Turkey’s Ring Around Israel

Ataturk abolished the Islamic Caliphate led by Turkey in 1924. Just four years later, Egyptian Muslims created the Muslim Brotherhood, with the goal of re-establishing the Caliphate in Muslim lands.

The idea, of course, was to channel the energies of Muslims across the Middle East who rejected Ataturk’s move. But in the post World War I era, that was a tough sell. Ataturk promised modernity, Western culture, and an end to the enslavement of women.

In short, he was promising prosperity. He believed in the future, not Islam’s glorious but recently tarnished past.

Fast forward to February 2026. Early this month, Turkey’s wannabe Caliph, Recep Tayip Erdogan, toured former Turkish protectorates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and welcomed Jordan’s King Abdullah II to Istanbul.

All of these countries were once part of the Turkish empire – the “sick man of Europe” – that WWI laid to rest.

Laurence of Arabia labored to unite Arab Bedouin tribes to fight the Turk in modern-day Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia during the final years of World War I. He won the war, if you will, and defeated the Turk. But he lost the peace.

Today’s leaders across the Middle East are well-aware of this history. They are not like many young Americans, indoctrinated by a dysfunctional government education system to learn nothing about their past, but to become good “activists” ready to protest the Left’s villain of the day.

For Erdogan, the trip included much eating of crow.

In Saudi, for example, he had to forget about the murder of Saudi exile Jamal al-Kashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul some eight years ago. Kashoggi was a wannabe columnist for the Washington Post, whose anti-Saudi diatribes were written by American ghost-writers on the payroll of then-Saudi nemesis, Qatar.

In Egypt, Erdogan had to make General Abdel Fattah al-Sissi forget his support for the Muslim Brotherhood (support that continues in spades today). Remember, al-Sissi came to power in 2013 by defeating the Arab Spring Muslim Brotherhood junta headed by Mohammad al-Morsi, an Obama (and Erdogan) protégé.

To encourage political amnesia, Erdogan offered al-Sissi a $350 million military production agreement, to bolster Egypt’s sagging (but formally vast) military production establishment, which I visited many many times in the 1980s.

On February 9, after King Abdullah II of Jordan kissed Erdogan’s ring in Turkey, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE issued a joint communique condemning what they called “Israeli expansionist policies in occupied territories,” according to Pierre Rehov at the Gatestone Institute.

Why is all this important? Because Erdogan is succeeding in getting countries who have signed peace treaties with Israel (Egypt, Jordan) as well as current (UAE) and future (Saudi Arabia) members of the Abraham Accords, into adopting a radical anti-Israel agenda.

The Saudis have been backsliding for several months, so this may have been easier for them. But the UAE? Egypt? Jordan? Really?

Pierre Rehov calls it Erdogan’s “Sunni Noose” around Israel, and he is not wrong. Erdogan is clearly trying to position himself as the leader of the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic brigade (and yes, today the two are synonymous).

This is made worse by the fact that Turkey continues to vaunt its membership in the NATO alliance.

Perhaps Erdogan will follow the lead of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who this week banned the U.S. from using British bases for an eventual attack on Iran.

We flew F-22s to Lakenheath Air Force base in Britain. They were forced to leave on February 24 (for Israel) after Starmer said no-go to US planes on British soil. This could very well be the end of the “special relationship” with Great Britain.

The F-22s are significant. As I discuss in this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend, they are the last piece in the puzzle of a vast offensive U.S. force arrayed against Iran. Their job, should the president order the attacks, will be to take out Iran’s remaining air defense systems.

CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper briefed President Trump on his military options on Thursday. And while this White House does not leak, we know that the president’s negotiators (Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner) met for the third time with the Iranians in Geneva on Friday, with no deal in sight.

The Iranians are trying to make a happy face. But as far as we can tell, they have made ZERO concessions to President Trump, and have not yet uttered what he called in his State of the Union Speech, the “secret” words: “We will never have a nuclear weapon.”

There has been much speculation over the president’s end goals. Will he abandon his demands that Iran not only destroy (not just dismantle) its nuclear infrastructure at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, but destroy their long-range missile stockpiles and production gear as well? Will they stop attacks on Iranian protestors?

I believe that the president has many kinetic options, should he choose to use force, that could cripple the Revolutionary Guards and, most importantly, destroy their aura of invincibility with the Iranian people.

I spell them out in a column that was initially scheduled to run on the FoxNews website last Saturday but was pulled at the last minute, for reasons no one explained. My friends at the David Horowitz Freedom Institute published it on Frontpage mag this Wednesday.

Simply put, I believe we can separate the Revolutionary Guards troops from their commanders by obliterating IRGC headquarters and command posts. I believe we can encourage the Iranian people to rise and take over local governments by taking out the repressive apparatus that protects them.

And none of this involves US boots on the ground. Those commentators, from the deranged Tucker Carlson on the right to his left-wing brethren on MSNBC, who scream about an “endless war” in Iran, miss the point.

We ALREADY HAVE boots on the ground. But they are not American soldiers. They are the millions and millions of Iranian patriots who have shown their willingness to shed their own blood to gain their freedom from an oppressive regime.

We can help them. We should help. And I show exactly how we CAN help them in my latest column at Frontpage mag.

I discuss all of this as well as the latest Russia “crying wolf” scares by week-kneed NATO leaders on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.

As always, you can tune in live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.5 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida area, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. And if you miss us live, you can listen to podcast later here.

Yours on freedom.

©2026 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

Website: kentimmerman.com

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. 

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.