TWO COUNTRIES WILL RULE THE MIDDLE EAST - Col. Macgregor On Iran War

Col. Douglas Macgregor opens with a sweeping geopolitical thesis: two powers will dominate the Middle East for decades — Iran and Turkey. They are fundamentally different. Iran represents an ancient Persian civilization that is rational, willing to coexist, and open to diplomacy and business. Macgregor draws on his years visiting Israel to argue the Israelis have been "barking up the wrong tree" by fixating on Iran as an existential threat. Turkey, by contrast, is a "resolutely martial people" — natural soldiers who, if provoked, fight to the finish. Macgregor speaks from direct experience working with Turkish forces and rates their military in the top five globally, while stressing that raw human material matters more than technology. He references a Turkish funeral song titled "Every Turk is a Soldier" to underscore the cultural depth of their martial identity. …

1. Iran and Turkey are the two powers that will dominate the Middle East for decades post-war — but they are fundamentally different in character and must be understood separately.
2. Iran is rational, diplomatic, and willing to coexist; Israel's fixation on Iran as an existential threat is a strategic error — the real long-term threat is Turkey.
3. Turkey is a martial culture of natural soldiers whose military ranks in the global top five; provoking them means a fight to the finish, and historically they dominated the region for centuries.
4. The Iran war proves the era of Western military dominance is over — ISR-Strike technology has proliferated and any nation can now deny access to a great power.
5. NATO is dead, the EU will eventually dissolve, and the rising powers are Iran, Turkey, India, China, and Russia — a return to the pre-1492 civilizational order.
6. The U.S. must set limits like Rome did after Teutoburg and against Persia; America's real empire is the continental United States and it needs nothing else.
7. Trump's recent criticism of Israel's disproportionate retaliation suggests he is waking up to strategic reality, possibly driven by necessity to exit the Iran war before the economy suffers.

• Macgregor's claim that Iran is 'rational' and willing to coexist is asserted without addressing Iran's long-standing ideological commitment to Israel's destruction, funding of proxy militias, or the regime's theocratic character — the analysis flattens a complex actor into one dimension.
• The prediction that NATO is 'dead on arrival' and the EU will dissolve ignores the demonstrated resilience of both institutions through multiple crises; Macgregor offers no mechanism for dissolution beyond assertion.
• The historical analogy to 9 AD Teutoburg and Roman-Persian limits is stretched — Rome continued expanding and fighting for centuries after both events; the analogy selectively picks moments of retrenchment while ignoring subsequent campaigns.
• The claim that Europe was a meaningless backwater in 1050 is overstated: the Holy Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, and Muslim-ruled Spain were significant powers; Macgregor's framing serves his thesis but oversimplifies medieval history.
• Macgregor attributes a song 'Every Turk is a Soldier' as evidence of universal martial culture, but did not provide the Turkish name or source; the generalization of an entire nation's character based on military impressions with an ally risks essentialism.
• No evidence is provided for the claim that 'anyone' including Nicaragua could replicate Iran's ISR-Strike complex — this ignores the enormous industrial, technical, budgetary, and organizational requirements of such systems.