Is the Sultan’s turn after the Ayatollah? By Robert Perez

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu locks eyes with a threat, history shows he rarely blinks. His ironclad rhetoric toward Iran’s Supreme Leader has taken a sharp and determined trajectory, one that dances dangerously close to direct confrontation. But as the chessboard of Middle Eastern geopolitics reshapes, one can’t help but glance at the next king on the board. And no, it's not a surprise candidate rising from the sands, it's the self-styled Sultan on the Bosphorus, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Erdoğan might be basking in the relative silence that follows regional earthquakes, but if he’s not already pacing in his grand Ankara halls, he probably should be. Once Netanyahu’s shadow war with Iran’s theocracy reaches its peak, either in smoldering embers or diplomatic exhaustion, the gaze of realpolitik could very well swivel toward Turkey. Not the quaint Ottoman-flavored postcard Turkey of tourists and tulips, but the neo-imperial, drone-producing, influence-projecting Erdoğanist Turkey. The one that thinks in Ottoman scales and speaks in Sultanic undertones.

Netanyahu has made no secret of his long memory. He’s a man who seems to carry grudges the way monks carry scripture, sacred and enduring. And Erdoğan? Well, let’s just say the two have had more than a few theological disagreements, diplomatic meltdowns, and icy stares across U.N. podiums. From Erdoğan calling Israel a "terror state" to Netanyahu likening Erdoğan to a 21st-century dictator with a PR problem, the enmity is mutual, well-aged, and fermenting.

If Ayatollah Khamenei is the ideological thorn, Erdoğan is the political wildcard. And wildcards don’t sit well with seasoned strategists like Netanyahu. Especially when Erdoğan styles himself as the protector of Muslims, slamming Israel at every opportunity, while cozying up to rogue states and flexing Turkish muscles from Syria to Libya, from Azerbaijan to Somalia. This isn’t soft power diplomacy. This is Ottoman Redux meets TikTok diplomacy, laced with drones, mosque-building campaigns, and sharp-tongued speeches aimed at the West and Tel Aviv alike. And here lies the problem.

Erdoğan's Turkey has, for years, danced an awkward ballet between NATO commitments, Russian flirtations, and regional dominance dreams. While others played defense, Erdoğan played empire. His increasingly aggressive foreign policy is not just an irritant to the West, it’s a mirror image of the same ambition Netanyahu is fighting against in Tehran. Replace turbans with tailored suits, and you begin to see the similarities: both Khamenei and Erdoğan sell themselves as strongmen who challenge Western and Israeli norms.

So what happens when Netanyahu is done with Iran, whether diplomatically neutered or militarily humbled? Will Israel, bolstered by newfound normalization with Gulf states and armed with American winks, allow Erdoğan to continue unchecked? Erdoğan should be asking himself this very question.

He might not be building nukes (though Turkey’s nuclear aspirations are whispered in many corridors), but he is building influence, through military bases in Qatar, Somalia, and Sudan, arms exports, soft-Islamist rhetoric, and carefully choreographed public feuds with Israel. And in Netanyahu’s playbook, influence can be as dangerous as uranium enrichment.

The recent shifts in the Middle East, Saudi-Iranian détente (of sorts), Egypt’s economic unraveling, Syria’s slow crawl back to regional respectability, have opened strange doors. Israel has walked through many of them. Erdoğan has tried to slam some shut, only to find himself increasingly isolated from the power centers he once courted. Netanyahu knows this. He smells the blood in the Bosphorus.

Should Erdoğan be worried? Let’s put it this way: when Netanyahu sharpens his spear, he doesn’t throw it at shadows. Erdoğan, ever the orator and grandmaster of symbolic politics, may find that his rhetoric has run far ahead of his diplomatic protection. He’s alienated traditional allies, played both sides of the Ukrainian war, and positioned himself as a regional kingmaker. The trouble with kings, as history reminds us, is that they often forget the guillotine isn’t just for revolutionaries, it’s for those who overplay their hand.

Turkey’s economy, already teetering, cannot afford a geopolitical snowball. And Israel, with its expanding regional ties and quiet military reach, might not need to fire a single shot to hem Erdoğan in. Sanctions, intelligence campaigns, targeted diplomacy, it’s all in the toolkit. If Erdoğan doesn’t pivot soon, he may find himself the next Ayatollah in Netanyahu’s metaphorical sights, not because of ideology, but because of audacity.

In conclusion: Erdoğan should not panic. But he should prepare. Netanyahu’s war is not just against bombs and bunkers. It’s against threats, real or perceived, to the stability Israel is painstakingly assembling in a volatile region. And once the dust settles in Tehran, that threat might be coming from a gilded palace in Ankara.

So perhaps it’s time for the Sultan to look east, not just at Mecca, but toward Jerusalem, and ask: what happens after the Ayatollah? Because the answer might be: ...you.