Geopolitical Briefing: Iran — Gulf & Muslim-World Coordination after the Qatar Strike — 14 Sept 2025

• Doha emergency summit: Tehran moves to shape outcomes at today–tomorrow’s joint Arab-Islamic meeting after Israel’s 9 Sept strike in Doha; Larijani urges a “joint operations room” rather than empty communiqués. (Reuters)
  
• Nuclear file as leverage: Iran–IAEA sign a Cairo “modalities” accord (9 Sept), but Tehran limits access pending Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) approval while the E3 push UN snapback through a UNSC process led this month by Seoul. (AP News)
  
• Gulf recalibration: Earlier Saudi–Iran engagement (8 Jul) provides a channel; after the Doha strike, regional normalization with Israel visibly stalls as Gulf states rally publicly behind Qatar. (Reuters)
  
• Red Sea front: Yemen’s Ansar-Allah resume attacks on Israel-linked shipping in early September, signaling that the maritime pressure track remains tied to Iran’s broader deterrence posture. (Reuters)
  
• Northern axis pressure: Israel expands strikes into Lebanon’s Bekaa/Hermel and hits in Syria; in parallel, a US-backed roadmap to disarm Hezbollah advances in Beirut—an outcome Tehran rejects as a gift to Israeli expansionism. (AP News)
  

1) Doha emergency summit: Tehran aims to turn outrage into coordination

Qatar convened Arab League and OIC leaders in Doha after Israel’s 9 Sept strike, which killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer. A draft resolution denouncing the attack is circulating; Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian is attending, while security chief Ali Larijani publicly pressed Muslim governments to form a “joint operations room” instead of issuing ritual statements. The Qatari PM framed the strike as “state terrorism” and vowed collective action; regional ministers prepared the text today ahead of leaders’ sessions. For Tehran, the summit is a stage to convert pan-Islamic outrage into practical coordination that constrains Israel and marginalizes Western mediation. (Reuters)

2) Nuclear track: Cairo “modalities,” limited access, and UNSC snapback clock

On 9 Sept, Iran and the IAEA signed a technical accord in Cairo “to resume cooperation,” but FM Abbas Araghchi has since stressed that no site access (beyond Bushehr) occurs without SNSC case-by-case approval. The E3’s 28 Aug snapback move now sits with the UNSC under South Korea’s September presidency; a procedural draft is prepared, and rival Russian/Chinese ideas for delay/extension are in play. Tehran is leveraging the summit’s optics and its conditional IAEA engagement to argue that Western pressure—while Israel continues strikes—proves the system’s bias. (AP News)

3) Gulf recalibration: from hedging to visible solidarity with Qatar

Iran’s 8 Jul Jeddah meeting (Araghchi with MBS) reopened high-level channels after the June war. Post-Doha strike, Gulf capitals are publicly supportive of Qatar; normalization with Israel, already fraying, looks even more remote. For Tehran, this raises prospects for selective coordination with Sunni states on defensive measures (legal, economic, and potentially security signaling) short of formal alliances—while keeping space for Oman-/Qatar-style facilitation on hostage/ceasefire tracks. (Reuters)

4) Red Sea pressure resumes: Ansar-Allah keep the seaborne lever alive

The Houthis claimed a 2 Sept strike on a ship in the northern Red Sea “linked to Israel,” ending a relative lull and reminding shippers that traffic remains exposed when Gaza escalates or when Israeli operations widen (e.g., Doha). Private security notes tie the renewed pattern to the June Iran-Israel war and its aftermath. For Tehran, the maritime prong remains an indirect deterrent that raises the cost of impunity for Israel and its backers—without overt state attribution. (Reuters)

5) Northern axis pressure: Israeli strikes & the Hezbollah disarmament push

Israel extended strikes into Hermel/Bekaa last week and hit targets in Syria the same day. In Beirut, the Lebanese Armed Forces presented a four-phase plan to disarm Hezbollah (south of the Litani first), now referenced by US-aligned think tanks and echoed in Israeli media as a near-term objective. Tehran reads this as an attempt to dismantle a core anti-Zionist deterrent while Israel escalates region-wide strikes (including Doha). Expect Iran to reinforce political cover and material support for the Resistance while using the Doha summit to harden regional opposition to externally imposed disarmament. (AP News)