"Nobody doubts that our players are able to play in the World Cup. So, we should do our best to be present and make 70 million Iranians happy," Qotbi told his first press conference on Saturday.
Qotbi became Iran's third coach in a month on Wednesday when he was appointed to replace Mohammad Mayelikohan.
Mayelikohan was appointed to revive Iran's faltering qualifying campaign after former coach Ali Daei was sacked following the team's 2-1 home defeat against Saudi Arabia.
Qotbi has extensive national team experience as an assistant coach with the US and South Korea, where he worked under Dutch coaches Guus Hiddink, Dick Advocaat and Pim Verbeek.
Qotbi said he would work with two Dutchmen and an Iranian as coaches and a South Korean as the team's physiotherapist.
Iran faces an uphill struggle for qualifying to the next round with two away matches in South and North Korea and a home match against the UAE.
In Group B of the Asian qualifiers along with Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the UAE and North Korea, Iran sits fourth with six points.
South Korea currently leads the group on 11 points, one point ahead of North Korea and Saudi Arabia. The UAE is at the bottom of the group with one point.
Asia has four automatic qualifying berths, with the third-placed teams in the two final qualifying groups playing off against each other for the right to take on Oceanic zone victors New Zealand for a fifth berth in the finals.
Iran has appeared in the 1978, 1998 and 2006 World Cups. Its best result in the competition was in France 98, when it beat the United States by two goals to one.