Eurasia Press & News
Bottom Line Up Front
Iran’s strategic architecture, centered on arming a regional network of non-state actors termed the Axis of Resistance, has eroded significantly over the past year and failed to deter Israel and U.S. military action against Iranian territory.
Iran’s non-state allies constitute a force multiplier for Tehran, but they are often constrained by the political and social environment in their countries of origin.
At Washington’s urging, governments in the region, particularly Lebanon and Iraq, are taking advantage of the weakening of Iran’s allies to exercise full sovereignty over their territories.
In the absence of pressure on their forces on the ground in Yemen, the Houthis, although weakened by air strikes, continue to attack Israeli and Western interests.
For decades, Iranian leaders have built their strategic architecture around a network of mostly, but not exclusively, Shia Muslim non-state actors, often referred to in mainstream media as Iranian “proxies.” The U.S. has designated virtually all of Iran’s regional allied movements — members of a coalition Iran calls its “Axis of Resistance” — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). The FTO label describes these movements’ tactics but often oversimplifies their objectives and motivations.
Iran has relied on the Axis to forge a “unity of fronts” in pressuring Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territory, and to advance Iran’s efforts to deter Israel or the United States from attacking Iran. Over the past year, virtually all of the objectives Iran intended its Axis to achieve have been thwarted by Israeli air and ground offensives against its Axis partners, in some cases supplemented by U.S. air strikes. Since taking office in 1989, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s key national security goal has been to ensure that any conflict with U.S. forces would not occur on Iranian territory – an objective shattered when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Operation Midnight Hammer strike on major Iranian nuclear facilities in June.
The goals of Iran’s regional allies generally — although not always — align with the ideologically and strategically motivated policies of Iran’s leaders. But Iranian policy is often more cautious and calibrated than that of its coalition partners. Iranian leaders preside over a nation-state of more than 85 million people who look to Tehran for services, sustenance, and social welfare, whereas its Axis partners, as non-state actors, often act on behalf of narrower sectarian and ideological interests. In many cases, the actions of Iran’s allies have provoked warfare with Israel, the U.S., and U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf. At the same time, governments in the region are seeking to exercise full sovereignty over national territory in order to ensure that any military action emanating from their territory enjoys national consensus.
A prominent example of the complications Iran’s allies generate exists in Iraq, where a network of Shia Muslim militias that receive support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) have attacked U.S. forces helping the Iraqi government defend against the Islamic State organization (ISIS) and other Sunni jihadi groups. Through these attacks, the militias seek to implement their, as well as Tehran’s, agenda to force U.S. troops out of Iraq. On the occasions when the Iraqi militia strikes have caused U.S. casualties, U.S. leaders have conducted retaliatory attacks on militia facilities and personnel, causing friction between Baghdad and Washington over what Iraqi leaders say are infringements on Iraq’s sovereignty. Recognizing Iran’s weakening strategic positioning, Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani is responding positively to Washington’s urging to distance Iraq from the Islamic Republic and work to disarm the Iran-aligned militias.
The gap between Iranian strategic calculations and those of its allies is perhaps no wider than between Tehran and Hamas, which Iran has funded and armed for decades. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and all his subordinates effusively applauded Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel as a victory for “resistance” and an advance toward Iranian leaders’ stated objectives to “destroy” Israel. Whether Iranian officials had advanced knowledge of the October 7 attack is a matter of debate. Still, the operation displayed none of the caution that has historically characterized foreign policy under the Islamic Republic. Had Iranian leaders known the attack would set off a chain of Israeli actions that ultimately caused severe destruction to Lebanese Hezbollah, the downfall of the Assad regime in Syria, and brought Israeli and U.S. combat aircraft over Iran’s skies, the Islamic Republic would certainly have vetoed the October 7 operation, if given the opportunity to do so. Some Hamas political leaders (based mostly outside the Gaza Strip) have indicated the operation was, in retrospect, a strategic blunder that provoked massive Israeli retaliation, devastated Gaza, and caused tens of thousands of Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamas continues to battle the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza but is currently assessed as unable to pose a strategic threat to Israel.
