Iran’s military campaign against Israel and the Gulf states isn’t just a matter of missiles and drones. It’s waging a struggle for independent Persian Islam in an attempt to differentiate itself from dependence on the West. The question at the center of the struggle is whether the Islamic space can stand on its feet without Western help.
The war being waged goes beyond tactics. While commentators count the missile interceptions and assess the physical damage to energy facilities, a widespread awareness campaign is transpiring beneath the surface. This campaign’s symbolism and prestige have a strategic value worth as much as bombs. At the center of this struggle is a geopolitical confrontation between the non-Arab Islamic powers—Iran and Turkey, separately—and the Arab Gulf states.
When Iran launches missiles against targets in the Gulf states, it’s not just doing so to deter them militarily or to apply pressure that would end the war against it. Rather, its goal is to expose their weakness. When Arab states with immense defense budgets, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, find themselves vulnerable to attack or worse, and they are dependent on American radar and interceptors, it undermines their narrative as sovereign states.
Their vulnerability goes beyond technical questions, such as the effectiveness of the U.S. Patriot missiles. It touches on the exposed nerve of security independence. Revealing the limitations of these Arab states’ military power presents their regimes as unable to defend themselves and reliant on external alliances.
Iran is seeking to establish a counter-narrative of “independent Iranian strength” versus “Arab dependence on a foreign umbrella.” According to this narrative, Iran stands alone as an imperial power waging a campaign against Israel and the United States, while the Gulf states hide behind Washington’s support. Iran is fighting for so-called Persian honor, intended to allow Tehran to enter future negotiations from a heroic position, while undermining the political and security standing of its Arab rivals in the eyes of the world’s Muslims.
In this context, it’s vital to distinguish the resounding words of Turkish opposition leader and former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, which he spoke this week. “Those who remain silent about the attacks against Iran, using the logic of ‘let the snake that doesn’t touch me live a thousand years,’ should realize that everyone will be next,” he warned. His remarks are far more than a domestic political attack on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose silence he was criticizing.
Davutoglu has drawn a geopolitical map that divides the region into two kinds of entities. The non-Arab powers, Iran and Turkey, are on one side. They possess “strategic depth”—an imperial history, independent defense industry and sovereignty that does not rely on Western grace. In his view, these powers are the last independent Islamic strongholds. The Arab states are on the other side. He holds that they have surrendered their freedom of action in exchange for a foreign defense umbrella.
Davutoglu sees Erdoğan as being in a trap, trying to maneuver between his obligations to NATO and his ambition to lead the Muslim world. Davutoglu’s message is that trying to buy temporary peace while abandoning Iran is a dangerous illusion, and that once Tehran is defeated, the West will turn to dealing with the next sovereign stronghold—Ankara.
The more sophisticated case of Qatar is prominent in this tension between Islamic sovereignty and Arab dependence. When Davutoglu openly calls for Muslims to stand strong against the “Western snake,” Qatar prefers to weaken the “snake’s” venom and remain in the field as the gatekeeper of its interests.
Qatar’s strategic rationale doesn’t seek the total collapse of the Western order, but rather its controlled weakening. Doha is playing a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, it cultivates anti-Western narratives that erode the West’s liberal image and reduce international pressure on Qatar. On the other hand, it understands that an extreme weakening of the West would leave Qatar exposed and defenseless against dominant power centers such as Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
For Qatar, the United States is a safety net that grants it military defense and regional immunity. Qatar’s interest is therefore for the West to remain strong enough to protect its physical existence, but weak enough not to restrict its ideological and diplomatic freedom of action. Qatar is a like a protected tenant living in a Western home. It doesn’t want to demolish the house, merely to change the locks. It uses Western tools—money, academe and international law—to drain the West of its moral and political power while remaining a player who can guard its own interests.
Davutoglu’s remarks, combined with Iran’s military moves and efforts to boost its image, reveal that the regional struggle doesn’t just rest on nuclear arms or terrorism. It’s a war over the definition of Muslim sovereignty in the 21st century. In this regard, the Arab states, which rely on the West, are not just rivals of Iran and Turkey, but rather a symptom of historical weakness that the Turkey-Iran axis is determined to eradicate.
Ultimately, the Islamic Middle East is divided between two Weltanschauungs. One view of life sees the alliance with the West as an existential necessity. The other view seeks to replace dependence on the West with aggressive nationalism that sanctifies the power of the Muslim state over the well-being of the individual. Herein lies the great paradox of Iran and Turkey. Even as they flaunt “national honor” as a superior alternative to Arab dependence, they are forced to invest vast resources in oppressing their citizens, who find no consolation in sovereignty without freedom.
The bitter truth for these regimes is that, as they condemn the West and see it as a “snake” or waning power, the West is the preferred refuge of millions of migrants fleeing their “sovereign” states. Many Iranians, who are oppressed by the ayatollahs’ regime, still look to the West and to its values. For them, the West isn’t the aggressor but rather the only address that might save them from their dictatorial regime.
The winner of this campaign won’t therefore be decided solely by the strength of its arms. It will be decided by the question of the extent to which the peoples of the region will cling to the narrative of Muslim independence, when they see how national sovereignty—in Turkey and Iran, for example—turns into an internal prison and ceases to be attractive to them.
First published in Haaretz, 06.03.2026
