AZE.US
As the dust begins to settle after the war with Iran, a new risk is coming into sharper focus across the region: the next major crisis may emerge not in the Gulf, but on the Syrian track, where tensions involving Turkey, Israel, and the United States could escalate into a far more dangerous confrontation.
That possibility was raised by former U.S. National Counterterrorism Center chief Joe Kent, who resigned earlier in protest over the war with Iran. Reacting to Donald Trump’s remarks about NATO, Kent argued that any future U.S. move away from the alliance would not be driven by a desire to reduce foreign entanglements. Instead, he suggested, it could be aimed at giving Washington greater freedom to side openly with Israel in a future clash with Turkey in Syria.
Unfortunately leaving NATO won’t be to avoid foreign entanglements, we’ll be leaving NATO so we can side with Israel when Turkey & Israel eventually clash in Syria.
This is after we helped topple the secular Syrian gov & installed a former AQ/ISIS leader as president.
Time to… https://t.co/hfYTLd4J87
— Joe Kent (@joekent16jan19) April 9, 2026
In Kent’s reading, the discussion around distancing the United States from NATO is not about isolationism or restraint. It is about removing constraints. He said such a shift could allow Washington to take Israel’s side more directly if tensions between Ankara and Tel Aviv eventually erupt into open confrontation on Syrian territory.
He framed that scenario in especially blunt terms, warning that leaving NATO would not mean stepping back from conflict, but preparing for a new one under different terms.
The remarks drew added attention after Azerbaijani politician Ilgar Mammadov weighed in on them publicly. Mammadov wrote that a senior American national security official who resigned during the Iran operation was now saying the United States was trying to leave NATO in order to stand with Israel in an upcoming Israeli-Turkish conflict.
Mammadov also pointed to another signal he viewed as troubling. According to him, former and possibly future Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said about a month and a half ago that Turkey would be the next target.
That comment widened the meaning of Kent’s warning beyond U.S. domestic debate or NATO politics. In Mammadov’s view, if such assessments prove accurate, Azerbaijan may soon face an exceptionally difficult geopolitical choice between two of its key partners.
That is what makes this issue more than another round of rhetoric. For Baku, a future Turkish-Israeli confrontation would not be a distant regional dispute. It would cut directly into Azerbaijan’s strategic balance. Turkey is Azerbaijan’s closest ally, with ties rooted in military cooperation, political coordination, and deep historical affinity. Israel, meanwhile, remains an important security and technology partner, especially in defense cooperation. Any serious rupture between the two would create a highly sensitive dilemma for Azerbaijan.
Turkey, for its part, enters the post-Iran war environment under growing pressure. If the main regional fault line had previously centered on Iran and Israel, it may now begin shifting northward toward Syria, where Turkish, Israeli, American, and local interests intersect in a much tighter and more volatile space.
Under such conditions, Ankara could face not only higher military and political costs near its borders, but also mounting attempts by outside powers to pull it into a conflict shaped by other actors’ priorities.
Another concern is that Turkey, in such a framework, could increasingly be viewed in parts of Washington and Israel not as a NATO ally to be accommodated, but as an obstacle within a changing regional order. If the old alliance structure weakens further, the room for more explicit U.S. alignment with Israel could expand.
Kent had earlier explained his resignation by saying he could not, in good conscience, support the war against Iran. In his resignation letter, he argued that Iran did not pose a direct threat to the United States and claimed the war had been launched under pressure from Israel and powerful lobbying interests in Washington. He also said he opposed sending another generation of Americans into a war that, in his view, served no meaningful benefit to the American people.
Against that backdrop, his latest remarks now sound less like a passing criticism of U.S. foreign policy and more like a warning about what could come next. If even part of that scenario begins to materialize, Turkey may become the next major pressure point in the region – and Azerbaijan could find itself navigating one of the most difficult diplomatic tests in years.
AZE.US