Only a few years ago, Iran and its allies were at their height of power and influence.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen were a small but formidable militia, stymying international shipping in the Red Sea. In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad was finding his way back to the Arab fold after years of isolation.
And Iran itself, despite being battered by years of sanctions, was proving its value as an ally to Russia, supporting the Kremlin in its war with Ukraine.
Fast forward, and those allies and proxy militias are nowhere to be found. Iran is the most isolated it has been since the early years of the Islamic Republic, its theocracy on its own as it confronts among the most severe threat to its rule in decades with attacks by Israel and now the US.
While its Arab neighbours and allies like Russia and China were quick to condemn Israel’s attacks on Iran, they have stopped short of offering any concrete support. Iran no longer has an ally in Syria since the ouster of the Assad regime.
And its network of militias is battered after a year and a half of war with Israel. Hezbollah has not launched a single attack on Israel since its latest bombardment of Iran began. After the US attacked Iran, the Houthis said they were poised to resume attacks on the Red Sea, but it is not clear they can provide substantial support for Iran.
“What we’re witnessing now across the region is nothing short of the collapse of Iran’s decades-long strategy and ability to project influence,” said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute based in Washington.
That defence doctrine had guided the Islamic Republic since the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979 and the subsequent invasion of Iran by neighbouring Iraq, which set off an eight-year war. Iranian leaders came away from that conflict determined to never again be isolated in the face of foes or aggressors, experts say.
In the decades that followed, Iran invested billions of dollars, tens of thousands of weapons and its best military minds into building up a web of proxy militias that could allow it to project power and influence across West Asia while keeping conflict away from Iranian soil.
Those groups — including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and militias in Iraq — provided Iran with allies on or near Israel’s border that could be a deterrent against Israeli attacks on Iran and carry out attacks on Israel.
By around 2020, Iran was
at its height of projecting power and influence through its proxies.
Iran’s alliances with key players like Russia and China were the deepest they had ever been, and the Kremlin was investing more in the country than ever before. Backed by that support, Iran managed to cement its status in a region where it is otherwise an outsider. Iran is predominantly Persian-speaking and overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim; elsewhere, most people speak Arabic and are Sunni Muslims.
But in the years since, a series of missteps and miscalculations set in motion the demise of Iran’s network of power, experts say. A US drone strike in 2020 killed Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Qassem Soleimani, who managed Iran’s proxy forces. Those forces never fully recovered from his loss.
And since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, the network has been battered. Hamas, which long governed in Gaza, has lost thousands of fighters. In Lebanon, Israel wiped out Hezbollah’s top leaders, destroyed much of its arsenal and damaged its political sway in the country.
Even as its proxies were being degraded, Iran appeared reluctant to entangle itself
in any direct confrontation with Israel to support those groups. That decision cost Iran its credibility.
New York Times News Service