Iran has defined itself in opposition to Israel, the United States, and the wider West since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Over the course of half a century of complex regional and global events, the clerical regime’s hostility and determination to “resist” has never abated, even when Iran finds itself naturally on the same side as the US in a given conflict. For example, when the American-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 to drive out Iran’s deadliest enemy, the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, and with the partially articulated intention of giving Iraq’s Shia majority the decisive voice in the country’s government, it only took Iran a matter of weeks to start orchestrating the killing of US and British soldiers.
Nor did the common fight against ISIS in the 2010s do anything to bring about reconciliation. Instead, we have witnessed the bizarre spectacle of Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah seeking to suppress an international pariah entity while complaining endlessly about a parallel and complementary campaign being waged by NATO allies.
In explaining this paradox, we do well to remember that the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus did not always see ISIS as its main enemy. During the Arab Spring movement, the existential threat to the Syrian Baathists was from popular demonstrations calling for democratic reform. At that time, Assad colluded with ISIS to polarize the Syrian population and create a binary choice between them. The Sunni opposition to Assad was progressively radicalized until it became politic and safe for Tehran, Damascus, and Hezbollah to brand them as ISIS or Al Qaeda and fight them.
Western efforts to curb Iranian aggression have been fitful over the years despite extreme provocation: the taking of US Embassy personnel as hostages in Tehran, the Rushdie fatwa, the killing of political opponents abroad, the Beirut bombing of 1983, harassment of international shipping, and Hezbollah’s campaign of terrorism overseas. Only when the US Treasury really turned up the heat after 2006, enforcing crippling sanctions in response to Iran’s quest to develop a nuclear weapon, was Iran forced to compromise and sign the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to address international concerns about its uranium enrichment program.
The problem was and remains that this response to the nuclear challenge (whether you consider the JCPOA a good or bad deal on enrichment) left unanswered Iranian tactical asymmetric warfare in the Middle East. But events starting with the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel leave no doubt that Iran’s construction of an array of proxy militias in the region has achieved strategic effect and significance. Hezbollah in Lebanon (and its extensive international network) is Iran’s longest-established and most reliable asset. But Sunni governments in the Middle East commented with increasing urgency after 2003 on how more and more Arab capitals were coming under threat from or even control by Iranian proxies.
The Houthi takeover of Sanaa and much of Yemen in 2014–15 was an important part of that development, and now we see the Houthis unsettling regional governments by ostensibly championing the Hamas cause in Gaza by threatening international shipping in the Red Sea. Baghdad has been governed by Iraqi Shia parties since Saddam was toppled, creating a constant challenge for Iraqi leaders to pursue national interests (which require balanced international relations and security support from the US) without being undermined by militias wedded to an Iranian agenda. Now, again since October 7, we see this challenge force US unilateral action to defend its forces against Iranian proxy attacks in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, which the extremists then exploit to escalate calls for US forces to leave. This campaign takes no account of actual Iraqi national interests or of the past failure of Iraqi forces to stand up to ISIS without international support.
So, Iran and its proxies boast of control or growing influence over four Arab capitals: Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad, and Sanaa. The objective is to weaken Saudi and Egyptian influence in the region and intimidate smaller countries like Bahrain, all with a view to marginalizing US influence. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Tehran has also formed an alliance with Moscow that has made clear its explicitly anti-West agenda while, incidentally, ending Israel’s previous efforts to maintain constructive relations with Russia and leaving it almost entirely dependent on the US for international support. This situation begs the question: Does the Iranian strategy run the risk of overreach as the conflicting agendas and ideologies of the parties engaged undermine the success of the Axis of Resistance?
Some of the risks are already manifest. When Iran asserted its right to interfere with shipping in the Indian Ocean, Tehran drew a sharp reaction from India, not a power it could afford to alienate, and was forced to back down. The Iranian association with Russia is also problematic because it is a reminder to NATO and the European Union, both of which were shocked into greater determination and unity of purpose by the invasion of Ukraine, that Iran is an enemy of Western interests and the Rules Based International System. Meanwhile, the limitations of relying on hot-headed militants with their own agendas are evident from watching Iran try to navigate successive crises created by the Houthis in the Red Sea and the Iraqi militias killing US service personnel in Jordan.
What we have seen from Iran has been tactical ducking and weaving—moving the Iranian spy ship, the Behshad, in and out of danger and having the Iraqi Kataib Hizballah announce that they were suspending attacks on US interests for a period. Meanwhile, since October, Lebanese Hezbollah has maintained a steady rate of cross-border attacks on northern Israel but appears to have calculated these to show support for Hamas without provoking a major Israeli escalation. In April, the Iran-Israel proxy conflict briefly escalated after Israel bombed Iranian diplomatic premises in Damascus, killing a number of significant IRGC officers. This was followed by direct confrontation, with Iran launching ineffectual strikes on Israel and Israel retaliating rather mildly.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion from this that neither Iran nor Hizballah is yet ready for a full-scale war with Israel, partly because the US has made clear that it will support Israel and has moved military assets to the region to underline that commitment. The latest risk of escalation originated in late July from a lethal Hezbollah strike in the Golan Heights, which was followed by Israel’s assassinations of senior Hezbollah figure Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Both Iran and Hezbollah have loudly threatened retaliation but have not carried out any notable operation as of late August. It is possible that this stand-off, proxy conflict between Iran and Israel can continue for some time without spiraling out of control, but each round of intensified hostilities is harder to de-escalate from than the last.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the Iranian proxy strategy, from Tehran’s strategic perspective, is that it muddies the clarity of the anti-Israel message that came into focus after October 7. While there are plenty of useful idiots in the West who are happy to march for Hamas and the Houthis simultaneously, this does not play well in the Islamic world. The “Arab street” can easily relate to the Palestinian cause, but poor Egyptians know well that the Houthis are their enemies and are sabotaging their economy by decimating Suez Canal revenues. Kurds in Iraq, Iraqi Sunnis, and other communities feel sympathy with Gaza but are appalled at the idea of having Iraq’s Western partners forced out, leaving them at the mercy of violent Shia chauvinists and, even worse, a potential resurgence of ISIS.
The challenge for the US is to hold its nerve and respond more forcefully but still proportionately to the Iranian challenge while reassuring its natural allies in the region (Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, etc.) that it is committed for the duration. It needs to reassert deterrence of Axis of Resistance aggression, especially by Hezbollah against Israel and by the Houthis against international shipping in the Red Sea. This may become easier to achieve after the US general election in November, regardless of its outcome. US adversaries try to second-guess America’s political direction, and both US political parties are influenced in their stances by the imperative of winning the election. A strategy by either potential administration may be easier to implement in 2025.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is determined to provide accurate analysis and sound advice during this turbulent period and will produce a series of papers on the Axis of Resistance. This adversary is not a superpower; it is a deeply dysfunctional, unpopular, and sclerotic clerical regime allied with various tribes of extremist thugs. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iraqi groups all have manifest weaknesses and only limited ability to support each other and Iran. The US and its allies have made a good start to facing them down, but more force will be needed, including direct force against the Iranian regime. Our research and related advice are intended to help inform and direct this inevitable campaign.
