“Death to America, death to Israel” emerged as a slogan of the 1978–1979 Islamic Revolution, then was transformed into a reason for existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Conventional and chemical weapons that pounded Iranian cities from Iraq during the latter nation’s US-supported war between 1980–1988 did not topple the Islamist regime. Nor have subsequent decades of ever-mounting sanctions or, more recently, the elimination of Iranian nuclear scientists and military commanders as well as its client Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and commanders by the US and Israel. Iran’s leadership, under second Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since 1989, seems thoroughly convinced that their revolutionary guide and first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was correct when he declared in 1979, during the Embassy Hostage Crisis, that: “America can’t do a damn thing against us.” Indeed, Tehran has positioned itself to take on the United States of America, Israel, and any Arab nations militarily from all corners of West Asia. Tehran will do so “cautiously and carefully” directly and also circuitously through its West Asian retainers.
Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has sought to become the major shaper of regional events and an important influencer of global affairs at the expense of the US. To accomplish those foreign policy goals, Iran is expanding control over other areas of West Asia not through direct invasion as its ancient Achaemenian and Sasanian empires did but by steadily transforming regimes and territorially-based groups into subject territories—client states and client semi-states—through violence, corruption, and influence. The violence is deployed largely through military factions that are reliant upon Tehran with the aim of controlling territory. The influence is spread through diplomatic, informational, and economic methods to create dependencies at state and local levels. In so doing, Tehran is taking de facto control over strategic locations on land and sea for cornering and reshaping the entire region. The conflicts, some of them preexisting, now-propelled by Tehran as part of its take-over quest will not be going away anytime soon, just getting worse, unless Washington coordinates a successful counter thrust.
Iran claims that its political and military involvements in neighboring countries and waterways are geared to “fight terrorism and help establish peace, stability, and lasting security.” To the contrary, by deftly aggravating regional sectarian politics and by undermining societies through persistent attacks, well-crafted propaganda, and illicit substances deployed via quasi-state organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, and Iraqi militias, and governments like that of Syria, the regime in Tehran is generating region-wide instability to secure its hegemonic goals. All the missiles, drones, landmines, bullets, and other munitions come from Iran. Tehran emphasizes that its “foreign policy course is stable and will remain so” irrespective of changes in leadership. Indeed, soon after winning the presidential election in July, Masoud Pezeshkian met with Supreme Leader Khamenei and thereafter announced that ties with regional dependencies are “unbreakable bonds.” Through those vassal states and groups, Iran’s leaders label as their political-military Axis of Resistance or Resistance Front, a ring of fire has been ignited against other West Asian nations who have not granted suzerainty to Iran’s fundamentalist leaders and against US bases, ships, and embassies. Consequently, if Iran’s aggressive expansion is not reversed, regional and global wellbeing will be negatively impacted for a long time.
Tehran’s Approach
Iran has established a territorial network of like-minded, aggressive, regional retainers—some are Shiites, others are Alawites and Sunnis—who are extensions of its own military and policies. They include liegemen like the Assad regime of Syria and quasi-state retainers including Popular Mobilization Force paramilitaries in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank/Palestinian Authority, and Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen. In each situation, these entities control strategic territories and shipping channels which serve as Tehran’s outposts or power projections. Expanding its pattern of carving out client states, Iran is drawing upon Shiite affiliations to radicalize coreligionist groups such as the Baharna in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia and the Nakhawila of the Red Sea coast or Hijaz who are politically, socially, and economically discriminated by Sunni elites and so have separatist aspirations.
