Is the Middle East fated to be held hostage by an endless struggle between two powers that share a common geography and history?
The rivalry between Turkey and Iran is not just a chapter from the past. It is a long-running saga stretching from the 16th-century battlefields of Chaldiran to the 21st-century ruins of the Fertile Crescent.
What is striking is how the specter of the past looms over the present, confirming that the ancient conflict between the Ottoman and the Safavid dynasties still defines the region’s power dynamics – even if the names and the players have changed.
The Fertile Crescent remains the most sensitive arena in this balance of power.
Centuries ago, the Ottomans leveraged the Sunni Arab populations under their rule as a propulsive force to strengthen their influence and thwart Persian ambitions. Conversely, Safavid Iran historically exploited sectarian allegiances, using a misled minority’s faith as a lever to extend its reach.
Today, the same pattern repeats itself. Turkey views its former territories in the Fertile Crescent as a natural strategic extension of its national security, refuses to tolerate threats on its southern border, and considers Iran’s growing influence there an absolute red line.
Turkish policy
Turkish superiority in this arena is not based on numbers alone. The Sunni hinterland grants Ankara a form of soft power well beyond mere military might. This is precisely why Turkey perceives the Iranian challenge not as simple regional competition but as a direct threat to its very identity and security.
Any observer of Turkish policy can see that Ankara will not tolerate any project that aims to encircle it from the south.
For Turkish leaders, Iran is the “historical adversary,” a concept deeply embedded in the memory of its politicians and strategists. Their interventions in the Fertile Crescent and their overtures to the Gulf states are not random choices, but calculated steps to defend their strategic depth.
In the Turkish mindset, the hinterland is like a lung without which they cannot breathe.
This leads to an inevitable question: Will Turkey accept Iran muscling into its backyard? No, history tells us.
Prophetic words
United States Ambassador Tom Barrack’s words seem prophetic in this context. The modern states of the Middle East, he noted, were largely creations of the Sykes-Picot agreement, and national sentiment within them is often weak. Allegiances revert to tribe, sect, and clan instead of the state.
The absence of justice has revived old loyalties to the point that some now look to the return of an Ottoman sultan as an alternative to the failing nation-state. Evidently, this very vacuum allowed Iran to expand, and it is the same vacuum that has prompted Turkey’s re-emergence in the image of a protecting sultan against the Shiite project.
That is the Middle East’s great paradox, a region caught between the dream of the “sultan” and the nightmare of the “supreme leader.”
What gives Turkey additional weight is its place in Western strategy. Since the days of the Ottoman Empire, Ankara has been a bulwark against Russian ambitions. Today, despite political differences with Europe and the US, the West understands that Turkey remains a crucial line of defense against Moscow.
This understanding grants Ankara an extra card to play in its struggle with Iran. It is not merely a regional power, but an indispensable strategic asset in Atlantic calculations.
No coincidence
Washington and Brussels, however sharp their disagreements with Erdogan, are careful not to push Turkey away. Losing it would mean opening the door for Russia in the Eastern Mediterranean.
It is certainly no coincidence that former US President Donald Trump publicly praised Ankara’s ability to shift the geostrategic balance in the Arab region, acknowledging Turkey’s hard-to-ignore influence. Its intelligence apparatus is remarkably skilled and agile, enabling it to establish a presence in the most complex regional arenas.
Such a testimony, from the leader of a superpower, reflects a truth understood in Western capitals: Turkey is an indispensable player.
Dogged Iran
On the other hand, we must not overlook that Iran has doggedly pursued its sectarian project since its 1979 revolution. It relies on proxy militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, using the rhetoric of “resistance” against Israel as a cover for its expansion.
In reality, the Iranian project connects with an old Safavid legacy, reviving the ancient conflict between the Shiite and Sunni crescents. It is a clash of identities before it is a geostrategic one.
However much Tehran tries to polish its message, the truth understood by many in the Arab world is that Iran is a sectarian power that trades in outdated slogans, feeding the imaginations of its followers while essentially seeking to impose a new Persian hegemony.
Peace is an illusion
Barrack said: “Endgame, when we say peace [in the Middle East], it’s an illusion.”
To many observers, the statement captures the region’s core tragedy. The Middle East has rarely known lasting peace, only temporary arrangements that collapse at the first test.
The reason is simple: One party often seeks dominance, while another is pushed toward submission. In between, Arab societies remain the biggest losers, searching for absent justice and a lost national identity. They find refuge only in the tribe, the sect, and historical memory.
Here, the tragedy renews itself. Some look to the shadow of the Turkish sultan, while others submit to the hegemony of the Iranian supreme leader, all while the nation-state is weak, peace is an illusion, and control is the ultimate goal.
Existential conflict
All in all, the Turkish-Iranian rivalry has not ended and likely will not, because at its core it is an existential conflict.
Secular Turkey relies on its demographic and strategic advantages, a religious heritage it uses as a tool for influence, and crucial Western support. It even receives praise from American leaders for its ability to overturn geostrategic balances.
Theocratic Iran, in contrast, lacks genuine allies in the Arab world and bets on the remnants of the past, relying on sectarian militias to infiltrate the Arab space.
Between these two, the Middle East remains hostage to a historical conflict that refuses to die, a conflict that shows how seeking peace here is like chasing a mirage in a thirsty desert. For in this region, peace is but a chimera; only control is real.
The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.