On Saturday morning, February 28, white contrails streaked across the blue skies above Abu Dhabi. They were not passenger jets. They were Iranian ballistic missiles. Within 24 hours, six Gulf States (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman) had all been struck, even though not one of them had fired a single shot at Iran. Apart from military installations, luxury hotels and airports were also targeted by Iran.

İran ile İsrail arasında giderek tırmanan çatışma hakkında yapılan yorumların önemli bir bölümü, savaşın gerçek askerî dinamiklerinden çok algılar üzerinden şekillenmektedir. Özellikle bazı analizlerde ABD ve İsrail’in stratejik hedeflerine ulaşamadığı veya planlarının başarısız olduğu yönünde iddialar öne sürülmektedir.

The Turkish government views the potential collapse of the Iranian regime as a harbinger of regional instability. Nonetheless, Ankara remains convinced that the Iranian regime will survive this ordeal, even after the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

The Syrian civil war has had a major impact on relations between Turkey and the United States. Syria has created both areas of cooperation and sources of tension between the two countries. As interests and the regional balance of power shifted, the nature of the relationship also changed.

Ankara has repeatedly made clear that it opposes a military intervention against Iran. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated again on February 5: “We are doing everything to prevent these tensions between the United States and Iran from driving the region into a new conflict and chaos. We clearly expressed our opposition to a military intervention in Iran.” To this end, the Turkish government has also formed a sort of ad hoc alignment with regional countries to lobby the Trump administration against war.

Iran built an extensive sphere of influence across the Middle East between 2003 and 2023. This influence has largely—at least for the time being—collapsed following the 2023 war in Gaza with Hamas, the 2024 conflict in Lebanon with Hezbollah, and the December 2024 fall of Syria’s Baath regime. Together, they formed the backbone of Iran’s regional influence.

This report analyzes Turkey’s vision for Syria following the fall of the Assad family and the rise of the HTS under the leadership of Ahmad al-Sharaa. In this regard, it focuses on the foreign actors that, alongside Turkey, now have the greatest ability to shape Syria’s future: namely the United States and Israel.