Even as Iran lashes out with missile and drone strikes against its wealthy Arab rivals in the Gulf, three neighbours remain almost untouched – Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. With the exception of a single missile intercepted over Turkish airspace and likely bound for the US airbase at Incirlik, Teheran declines to mess with the Turks for three good reasons.

The first, but least important, is that Turkey is a member of NATO and attacking it would trigger mutual defense measures under Article 5. Cyprus is in the alliance too, but that hasn’t stopped Iran firing missiles at the British RAF base on Akrotiri. And it is NATO’s leading member, the United States, which is attacking Iran in the first place. A more serious restraining factor is Turkey’s own large and highly effective army – and its proven willingness to use it against weakened neighbors. Over recent decades Ankara hasn’t hesitated to send troops into and launch bombing raids against both Syria and Iraq, occupying border regions when it decides that Turkey’s internal security is threatened. But the most significant factor of all is that despite Turkey’s pivotal historic role in the Atlantic alliance – acting as host to one of the region’s biggest US airbases at Incirlik – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is, in many ways, more of a friend to Iran than he is to America.

Within hours of the launch of US and Israeli combat operations targeting the Islamic Republic, Erdoğan publicly condemned both Donald Trump’s offensive and Tehran’s retaliation. The following day, Erdoğan expressed his “sadness” at the elimination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and offered “condolences” to the people of Iran. In January, as Iranian security forces were massacring protesters, Erdoğan repeated the regime’s narrative that the mass demonstrations amounted to foreign-backed “terrorist” plots linked to Israel. He also congratulated Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for his effective “handling” of the unrest. Ankara has........

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