Iran and Turkey

Turkey is installing Patriots on its border with Syria; and Iran has declared this to be an act of war. World war, in fact.

It’s surely not going to happen, but it’s interesting to contemplate what might happen in a war between Iran and Turkey. Relations between the two countries have been deteriorating for some time, and I think there is a larger reason for this. The two are in open competition to emerge as leaders of the Muslim world. Their two systems are the two great models for government in the Muslim world: the Turkish secularist model, and the Iranian theocratic model.

But in any such conflict, Turkey has all of the trump cards. Iran is Shia, and the Shias are a minority in the Muslim world. Turkey has the advantage of having been the last Caliphate, the last acknowledged leader of Islam. Turkey is much wealthier, and developing much faster. And I would wager Turkey’s modern, NATO-class military would completely overmatch Iran’s, which struggled with Saddam’s Iraq. If Turkey were to enter Syria, Iran would be powerless to do anything about it, due to the geography; but it would be a severe blow to Iran’s prestige. By contrast, Iran is in the uncomfortable situation of having ethnic Turks—natural allies—on two sides.

Turkey also has natural allies in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the Emirates, all with very impressive, high tech forces. That surrounds Iran on three sides, with Turkey’s NATO allies still in occupation of Afghanistan on the fourth. All this without even considering Israel, who has her own compelling reasons to strike against Iran.

Given all this, why is Iran even bothering with this bellicose speech? Especially since Israel, the US, and perhaps Turkey have every reason to be seeking an excuse to go in and take out its nuclear potential. One suspects it has to do with some internal power struggle. And a pretty desperate one.

It almost looks as though the Iranian regime might be in its last throes.