers required. Turkey is seeking to bolster its own energy security by developing gas fields, constructing nuclear facilities and smart-grid technology, and expanding its renewable capacity, especially solar and wind, under the National Energy Plan 2020–2035. Ankara is also pursuing a range of international partnerships with the aim of developing strategic autonomy. This includes cooperating with the European Union, which is trying to wean itself off Russian energy, and concluding energy and infrastructure deals with Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, not just on traditional hydrocarbons but also on renewables and hydrogen production.
Crucially, Shokri demonstrates, Ankara is aiming to position itself at a crucial intersection of energy corridors linking Europe with Russia, the Caspian, and the Middle East through the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, TurkStream, the Southern Gas Corridor, and the Bosphorus. It could establish leverage over pricing, flows, and geopolitics more broadly. However, he writes, “it is unclear if [Turkey] will be able to use its geopolitical position and balance its environmental obligations with its pressing energy needs.”
Shokri notes that Turkey is trying to balance difficult relationships with Israel, Cyprus, Russia, Iran, and China. However, Üçok shows that Israel perceives these not as moves to bolster energy independence and sustainability but as encirclement designed to cement regional hegemony.
Indeed, Üçok’s analysis demonstrates that eastern Mediterranean energy politics is being transformed into a zero-sum geopolitical struggle. Israel is increasing offshore gas production, consolidating exclusive economic zones, and using its leverage in multilateral forums in ways that Turkey sees as intended to frustrate its energy security. On both sides, the securitization of energy infrastructure, pipelines, maritime corridors, and offshore resources is intended to bolster each side’s regional power but—especially combined with military action in Syria—risks direct, violent conflict.
“As the geopolitical landscape becomes increasingly contested,” Üçok concludes:
Turkey and Israel appear locked into paths that reflect not crisis management but long-term power positioning. The persistence of US support for Kurdish proxies, Israel’s tactical deepening in Syria, and Turkey’s growing operational assertiveness suggest volatility and risk confrontation. Should trends continue, especially in the Golan Heights, eastern Euphrates, Gaza, and offshore [exclusive economic zones], the post-Assad order may become a hardened front of asymmetric proxy warfare, ideological confrontation, and energy-based exclusion.
You can find other analyses in our free special issue, Washington’s War on Iran, and in The Israel-Iran War, our coverage of the 2025 campaign against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. And check out the Middle East Policy Council’s website for insights from its fellows.
Middle East Policy, Spring 2026
JUSTICE IN PALESTINE
‘I Thought I Would Die’:
Testimony from Palestinian Women Jailed by Israel
Oqab Jabali | Saqer Jabali—free to read!
Jerusalem and the Unresolved Question of Sovereignty
Havva Yavuz
AMMAN’S BALANCING ACT
Jordan’s Role in Establishing a Sunni-Israeli Alliance Against Iran
Ronen Yitzhak—free to read!
Jordan’s Stability and Regime Survival amid the War on Palestinians
Nur Köprülü | Fadi Al-Ghrouf
Explaining the Post-October 7 Durability of Israel’s Peace Deals with Egypt and Jordan
Chen Kertcher | Carmela Lutmar—open access!
ANKARA’S AMBITIONS
Regime Change in Syria and the Emerging Israel-Turkey Conflict
Mehmet Doğan Üçok
Geopolitics and Aspirations for Sustainability: Turkey’s Emergence as an Energy Hub
Umud Shokri—open access!
Ottoman Coup Traditions and the Republican Army’s Legacy
Sertif Demir | Yaşar Ertürk
TURKEY-GULF RELATIONS
Geopolitical Rebranding of the ‘New Syria’ amid the Turkey-Gulf Rapprochement
Hae Won Jeong
Turkey’s Relations with Gulf States: Temporary Shift or Permanent Alignment?
Engin Koç
BOOK REVIEW
Gülistan Gürbey et al., Between Diplomacy and Non-Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine
Reviewed by Hogr Tarkhani
Daniel Drewski and Jürgen Gerhards, Framing Refugees: How the Admission of Refugees is Debated in Six Countries across the World
Reviewed by Emrah Atar
Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning; and Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Reviewed by A.R. Joyce