On 9 September 2025, Israel struck Qatar. Two days later, the world marked the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

The proximity of these events underscores a recurring theme of the 21st century: violence as theatre, where power operates through both spectacle and shadow, and where official narratives often obscure deeper strategic designs.

The unease after 9/11

When the Twin Towers fell in 2001, governments rushed to supply meaning: democracy under attack, civilisation under siege, a new war against terror. The grief of citizens was genuine, but the explanations offered often felt insufficient. Alongside the official account arose alternative interpretations – some implausible, others harder to dismiss. Reports circulated of foreknowledge, particularly involving Israeli intelligence. Claims that certain workers had been warned away or that controlled demolitions were involved were dismissed as conspiracies, yet their persistence signalled a profound mistrust of the story being told.

Even if the details were murky, one conclusion grew clearer with time: the hijackers may have been both agents of violence and unwitting instruments in a broader design. Their actions produced not just tragedy but also the political consensus needed to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – conflicts that restructured the Middle East more profoundly than any previous military campaigns.

A troubling déjà vu on 7 October 2023

Two decades later, Hamas’s assault on Israel produced a sense of troubling repetition. The attack was brutal and undeniable. Yet questions quickly arose: how could one of the most heavily surveilled territories on Earth have produced such a surprise? For years, Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu, openly acknowledged that Hamas’s presence in Gaza served a political purpose, keeping Palestinians divided and forestalling a united front.

The military’s delayed response intensified suspicion. Israel’s strategic doctrines — such as the “Hannibal Directive”, which permits extraordinary risks to its own soldiers to prevent hostage-taking — illustrate a willingness to accept casualties when higher objectives are at stake. In this light, the 7 October events may be seen not only as a lapse of intelligence but as a tolerable, perhaps even useful, pretext. What followed — the devastation of Gaza, the mass displacement of its population, and the campaign described by many observers as genocidal — suggests that the attack became the justification for policies long in preparation.

The pattern of wars

Placed in a broader historical frame, a pattern emerges. The “war on terror” following 9/11 systematically dismantled or destabilised states that posed challenges to Western and Israeli influence: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. Each intervention was justified as a fight against extremism or dictatorship, but the cumulative effect was the fragmentation of the Arab world and the expansion of Western and Israeli strategic room for manoeuvre.

Here, violence appears not only as a reaction to threats, but also as an instrument for reshaping regions. Fear is as valuable as force. The spectacle of destruction disciplines publics at home while opening opportunities abroad.

Israel and expendable allies

The September 2025 strike on Qatar further underlined these dynamics. Qatar has long balanced its relations, hosting a major US military base, while mediating with Hamas and maintaining channels with Israel. Yet, Israel’s willingness to attack a nominal partner revealed a harsher truth: in the calculus of power, alliances are disposable. History offers parallels. In 1967, Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty, a US Navy vessel, in international waters – an incident Washington quietly buried to preserve the broader strategic relationship. The precedent suggests that even American lives and prestige are not immune to sacrifice when larger objectives are at play.

A harsh lesson

The trajectory from 9/11 to 7 October to 9 September — and from the “war on terror” to the devastation of Gaza and the recent strike on Qatar — points to a sobering conclusion: states may tolerate, manipulate, or even provoke violence to serve strategic ends. Deception is not an aberration, but a recurring instrument of governance. Citizens, whether in New York, Tel Aviv, Gaza City or Doha, often find themselves reduced to expendable pawns.

This does not validate every conspiracy theory. What it does suggest is that suspicion is often warranted, and that power defends itself not through transparency, but through control of narrative and sacrifice of the expendable. The lesson is bleak yet necessary: states protect themselves, not necessarily their people.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.