Amid shifting geo-political equations in the Middle East, it has become clear that Iran will be forced to vacate the role of Israel's great enemy. Instead, Israel will find its biggest foe in either Pakistan or Turkey, according to an Israeli analyst.
According to Boaz Golani, a foreign policy expert and a professor in the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences at the Technion, Iran has ceased to be Israel’s archenemy, thanks to the war and its crumbling economy. “The financing of proxy organisations has brought Iran's economy to the brink of bankruptcy, and the 40-day war has wiped out its military power. Although it is still unclear how the current conflict will end, it is clear that Iran will be forced to vacate the role of Israel's great enemy,” Golani wrote in Hebrew media Maariv.
He added that Israel’s biggest enemy from the War of Independence until the signing of the peace treaty was Egypt, the largest Arab country with a common border with Israel. The mantle then passed on to Iraq, which brought it to a climax with the missile attack on Israel in 1991. But the destruction of the nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, the eight-year war with Iran, and the defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991 eroded Iraq's power and allowed Iran to take over the role.
Though Iran under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made great efforts over three decades to faithfully fulfil this role, the current crisis has eviscerated it, Golani argues.
He says the competition has settled between Turkey and Pakistan. “Two large countries (85 million inhabitants in Turkey, 240 million in Pakistan), both with a solid Sunni majority, both with an authoritarian regime that relies on the bayonets of the military, both with large armies and, strangely enough, both with good relations with the United States, Israel's main ally,” Golani adds.
He cites how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sharpened his tone towards Israel since he took power. “With the outbreak of the 'Iron Swords' war, Erdogan declared a sweeping economic embargo and later threatened to use military force and even invade Israel,” he says of Turkey.
As for Pakistan, he says that both countries never established diplomatic relations, and Pakistan has always chosen to side with our enemies in international arenas. “Pakistan’s position towards Israel was expressed sharply and clearly last week by the Pakistani Defence Minister Khwaja Asif, who called Israel “a curse on humanity” and wished “those who created this cancerous state on Palestinian soil to get rid of the Jews of Europe to burn in hell.”
He argues that Israel must prepare for a scenario in which one of these two countries confronts it immediately after the fighting against Iran subsides.
Not just Golani, another analyst also thinks Pakistan is not a neutral mediator in the US-Iran war but a hidden player, after Islamabad deployed forces in Saudi Arabia.
According to Michael Kugelman of the Atlantic Council, Pakistan was signalling to Iran that if Iran is not willing to make concessions, Pakistan could move closer to Saudi Arabia. Another Pakistani three-star general told Al Jazeera that Iran’s perception, not Pakistan’s intent, will determine whether trust survives.”
