WhatsappThe common assumption about the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7th is that Iran funded and directed the operation as a sort of opening shot of their Ring of Fire strategy that would see all of their proxies join together to destroy Israel. This is certainly part of the story, but it isn’t the whole picture.
What came out in the one year and ten months since the events of October 7th was that the Ring of Fire strategy was always seen as a the goal of the IRGC, but it remained loose without hard decisions on when to launch it. True, Iran was unnerved by the possibility that Saudi Arabia might join the Abraham Accords, but it would make no sense to prematurely launch the campaign to destroy Israel over the Abraham Accords.
So something has never felt right about the Iran ordering Hamas narrative. Once again – I am not defending the Mullahs and yes they certainly backed Hamas and asked Hezbollah to join on October 8th as well as the Houthis, but the haphazardness of everything seems to support an alternative theory.
To understand where I am going with all of this – we must first understand the three main players besides Israel in the Middle East.
These are:
- The Radical Shiite axis led by Iran
- The Muslim Brotherhood axis led by Qatar and Turkey. This includes the Jolani regime in Damascus as well as the remnants of ISIS
- The non-Muslim Brotherhood Arab Sunni Arab states like UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia
Hamas was certainly funded by Iran, but at the end of the day, Hamas are radical Sunnis that follow the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. This aligns them far closer to Qatar and Turkey, which is why there is no surprise that both Qatar and Turkey host the various political leaders of the Hamas movement.
Qatar is an even bigger financial patron of Hamas than Iran.
Qatar and Turkey’s goals are to revive an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East. This has been their plan in Syria and it more or less is working. Gaza is part of this.
It is often repeated that Iran had what to lose with Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, but the reality is Qatar and Turkey have far more to lose than Iran if Saudi Arabia joins the accords. After all, both Qatar and Turkey want to be the leaders of the Sunni Muslim world and that means keeping Saudi Arabia from normalizing relations with Israel.
