Judah Grunstein has a good piece in World Politics Review arguing that Turkey, rather than Iran, comes out as the biggest winner from the Iraq war debacle.  However it is the degree to which Ankara comes into conflict with Moscow over regional issues in the Black Sea that bears more careful study.

Ankara’s opposition to the war, and the Bush administration’s obstinacy in pursuing it, in some ways prepared the way for Turkey’s rebalancing of its foreign policy approach from a Western-focused alignment to a Turkey-centric strategic hub. And the power vacuum created by the fall of Saddam Hussein, though initially as destabilizing as Ankara had feared and warned, subsequently helped create the space for Turkey to assume the regional role it aspired to.