Strategic Diversification Becomes Unavoidable -- The Result of a Sense of Betrayal

A compilation tracking strategic developments in West Asia -- drawn from analysis & reports from the Arabic/regional press, including alternative sources and channels (18 Sept 2025)

A sense of betrayal across Gulf states: In wake of Israel’s attack on Doha, a Qatari Al-Quds Al-Arabi Editorial warns of “unbridled Israeli madness, and its continued American sponsorship, [that] is spreading fears of further strategic disaster” -- a result, it writes, of “the loss of any legal or international impediment to curbing Israel's excessive force and the decisions of the most oppressive state terror government in Israel's history”. This sense of “betrayal” by the US that is prevalent in Qatar is replicated across Gulf states, as they contemplate what Al-Akhbar cautions is the “myth of US guarantees”. Asharq Al-Awsat quotes a Hamas source warning of the continued “deception … adopted by Israel in coordination with the US". An Iraqi intelligence report presented to PM al-Sudani warns ‘Iraq is next’.

Strategic diversification is unavoidable: While little came out of the emergency OIC Summit beyond the usual rhetoric, developments point to early ripples of a strategic shift as, writes Hussein Ibish, “a renewed and irreversible focus on strategic diversification [becomes] unavoidable”. Reports indicate that Egypt has deployed advanced Chinese HQ-9B long-range air defense systems to strategic locations in Sinai, and the new Saudi-Pakistan Mutual Defence Pact suggests the beginnings of strategic diversification, the possible beginnings of the end of the Abraham Accords, and the strategic shift towards Russia and China.

Confrontation is inevitable: Despite the tactical gains it has achieved over the past two years, Israel “has so far failed to achieve any strategic accomplishments in West Asia”, writes Mohamed Hasan Sweidan. “The core of the current battle is to prevent Tel Aviv from transforming [these] tactical gains into entrenched strategic ones”, he writes. Amidst this turbulence, leading commentator, Ibrahim Al-Amine, cautions that “confrontation is inevitable and when it does happen, there will be no guarantees, no red lines, no ceilings, and no restraints. There will remain only one language—the language of power, and power alone”. For the moment, Al-Amine writes, “the Resistance must continue its work quietly, without consultation, and without disclosure”.