Israel’s close ties with Turkey and Iran in the past illustrate how quickly regional alliances can change in the Middle East.
by Leon Hadar, National Interest,
How time flies in the Middle East, where a regional alliance can be formed at sunrise and then—surprise!—break up at sunset.
From that perspective, the relative durability of what became known as the “alliance of the periphery,” an informal strategic alliance between four non-Arab states in the Greater Middle East—Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Israel—during much of the Cold War was significant. However, the grouping is now eclipsed by Israel’s thawing relations with its formerly most implacable foes, the Arab states.
In particular, Iran and Turkey, two prominent Muslim states, were willing to cooperate with the Jewish State when the Arab-Muslim countries and most of the Islamic world refused to recognize that Israel’s existence was quite remarkable.
Historians have suggested that Israel’s success in establishing close military ties with Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia derived from the implementation of the so-called “periphery doctrine.” The idea was the joint brainchild of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, and his advisor Eliahu Sassoon, himself the first Israeli diplomatic representative in Ankara.
The two believed in forming alliances with non-Arab states and forces with which Israel had no direct conflict. This not only included Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia, but also religious minorities, like the Christian Maronites in Lebanon, and non-Arab ethnic groups, such as the Kurds in Iraq. Cultivating a cohort of partners with shared interests would allow the Jewish State to emerge from its regional isolation.