Too close to the President: The US cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the Turkish model | Amit Yagur

The endless stream of headlines in the news has made us numb to truly dramatic headlines. Reports of the organization of an assassination attempt on the life of US President Donald Trump on Turkish soil during the NATO summit last month are serious and unprecedented. In recent decades, there have been no events close to this directed against a leader of a foreign country visiting another country (and not just any leader, but the President of the United States).

The public, thirsty for juicy details, of course received them: Trump was secretly transferred via a catering truck to a backup plane, while his official plane served as a decoy against an Iranian assassination squad.

And that's it, the excitement threshold has passed, and one can move on to the next headlines. But the juicy details distract from the real discussion that must take place here. If the reports regarding the scope and immediacy of the threat are correct, what happened this week in Turkey is not a localized hotel failure, but the collapse of a dangerous geopolitical model that has been cultivated in Turkey for many long years.

A big hotel

Turkey has positioned itself as a global host. A place where NATO diplomats, Hamas commanders, Russian intelligence officers, and the heads of the Iranian security establishment share the same geographical space and "live together." This logic relies on a simple assumption: as long as this non-state activity is kept under a glass ceiling of surveillance, intelligence exchange, and quiet settling of scores with oppositionists of each side, Turkey collects a commission and gains strategically without paying a price.

However, the latest event illustrates what happens when a country turns itself into a "big hotel" that simultaneously hosts Hamas commanders, Russian intelligence, Iranian elements, NATO delegations, senior Libyan officials, and more. Absolute control over sovereignty is lost, and a "Wild West" is created.

Regarding Iran specifically: over the years, Turkish intelligence has allowed Iranian infrastructure to operate in Turkey under a clear glass ceiling: smuggling, surveillance of Iranian opposition (and sometimes even their kidnapping/liquidation on Turkish soil with Turkish silence), in exchange for Iranian quiet on the border and security coordination in northern Iraq.

But, as is their way, when the regular system is based on mutual intelligence tolerance, the Iranians manage to stretch the rope, exploit freedom of movement, collect high-quality intelligence, and introduce capabilities like anti-tank or shoulder-fired missiles. Iran itself feels confident enough to operate in Turkey because it knows that up to a certain point, the Turkish mechanism will prefer to turn a blind eye or handle the event quietly so as not to damage relations with it.

Thus it happens that a foreign entity possesses tactical data at the level of the exact floor where the American President slept, and introduces effective weaponry near the President's movement axis and the presidential plane, and for this, a very deep operational infrastructure is already required. Such infrastructure is not built in two days, but over years of "controlled eye-closing" by local security mechanisms, accustomed to tolerance toward Iranian networks operating in Turkey. From the perspective of the Revolutionary Guards, the transition from tracking Iranian refugees in Istanbul to intercepting a presidential plane in Ankara was only a matter of intent and raising the target bar.

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Washington on trial

It is essential that the latest event begins the path to closing the great Turkish host, and the real test now lies at the doorstep of the United States. If we put aside for a moment catering trucks and decoy planes and the success in securing the President - the United States cannot move on to the agenda regarding what happened, and must look directly into the eyes of the perpetrator (this is Iran - it is already doing that), but also into the eyes of the generous host that allowed all this, and whose responsibility it was to provide maximum security for the NATO summit and its guests.

The demand cannot be exhausted by an internal investigation of the information leak from the hotel; it must include an unequivocal demand for a general cleansing of the shadow infrastructures of terror operating in Turkey - from Iran to Hamas. An intelligence organization that knows how to skillfully manage targeted killings in Syria and pursue political rivals around the world is also capable of closing the infrastructures of the axis of resistance - if only the heads of the system are given the appropriate directive from its leader.

Such a step will also significantly cut off part of the Iranian ability to operate on European soil, using Turkey as a transit route. If the United States chooses to be complacent in order to maintain "industrial quiet" with Erdogan, a dangerous precedent will be created here, and what was previously considered a casus belli will become routine, will limit in the future the freedom of movement of the President of the world's greatest power and other Western leaders, and it is very possible that next time, the deception exercises of the Secret Service and various security units will no longer be enough.