Why Turkiye should not go to war with Israel – it is already winning without one

Restraint is hardest when it looks like weakness. Israel’s 18 August strike on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase, followed by direct Israeli-Turkish warnings, has revived a dangerous question: are Turkiye and Israel approaching war in Syria?

Ankara should avoid the arena where Israeli power is strongest. Turkiye is gaining ground without attacking Israel: consolidating a friendly Damascus government, extending influence through Lebanon and the Red Sea, deepening defence ties with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and improving Washington relations. War endangers those gains.

“Winning” does not mean defeating or encircling Israel. Turkiye is accumulating positional advantage at acceptable cost, while Israel struggles to convert military superiority into a favourable regional order. Preserving that asymmetry is the strategic objective.

Syria: where the two strategies collide

The rivalry in Syria is structural because the two states seek opposite outcomes. Turkiye wants a territorially unified state able to control its borders, integrate armed groups, suppress Islamic State and the PKK-linked threat, and enable refugee returns. With a 900-kilometre border, Ankara pays most for renewed fragmentation.

Israel seeks security through a constrained Syria: weak air defences, limited heavy weapons, no hostile forces near the occupied Golan, and freedom of military action. Its concerns are understandable, but repeated strikes and Israel’s southwestern presence obstruct reconstruction of the state Turkiye considers essential to regional order.

The clash became explicit in April 2025, when Turkish teams assessed T-4, Palmyra and Hama air facilities during discussions on deeper defence cooperation and Israel heavily struck those sites. Technical talks in Azerbaijan reduced accidental-clash risks but did not resolve the dispute.

Abu al-Duhur repeated the pattern. Syrian officials reported a Turkish visit before the strike, though Ankara denied a delegation was present immediately before or during it. Israel alleged an impending deployment; Syria and Turkiye denied any base. Despite operational uncertainty, Israel signalled readiness to use force against Syrian military recovery assisted by Turkiye.

This is a challenge, not a case for war. Israel can crater runways but cannot build a stable Syrian state, remove Turkiye’s geographic proximity, or erase Damascus’s need for Turkish trade, training, energy and reconstruction. Time favours Ankara if Syria avoids becoming a Turkish-Israeli battlefield.

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Containment without encirclement

Turkiye’s answer is networked containment—not a blockade or ring of bases, but relationships, institutions and defensive coalitions that restrict Israel’s ability to redesign its neighbourhood and cannot easily be bombed away.

Camp TURKSOM anchors Turkish training of Somali forces, while defence, maritime and economic agreements expand Ankara’s position on the Gulf of Aden. This creates indirect influence near Bab el-Mandeb, vital to Israeli and global shipping, but not control of the chokepoint.

Port Sudan provides a complementary western Red Sea node. Ankara has no base; leverage comes from ties with the army-aligned administration, a container line, and the 2025 Port Sudan-Mersin framework for training, port management and maritime trade. With Somalia and multinational shipping protection, this yields strategic reach through logistics, partnerships and coalition membership—not territorial control.

Syria remains decisive. Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government has close military, diplomatic and economic ties with Ankara.

As Damascus extends authority, integrates armed forces and rebuilds institutions, preserving Syria as a weak security vacuum becomes harder. Israeli air power can delay consolidation, but offers no rival model of governance.

Lebanon adds diplomatic leverage. Ankara is exploring an initiative linking Israeli withdrawal from the south to a Lebanese state monopoly over arms. That would neither preserve Hezbollah’s autonomous military power nor legitimise indefinite Israeli occupation and strikes. It could strengthen the state and make Turkiye useful to Beirut, Washington and Arab capitals—a diplomatic centrality war would destroy.

Israel’s military strength has not produced a new regional order

The Iran war likewise separates military achievement from political success. U.S. and Israeli attacks caused enormous damage and killed senior leaders, yet did not collapse the Iranian state. Tehran retained control and gained leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, while prolonged conflict spread insecurity to Gulf states and energy markets.

Israel was not tactically defeated; it failed to translate tactical superiority into a stable, pro-Israeli geopolitics. The result increased demand for regional security mechanisms less dependent on either Israel or the United States.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement links Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: an attack on one is an attack on all, though obligations remain unclear. Mechanisms, exercises and cooperation on drones, air defence, maritime security and defence industry support regional autonomy. Ankara should keep it aimed at neither Israel nor Iran: its value is deterrence, not an offensive bloc.

An elective Turkish war would erode this achievement. Riyadh and Islamabad joined a defensive arrangement, not a blank cheque for escalation in Syria. Asked to back Ankara or protect ties with Washington, both would likely hedge; a policy that multiplies partners would produce reluctant bystanders.

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The American factor favours patience

Turkiye enjoys its warmest relationship with Washington in years. Both support Syria’s territorial unity and a capable central government. Donald Trump’s July visit and promise to remove sanctions over Ankara’s Russian defence purchase marked warmer ties. After Abu al-Duhur, the U.S. envoy called the attack an “unnecessary escalation” and pursued a Turkiye-Syria-Israel deconfliction mechanism.

This alignment is worth more than retaliation. In peacetime, Ankara can appear as the order-builder and Israel as the disrupter. War would make Washington a crisis manager limiting Turkish action and let Israel reframe the issue—from weakening and occupying Syria to self-defence against a NATO military power.

War would reverse the payoffs

Even a geographically limited war would devastate Syria. Bases, air defences, command facilities and transport networks would become targets; investment and reconstruction would stall; displacement, fragmentation and Islamic State activity could return. Türkiye would weaken the government it entered the conflict to protect.

Costs would spread to Turkiye through air and maritime risk, defence spending, tourism losses, energy disruption and market pressure. Arab partners would distance themselves and Washington would shift from receptiveness to pressure. Israel would fight where it holds clearest advantages: long-range strike, intelligence penetration, layered air defence and privileged U.S. military support.

Restraint is not passivity. Turkiye must protect its forces and respond proportionately if Turkish personnel or territory are attacked, while separating that narrow right of self-defence from an elective campaign against Israel.

Instead, Ankara should institutionalise deconfliction with U.S. mediation; avoid ambiguous deployments until notification works; and build resilient Syrian capacity through training, dispersed logistics, border security, policing and institutions rather than conspicuous bases. It should sustain the Lebanon initiative, African and Red Sea partnerships and Mecca framework, while centring diplomacy on Syrian sovereignty, Israeli withdrawal and reciprocal restraint.

Turkiye’s strongest position deters Israel without war, strengthens Syria without turning it into a protectorate, and builds partnerships without forcing them into an anti-Israel alliance. That is strategic patience backed by power, not appeasement.

A direct conflict reverses the payoffs, turning Syria into a battlefield, Arab collaborators into hedgers and Washington into a restraining power. The risk of provocation is real: U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack said Israel may have struck Abu al-Duhur to “bait” Turkiye, calling it a “very dangerous game.”

Ankara should not let tactical provocation destroy a successful strategy. It should continue winning the political contest without entering the war Israel is better prepared to fight.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.