On other fronts, Israel’s destruction of much of Lebanon’s Hezbollah arsenal, and the related December collapse of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have severely damaged Iran’s regional strategic architecture. For decades, Iran has viewed its supplies of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles of varying types to Hezbollah as an almost infallible deterrent to any military action against Iran by Israel or the United States. Iranian strategists assumed that Hezbollah provided a countervailing ability to visit massive destruction on Israel in retaliation for any attack on Iran. Hezbollah joined Hamas’ battle against Israel after October 7 by firing rockets, mortars, and short-range missiles on Israeli towns near the Israel-Lebanon border, causing thousands of Israelis to flee their homes.
Israel’s September 2024 escalation — including a major air and ground offensive, coupled with a covert operation involving booby-trapped pagers — devastated Hezbollah’s leadership and missile and rocket arsenal and decoupled the group from the Gaza conflict. Hezbollah agreed to a November ceasefire that required it to withdraw its elite Radwan Forces and other units off the border with Israel. Hezbollah’s capitulation to Israel’s terms in that ceasefire pact set the stage for an even more significant blow to Tehran’s Axis of Resistance strategy. Hezbollah was unable to respond when, one month after the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, Syrian Sunni Islamist rebels, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, broke out of their redoubt in northern Syria in December in a sudden and successful offensive that toppled the Assad regime.
The Syrian regime’s collapse essentially removed a linchpin of the Axis of Resistance, eliminated Iranian and Hezbollah influence from Syria, and deprived Iran of a secure land bridge with which to rearm Hezbollah. Trump’s team, in partnership with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken advantage of the developments to try to institutionalize a new balance of power that favors Israel, Washington, and moderate Arab capitals, and keeps Tehran and its Axis of Resistance weak and vulnerable. U.S. officials have adopted Israel’s interpretation of the November Israel-Lebanon ceasefire to argue that Hezbollah is required not only to pull back from the border but disarm completely and enable the Beirut government to exercise full sovereignty.
Lebanon’s leaders have agreed with Trump’s envoys to disarm Hezbollah in exchange for U.S. pledges to compel Netanyahu to withdraw from the territory it still occupies, including the “Five Heights” positions, and to cease air strikes on Hezbollah positions throughout Lebanon. Earlier this month, the Lebanese Council of Ministers approved a plan for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to disarm Hezbollah. However, the reluctance to set a firm deadline for the disarmament –– a perhaps necessary concession to prevent renewed civil conflict — fed skepticism from U.S. officials who argue the group will try to subvert the LAF’s campaign in order to buy time to rearm and regain political and military strength. Hezbollah leaders, like Iranian officials, have staunchly rejected the group’s disarmament, claiming that doing so will leave Lebanon vulnerable to Israeli aggression.
The Houthi movement in Yemen has far more freedom of action than do other members of the Axis of Resistance. The Houthis are not recognized internationally as governing Yemen, but they control key territory and do not face military pressure on the ground from the forces of the Republic of Yemen Government or other Yemeni factions. The Houthis have formed their connection to Iranian leaders more recently than have other Axis members, and, although eager to accept Iranian arms supplies, Houthi leaders have not been amenable to direction from Tehran. Iran did not begin supplying and funding the group to any significant extent until it captured the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
Iran has applauded Houthi missile attacks on Israel, in sympathy with Hamas’ battle, and Tehran has continued to ship arms and arms components to the group even though U.S.-led maritime interdiction operations have intensified. On the other hand, the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea since the October 7 attacks have brought U.S. military retaliation against the group, as well as Trump team deliberations over extending U.S. retaliation to Iran as the key backer of the Houthi movement. Israel has recently escalated its battle against the Houthis striking alleged Houthi targets in Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah yesterday, as well as launching a major strike on August 28 that killed 12 out of the 16 “ministers” of the Houthi administration in Sanaa. Whereas Tehran is looking to its Axis partners, including the Houthis, to demonstrate strength, Iranian leaders are also cautioning their partners not to risk provoking further Israeli or U.S. attacks on Iran, for which Tehran is poorly positioned.
