Iran and the collapsing axis

Iran faces big decisions after Israel targeted Axis of Resistance allies’ leading figures, fighters and resources

(Written by Daniel Williams. Published here in Asia Times, republished with permission.)

From 1979, when Shiite Muslim clerics took power in Iran, the government and its security apparatus built up armed militias in the Middle East that became a mainstay of Tehran’s anti-Israel coalition known as the Axis of Resistance.

In the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, the alliance has come under intense threat. Israel retaliated not only against Hamas, in the now-devastated Gaza Strip, but also against Hezbollah, in Lebanon, which took up the Palestinian cause by launching missiles into Israel the next day, October 8, 2023.

After months of tit-for-tat aerial exchanges, the Israelis stepped up their bombardments of southern Lebanon and Beirut. It has moved three divisions of soldiers to the frontier in preparation for a ground offensive.

Houthi rebels in Yemen, a relative newcomer to the Axis, harassed commercial shipping in the Red Sea in support of Hamas. In response, Israel, the US and the UK have launched drone and rockets attacks at Houthi military targets.

Iran itself entered the fray in April 2024, two weeks after Israel killed, via missile strike, an Iranian Military Guard Commander who was visiting Damascus. After months trying to stay on the sidelines, Iran tried to strike back by launching about 300 ineffective missiles into Israel.

But more was to come. On October 1, 2024, Iran hit Israel with 180 rockets in response to the July assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top leader while he was visiting, and of Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, killed in late September by a barrage of Israeli missiles fired into Beirut. Both were struck down by missiles sent from afar.

A hesitant Iran feared that it had to answer both attacks, observers said. Otherwise, there was a risk allies would stop metaphorically spinning around the axis.

“Simply put, Iran may have calculated that failing to respond would eventually lead its allied militias to question their loyalty and commitment, especially if they perceived that Tehran was unwilling to take the same risks they were,” wrote Arman Mahmoudian, a global security researcher and Middle East expert at the University of South Florida.

Nicole Grajewski, a researcher at Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program,  concurred: “Restraint threatened to erode Iran’s credibility among its allies.”

Concerns over losing its regional alliances also prompted Iran to consider a further deterrent option in case Israeli strikes continue, as they likely will: complete development of its nuclear arms program. “Iran may increasingly view its nuclear potential as a critical component of its broader security strategy,” Grajewski said.

Iran’s security architecture has relied on sub-nuclear tools. One was the capability of projecting military power beyond its borders through allied proxies – especially Hezbollah but also Hamas and the Houthis, along with guerrillas in Iraq (to raid US forces) and in Syria.

In military terms, this array of allies provided Iran with “forward defense” that allowed it to confront Israel without directly engaging with its own forces.

The other sub-nuclear tool was the threat to Israel posed by Iran’s conventionally armed missile and drone arsenal that could reach deep inside Israel.

The deterrence breakdown alarmed the Iranian government and outraged domestic critics.

In an apparent effort to calm fears of all-out war after the recent strike on Israel, the government announced it had no plan to send Iranian ground forces to help either Hamas or Hezbollah. “There is no need to send extra or volunteer forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Nasser Kanaani, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kanaani said. Both allies “have the capability and strength to defend themselves against the aggression.”

Unleashing the Iranian air arsenal may have been delayed by advice from Washington. American press reports said Biden had advised Iran to take a measured response to Israel’s attacks. The US president and French President Michel Macron had devised a two-week ceasefire plan that was supposed to defuse the war in Lebanon.

Netanyahu rejected the proposal, prompting outraged critics to criticize President Masoud Pezeshkian for betraying allies in the name of currying favor with the West.

“Iran’s delay in responding to the assassination of martyr Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, while the world was waiting for Iran’s response, made the Zionist regime dare to assassinate Sayed Hassan Nasrallah as well,” conservative politician Ali Motahari wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “We were tricked by America, which repeatedly sent messages saying that we will establish a ceasefire.”

The government is under fire for ostensibly prioritizing renewed nuclear weapons diplomacy with the US over care for the well-being of Iran’s allies. Israel’s assassination of Haniyeh took place while he was visiting Tehran for the inauguration of Pezeshkian, who was elected in July.

The Iranian government also seems intent on presenting itself as an innocent bystander in Middle Eastern turmoil. In a letter to the United Nations, Iran’s diplomatic envoys in New York  described their country’s retaliation as a “legal, rational, and legitimate response” to Israel’s “terrorist acts.” However, the note added that, if Israel should strike back, “a subsequent and crushing response will ensue.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unmoved by any sign of moderation or threats from Iran. More attacks are on the way, he indicated. “Iran made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it,” he said in a video message the day after Iran’s October 1 attack. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies. They will understand.”

Possible targets include Iran’s oil industry and its nuclear facilities, which are key to Tehran’s potential development of atomic weaponry.

Attacks on both would present political problems of for Biden. Last weekend he said that communications between Israel and the US about military targeting had taken place. Biden said he had discussed whether crippling oil production was in order, but he waffled on where he came out on the question. In response to a reporter’s question, he said, “I think that would be a little … Anyway.”

The nuclear issue also presents a quandary. Biden inherited the frustration of President Barack Obama, whose nuclear control deal with Iran was canceled by Obama’s successor Donald Trump. It would be difficult in the American election season for Biden, who has blamed Iran for Middle Eastern turmoil, to now inhibit Israel from keeping atomic bombs out of Iranian hands.

Instead, Biden shuffled talk of hitting nuclear facilities to anonymous spokesmen. Officials who spoke beneath a cloak of anonymity said Biden advised Netanyahu to take a “measured approach” short of destroying nuclear facilities.

Trump, who is running to replace Biden in the November 5 election, seized on Biden’s hesitation as a sign of weakness. Iran’s nuclear facilities should be a target, he said on Sunday “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?” Trump said. “Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, who was chosen by Biden’s Democratic Party to replace him in the vote, also addressed the issue during a television interview that aired Sunday. “What we need to do is to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power,” she said. “That is one of my highest priorities.”

She didn’t indicate what the US – or Israel – should do about it. “I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals at this moment,” she said.