The collapse of Iranian power in the Middle East leaves two remaining powers with hegemonic ambitions in competition.
‘Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly, which has proved remarkably durable for the past four decades, has long fueled instability in the Middle East,’ the pre-eminent realist Kenneth Waltz wrote in 2012. ‘In no other region of the world does a lone, unchecked nuclear state exist. It is Israel’s nuclear arsenal, not Iran’s desire for one, that has contributed most to the current crisis. Power, after all, begs to be balanced. What is surprising about the Israeli case is that it has taken so long for a potential balancer to emerge.’
In 2026, that predicament is dead. Iranian power as any sort of balancer, much less a head of a Shiite axis, has collapsed. Iranian proxies, from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis, have suffered sustained below-threshold attrition and lack the financial capacity to pose a credible challenge to Israel’s aspirational regional hegemony. Shiite militias in Iraq remain preoccupied with the persistent threat of Islamic State. Iran stands alone, and at the time of writing, stares at an armada of the United States, ready to relitigate whether we are indeed in a multipolar world, or whether the order is still overwhelmingly unipolar.
Because, notwithstanding recurrent debates about relative decline, the United States continues to occupy a singular position within the international system. It remains the only great power with the material capabilities, alliance networks, and institutional support and operational reach necessary to influence nearly all major global crises and, when it so chooses, to shape their trajectories. Among the near peer rivals, China is surrounded by hostile middle powers and shows no appetite for a war anywhere, Russia is mired in a historic quagmire of its own making, and the European Union is too big to be a coherent actor, and too divided to be an empire.
‘The United States continues to occupy a singular position within the international system’
Absent any Iranian power or hegemonic ambition, however, the incentive for the United States to remain engaged in the theatre diminishes. There is little appetite on the Democratic side to move closer to Israel. Republicans, too, are keen to disengage from what they increasingly view as a toxic geopolitical backwater, as evidenced by the near-complete withdrawal from Syria and Iraq. This is the scenario that should keep Israeli lawmakers awake at night.
American retrenchment from specific theatres does not generate an intolerable level of instability for Washington; it instead creates space for actors capable of operating with greater autonomy beyond the American orbit, and thus less susceptible to US coercion or influence. Such a strategy implicitly accommodates Turkish imperial ambitions in the region.
For Israel, however, Türkiye’s geopolitical rise presents multiple anxieties and corresponding incentives for containment. Israel and Türkiye compete in the eastern Mediterranean and in Syria, and bipartisan Israeli policymakers remain wary of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s imperial ambitions. Yet Türkiye and its leadership enjoy substantial support in both the United States and Europe, particularly in Germany.
The rivalry with Iran, however, once served as a stabilizing determinant. By seeking to decisively weaken Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu’s first strategic error was to destabilize this delicate balance. In doing so, Israel may have unintentionally expanded Türkiye’s manoeuvring space, elevating it to the position of Israel’s principal regional counterweight. Iran was a Shiite power, constrained by geography and manpower. Türkiye, by contrast, is a Sunni power and lies, in strategic terms, only an armoured thrust away from northern Israel.
The removal of Iran from regional competition has also opened the possibility of Türkiye’s accession as a regional balancer, reinforced by the mutual defence pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—bringing Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal into play—and the potential inclusion of Egypt within this emerging bloc.
By integrating the Saudi–Pakistani security arrangement within an American-aligned framework, Ankara now chooses to construct a regional bloc capable of burden sharing, while remaining broadly consonant with greater American and European interests in opposing Russia and China. This approach aligns with contemporary American preferences for allied burden shifting. As Washington’s most indispensable ally in the Middle East and Black sea region, Türkiye positions itself as a structural support for an overstretched superpower. This is reflected in Europe. Türkiye is indispensable to the European major states, as evident from British and German wooing of Ankara, and from France’s reluctance to counter Türkiye in the Levant, in Africa and in the Aegean.
‘Türkiye positions itself as a structural support for an overstretched superpower. This is reflected in Europe’
Both Greece and Cyprus recognize this dynamic and have responded by deepening security cooperation with Israel. This alignment, however, may prove illusory, given Israel’s growing global isolation and the prospect of a Democratic administration in the United States. This trilateral alignment transforms the nature of potential crises in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. What was once primarily a bilateral dispute over maritime jurisdiction now intersects with the broader strategic rivalry between Ankara and Jerusalem. Consequently, segments of Europe risk becoming arenas for an emergent confrontation among two external powers vying for regional hegemony stretching from Syria to Cyprus.
Power, after all, begs to be balanced, as realist theory holds. As Kenneth Waltz wrote in his final essay: ‘the very acts that have allowed Israel to maintain its nuclear edge in the short term have prolonged an imbalance that is unsustainable in the long term. Israel’s proven ability to strike potential nuclear rivals with impunity has inevitably made its enemies anxious to develop the means to prevent Israel from doing so again.’
This is a rivalry that would divide Europe—and prove more devastating than anything the region has yet experienced.
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