FDD
Beware Turkey’s ambitions in the post-Iran power vacuum
Jonathan Schanzer
March 4, 2026

…A better question is this: Which regional powers may try to fill the vacuum after Iran’s dictatorship falls? Tehran has for years projected power by proxy across the Middle East, sponsoring terrorist groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, and other malign actors across the region. Should the regime collapse, other aspiring regional powers will seek to fill the void. And while many countries may think regional leadership is theirs to inherit, there is one powerful player to watch: the Republic of Turkey. The country has the second-largest army in NATO. It has a growing drone industry and a government-tied military contractor, SADAT, that is training and arming militias across the Muslim world. Concurrently, Ankara has been cultivating terrorist proxies in the Middle East for years. The Turks are key patrons of Hamas, dating back nearly two decades…READ MORE

AXIOS Kurds backed by Mossad, CIA could lead next phase of war in Iran Militants from several Kurdish Iranian factions are preparing for a possible ground offensive against Iran’s regime in the northwestern part of the country, according to U.S. and Israeli officials and a senior official in one of the Iranian-Kurdish factions. A Kurdish ground offensive coordinated with the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign against Tehran would be a potential way to increase pressure on the regime and encourage an internal rebellion that could spread to other parts of Iran. Six days before the war began, five dissident Kurdish Iranian groups sheltering in Iraq announced the formation of the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan to fight Iran.