Iran’s decision to strike at Israel in response to Israel’s bombing raid on a Hezbollah command centre in the Dahiyeh area of Beirut reflects the extent to which Teheran is determined to maintain its network of proxies across the region. The latest exchange between Israel and Iran was probably inevitable, given Iran’s determination to maintain this strong and mutually obligatory connection. Israel, for its part, has made clear that it is not prepared to acquiesce to a situation where Hezbollah launches attacks on Israeli population centres, while Jerusalem’s response remains restricted to southern Lebanon. Iran is, by escalating, attempting to impose de facto rules of engagement which are unacceptable to Israel.
From Teheran’s point of view, the renewed clashes with Israel have the side benefit of accentuating the differences in the US and Israeli positions regarding the conflict at the present time. While the US appears to be seeking to reach an agreement with Iran as soon as possible, Israel is making clear that Iran’s insistence on including a ceasefire in Lebanon in any such deal will not dictate the range or nature of Israel’s response to Hezbollah attacks.
Iran’s effort to protect its Lebanese client shows the centrality of Iran’s proxy network to Teheran’s regional ambitions and to its projection of power in the Middle East. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) methods in proxy warfare represent the most innovative and the most successful element of the Iranian regime’s regional strategy. The Lebanese Hezbollah organisation is the jewel in the crown of this particular structure. The proxy network is not a sideshow for Teheran. It is the main event. Hence Teheran’s efforts to protect it and to act with its components in unison.
In this regard, it is noteworthy that despite the heavy blows suffered by Iran and its allies in the course of the last three years, Teheran’s regional network remains bruised, depleted, but intact. To be sure, Iran’s longstanding ally in Damascus, the Assad regime, is gone. But that regime was in many ways an exception in the pro-Iran camp, in its nature as an old-style Arab nationalist military dictatorship, and in its secular orientation. Its fall means that the Iran-led regional alliance now consists exclusively of Islamist organisations which combine political and military roles under a single leadership structure. They are the means by which Iran seeks to dominate the region. It has made considerable advances using these methods towards this goal.
In Gaza, Hamas, though much diminished after two years of war with Israel, remains in control of 47 per cent of the territory and nearly the entirety of the population of the Strip.
In Iraq, the Iran-supported Shia militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces are the strongest military force in the country, and are a key presence in the governing coalition. Recent reports of two militias announcing their “disarmament” reflect an effort to avoid US financial sanctions, rather than any real ceding of power or capacity.
In Lebanon, as demonstrated in recent days, Hezballah remains strong enough to dismiss the official government’s opposition to its war with Israel. Its capacities outstrip those of the official Lebanese Armed Forces. The sectarian nature of the army, with its large compliment of Shia soldiers, means that the official government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam don’t possess an instrument to rein in Hezbollah, even if they wished to do so.
In Yemen, the Ansar Allah (Houthis) organisation maintain their control of the capital, Sana’a, of a large stretch of the coastline including the key port of Hodaidah, and of 70-80 per cent of the population.
So the IRGC’s creation and management of proxies (in the Lebanese and Iraqi cases), and its forging of alliances with powerful local Islamist militias (in the Yemeni and Gazan contexts) have brought Iran the ability to dominate spaces and impact on events from the Gulf of Aden, across the highly populated centre of the Arab world and across to the Mediterranean. This alliance, which Teheran calls the “Mehwar al-Muqawama” (Resistance Axis) has the openly declared goal of the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of the US from the region.
This Axis is central to Iran’s ambitions. The events of the last days indicate that Teheran is determined to maintain the principle of an injury to one is an injury to all. It appears that the Iranians are even prepared to risk a return to all out war against Israel in order to advance this principle. In this regard, the launch by the Houthis of a single ballistic missile, and that organisation’s subsequent announcement of their intention to target Israel-linked shipping in the Red Sea are worthy of particular note. The Houthis, who were badly damaged by Israel and the US in the 2023-25 period, stayed out of the renewed hostilities until now. But their capacity to disrupt shipping on the Gulf of Aden-Red Sea route acquires strategic significance given the ongoing blocking of the Strait of Hormuz. A number of Gulf countries are using the former as an alternative route for export of oil.
UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper called on Monday for “both sides” to “show restraint and de-escalate immediately”, and said that “negotiations must continue towards the lasting settlement that we all need, for peace and stability in the region.”
These statements are noteworthy in that they reflect a regrettable and apparently total lack of comprehension regarding the goals of Iranian regional strategy, and of the means Teheran is using to advance those objectives. There is no chance for "peace and stability” in the Middle East for as long as the current regime and its stable of proxies remain in existence. Iran over the last days has demonstrated a single-minded determination to protect the structures by which it seeks to dominate the region. Israel is showing a similar resolve in defending its own people from the aggressive intentions of those structures. Support from western allies would be welcome. The absence of it is unlikely to change Israel’s calculations.
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