to be very frank, if you replace Iranians with Turks in your sentence, this makes more sense to me. Iran is already king of the middle east, so sorry, Iran doesnt have extra things to prove. TURKEY ON TEH OTHER HAND- STarted getting insecure and neo-ottomanism started downloading...soon Turkey invaded Syria...then TUrkey went to go steal Libya's maritime zone....so to be honest, Turkey is the one that behaves insecure, maybe because being in NATO doesnt give Turkey certain publicity and clout as a Muslim country.
Well without US and NATO, Turkey wont have any serious capabilities or clout today. YOu're just jealous Iran can achieve what you can without kissing white Christian butt as well as Turkey does.
Also, that doesnt matter because you're point is based on a hypothetical"If Russia...". the reality is that Iranian played its card better than aggressive, delusional TUrkey that invaded, because its NATO Master US has authorized Turkey to use US"s crooked methods internationally and because of greed. Dont be a hypocrite.