The moment is meant to be solemn, on this morning of December 2022 in Tehran. At his residence on the corner of Azerbaijan and Palestine streets, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gathered his top ministers, generals and Revolutionary Guard commanders. The Iranian head of state announces to them that he wants to put an end to the regional isolation in which the regime has been mired since 2018 and the end of the international nuclear agreement. The country is bloodless, inflation is exploding and Iranians took to the streets after the murder of Mahsa Amini during a police check, for a poorly worn veil. It is time to reconnect with other powers in the region, including Saudi Arabia. Three months later, in March 2023, an agreement was signed with Riyadh, under the aegis of China.
Khamenei’s appeasement strategy is taking shape, but his Hamas allies will change everything on October 7 of that same year: by carrying out their raid on Israel, massacring nearly 1,200 people and capturing more than 200 hostages, the terrorist organization Palestinian, armed and financed by Tehran but which seems to have acted without its approval, is causing an earthquake in the Middle East. Its shocks, and the Israeli response, are today sweeping away the allies of the mullahs’ regime in the region one by one. “Iran will never admit it but it is suffering serious strategic setbacks in a cascade, underlines Bilal Saab, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. Its objective was to connect all the battlefields on which it has influence to strike and outflank Israel, but the IDF managed to block this project thanks to its brute force.”
Hamas and Hezbollah, two key allies neutralized by Israel
After October 7, Iran mobilized for the first time the entirety of what it calls the “axis of Resistance”, which includes the Palestinian Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and its Shiite militias. in Syria and Iraq. Its goal: to weaken Israel by multiplying the combat fronts and potential threats. But the IDF responds to force with force, unleashing all its power on the Gaza Strip, with the almost unfailing support of the Americans. As a result, Hamas lost thousands of men and control over its enclave. All its leaders have been eliminated, its fighters are holed up in tunnels and are now carrying out guerrilla operations against the Israeli army. One less soldier for Iran.
The earthquake of October 7 then struck further north, in Lebanon, where Hezbollah was active. For eight months, the over-armed Shiite militia contented itself with a so-called “low-intensity” war, carrying out a few offensives along the Israeli border and firing rockets almost daily. In September, the Israeli establishment decided to get rid of this threat. The offensive in Lebanon is launched. In a few days, Hezbollah’s leadership – including its leader Hassan Nasrallah – was decapitated, its communications system put out of service by the simultaneous explosion of thousands of its fighters’ beepers. The rout is almost total.
At the end of November, the Shiite militia found itself forced to sign a ceasefire which placed it in a weak position, forcing it to withdraw from South Lebanon while remaining under the threat of Israeli bombings. Above all, the organization obtained nothing from its initial requests. “Until now, Hezbollah conditioned the cessation of fighting on the end of the Israeli offensive against Hamas, notes Bilal Saab. By accepting these terms of the ceasefire, which dissociate Lebanon and Gaza, Hezbollah literally abandons Hamas and any notion of strategic interdependence, at least for the moment.” Another Iranian defeat. “The Iran-Hezbollah axis is seriously damaged, underlines Israeli analyst Sarit Zehavi, of the Alma Research and Education Center. This weakening immediately reduces the threats weighing on Israel’s northern border and offers a breath of fresh air. oxygen to the Israeli defense strategy.”
Tehran has always considered Hezbollah its centerpiece, the jewel of its network of proxies in the Middle East. At the same time a military organization capable of equipping itself with 50,000 soldiers and 150,000 rockets, the militia can also block the Lebanese democratic process thanks to the central place of its political party in Parliament. The Israeli offensive is forcing it to review its entire Lebanese strategy. “Iran saw its ally being demolished by Israel and, like in a boxing match, it threw the towel to the ground before its fighter was completely destroyed,” said Bilal Saab. Israeli sources indicate that the IDF has neutralized 80 to 85% of Hezbollah’s military capabilities, sufficient according to them to eliminate this Lebanese threat for at least several years.
Assad, next domino to fall?
The tremors are now shaking the weakest of the group, the one who has stood at a safe distance from the fight since October 7: Bashar el-Assad, member of the Resistance Axis rendered powerless by the weakness of his own regime after thirteen years of civil war. The Syrian dictator owed his survival only to the combined interventions of Russia and Iran, supported by the men of Hezbollah. Moscow entangled in Ukraine, Hezbollah crushed by Israel, Damascus must rely on the Iranian regime alone to defend itself. Syrian rebel groups and jihadists took advantage of this at the end of November.
In three days, they seized Aleppo, the country’s second city, and Hama, the fourth, this Thursday. The Syrian regime seems in disarray and can only count on the imminent arrival of Iraqi Shiite militias, loyal to Tehran. Assad’s soldiers, underpaid, flee from the rebels, who are advancing at full speed towards Damascus. A disaster scenario for the Iranians. “Iran has invested in Syria’s military infrastructure, including in the manufacture of sophisticated weapons that were used by Hezbollah, explains Sarit Zehavi. The advance of rebel factions threatens this infrastructure and Hezbollah’s weapons networks, which seriously undermines Iran’s regional ambitions.”
In 2011, the Iranian regime saw in the Syrian civil war a golden opportunity to amplify its regional influence, by keeping Bashar al-Assad at arm’s length. Moreover, it was Tehran which requested military intervention from Moscow in 2015, when the Syrian regime was on the verge of falling. Since then, the two powers, Iran and Russia, have shared contracts and control of large areas in Syria. “But if Russia has obvious strategic importance for the Syrian regime, Iran is absolutely essential to its survival, explains Syrian analyst Haid Haid of Chatham House. Assad relies on pro-Iran militias to secure “huge territories, it depends financially on Iran to keep its economy afloat and its regime only survives thanks to the oil sent each month by Tehran.” Expenditures by the Iranian state which amount to billions of dollars over several years and which are being criticized today during the demonstrations.
The dangers of a “new” Middle East
But a central question arises today: does Iran have the military means to keep the Assad regime alive? Without Hezbollah and with the defense of its own territory to be ensured since the Israeli strikes on October 26 on its soil, the Tehran regime leaves doubts lingering, while the rebels advance. Defending Bashar al-Assad could ultimately prove too costly for an Islamic Republic soon to face the return of Donald Trump and his policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran.
For years, Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated that his objective is to create a “new Middle East”, in which Israel would be at peace with its Arab neighbors and Iran would become a hidden threat. October 7 triggered these major maneuvers and accelerated History, by force. The Israeli Prime Minister intends to go even faster and further with the return of his ally Trump to the White House on January 20.
But if this weakening of the Iranian axis serves Israel’s interests in the short term, it raises a major problem: no one is capable of controlling the extent and force of the ongoing earthquake in Syria. “The increased fragmentation of the country could see non-state groups seize sophisticated weapons, with all the associated dangers,” warns Sarit Zehavi. “Which will require commitment and strong measures in return.” A “new Middle East” ultimately just as perilous as the old one.
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