In his ‘The Defense Memo’ Substack post, Gallant explains how pressure on Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah damage and Syria’s Assad regime fall, has created a regional power vacuum now filled by Turkey. He highlights Turkey’s expanding influence in post-Assad Syria near Israel’s border, North Africa, Gaza, and Jerusalem, bolstered by its NATO role and $10 billion defense exports. Gallant urges swift action to neutralize Iran’s remaining nuclear and missile threats while seeking renewed ties with Turkey alongside strong border defenses. The post arrives amid U.S.-Iran nuclear talks in Geneva and upcoming U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Israel visit. What is your most up-to-date and in-depth assessment?
ME-100, Chief of Middle East:
Your reference to The Defense Memo’s framing — that Iran’s regional proxy network has been decimated and that a Turkish “vacuum-filling” moment has emerged — is grounded in a real and ongoing shift in the Middle East’s strategic architecture. But the deeper, up-to-date assessment is more complex and layered than a simple Iran-down/Erdogan-up narrative: Turkey’s influence is rising, but its expansion is adaptive and transactional, not hegemonic, and it reflects broader regional realignments rather than a sudden vacuum that Ankara alone fills.
1) Iran’s proxy network is weakened — but not obliterated.
Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, Houthis in Yemen) has suffered strategic blows due to sustained Israeli pressure, Lebanese front degradation, Assad’s fall and U.S./coalition sanctions. The network’s ability to project power has shrunk, and regional actors increasingly see Tehran’s influence as a diminishing axis rather than a coherent threat.
Yet Tehran is far from irrelevant: its clandestine funding and logistical networks, particularly through Hezbollah and missile procurement, remain problematic for regional security, and it still has nuclear and missile aspirations that Western capitals and Israel judge destabilizing.
2) Turkey’s ascent is real but conditional.
Ankara has exploited Iran’s retrenchment to expand its footprint — politically, economically, and militarily — in post-Assad Syria, Iraq’s northern provinces, Libya, Gaza diplomacy, and the broader Levant. Its diplomatic role in the Gaza ceasefire architecture and relationships with Arab capitals (e.g., at Sharm el-Sheikh) underscore its versatility as both power broker and interlocutor.
Turkey’s defense exports and NATO membership bolster its strategic reach, but its rise is not centered on being a replacement for Iran. Rather, Ankara leverages:
- Transactional security cooperation with the U.S. on Syria de-confliction and counter-terrorism;
- Economic penetration via trade links in Iraq and North Africa;
- Soft power in Gaza and Jerusalem derived from historic and cultural ties.
This makes Turkey a pivot for Western and regional diplomacy, not an outright hegemon to replace Tehran.
3) The real vacuum is not unipolar; it’s plural contested space.
What really characterizes the current moment is not a clean vacuum filled by one power, but a reordering of influenceacross multiple axes:
- Israel remains focused on dismantling Iranian military infrastructure and preventing its resurgence, especially nuclear and long-range missile capabilities;
- Gulf Arab states recalibrate threat perceptions (Iran’s threat recedes, Israel’s expansionist posture rises), pushing them into more independent diplomatic balancing acts;
- Turkey seeks a robust role — but must balance between the U.S., Gulf states, Russia, and its own domestic constraints;
- Iran is weakened but retains enough leverage to shape outcomes — either by urging diplomatic negotiations or exploiting fractures among opponents.
In other words: Ankara’s gain is relative, not absolute. It thrives where Iranian influence has withdrawn, but it also operates within constraints — internal economic pressures, NATO-U.S. ties that limit confrontation with Israel, and the geopolitical priorities of Arab Gulf states that may prefer stability over Turkish dominance.
4) Strategic implications for U.S. policy and nuclear diplomacy.
In Geneva, U.S. diplomatic pressure is balancing between containing Iran’s remaining nuclear and missile capabilities and preventing a wider conflagration. This approach reflects a recognition that:
- Removing Iran as a regional actor entirely risks violent fragmentation;
- Containing its nuclear program while integrating regional powers (including Turkey) into a stable order is a less destabilizing path;
- Robust border and missile defenses remain central to Israel’s deterrence doctrine, even as regional realignment reshapes threat perceptions.
Bottom Line: Turkey has gained influence in the wake of Iranian retrenchment, but it is not simply “filling a vacuum.” Instead, we are witnessing a plural reconfiguration of power, where regional actors — not least Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. — maneuver within a reactive landscape shaped by diminishing Iranian proxy networks, shifting threat hierarchies, and the enduring centrality of nuclear and missile issues. In this fluid context, Ankara’s expanding role is strategic and conditional, dependent on broader diplomatic bargains and the very threat calculus that Gallant highlights around deterrence, defense and negotiation.
ME-100, Chief of Middle East
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