Iran systematically exploits fissures within West Asian polities, using its influence and resources to purposefully exacerbate and reshape problems. Iran’s strategy has been a hybrid one. Its clients are dependent on Tehran for direction, finances, training, and weapons—such as provided to the Popular Mobilization Forces and to Islamic Jihad. Yet the Islamic Republic’s government attempts to mask agency by asserting that it “does not have proxies in the region, and no individual, group, or nation operates under Iran’s directive.” Tehran goes on to characterize them as “partner Resistance Groups” sharing common anti-Western, anti-Israel, and even anti-incumbent Sunni regime causes amongst themselves and with Iran. Doing so permits Tehran to maintain varying degrees of deniability, ensuring it does not directly enter into wars with the US, Britain, EU member nations, and neighboring Arab countries. Indeed Tehran, until recently has been avoiding direct confrontation with an estimated 45,000 US troops plus warships and aircraft in the region. Yet, it did shoot 12 missiles at the Ain al-Asad and Erbil airbases during January 2020 in retaliation for the elimination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad. Likewise, Tehran had been wary of taking on Jerusalem directly until recently. Then Tehran shifted its stance to display offensive capability after Israel blew up the Iranian Consulate in Damascus which served as a field headquarters for IRGC generals, killings two of them. Washington’s intervention was necessary to thwart Iran’s aerial offensive against Israel during April 2024, although at least 9 missiles caused minor damage at airbases. By establishing, directly and through its clients, a neo-empire of strategic land locations and chokehold nautical passages Iran is increasingly better prepared for what its leaders regard as a winnable multi-front war against the US, Israel, and Arab states who work with Washington and Jerusalem.
Iran-allied militia members are estimated to number from 180,000 to over 320,000 across West Asia, extending the might of its own IRGC and Atesh militaries which comprise approximately 527,000 troops. By comparison, the combined militaries of Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Kuwait stand at approximately 650,000. IRGC generals, strategists, and soldiers, including members of the Quds Force, are present to train, equip, and guide local combatants. Like satraps or governors summoned to a meeting with the king of kings at the royal court of the Persian Empire, each subject group’s leadership regularly consults in person with Khamenei and his representatives per “the basic strategy of the Islamic Republic.” The funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi in late May 2024 was utilized as an opportunity for face-to-face strategy sessions in Tehran between high-ranking IRGC and IRGC-Quds Force commanders and leaders of all the Resistance Groups. A similar gathering took place at the end of July—when Pezeshkian was sworn in as president, the regime’s foreign retainers including Hamas leaders came to pledge allegiance—and one of them, Ismail Haniyeh, lost his life in Tehran, for which Supreme Leader Khamenei who has vowed “harsh punishment” against Israel. Political elites from regions under pressure such as Iraqi Kurdistan attended the inauguration to curry favor. Upon taking office, President Pezeshkian spoke with Resistance Front liegemen to promise Iran’s continuing “support with firm determination.”
Regional Clients, Vassal States, and Battlegrounds
In Iraq, influence of the Islamic Republic began right after the US ousted Saddam Hussein in early 2003. By 2014, Iran had set up a Coordination Framework and spread its control via the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, also known as Popular Mobilization Units). Tehran-backed groups within the PMF now hold 101 of 285 seats on provincial councils. They have become firmly entrenched as a hybrid, semi-state entity, influencing budget allocation, civil service employment, and national security across Shiite and Sunni regions of Iraq—and now even expanding into Kurdistan—on behalf of Tehran. Those pro-Iran entities, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Badr Organization, Hezbollah Harakat al-Nujaba, Iman Ali Saraya (or Brigade), Islamic Resistance, Kataib Hezbollah, Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada, Saraya al-Khorasani, and Saraya al-Salam, command between 90,000-160,000 soldiers. These forces constantly launch deadly missile, drone, and other attacks against US interests not just within Iraq but in Syria and Jordan as well. Kataib Hezbollah and Muqawama al-Islamiat (Islamic Resistance) routinely target the American embassy in Baghdad, the Al-Harir military base at Erbil, and in early August injured U.S. personnel at the Ain al-Asad air base.
The attacks are producing a result that Tehran desires, pushing American troops out of Iraq. In addition to military pressure, Tehan is using its diplomatic and economic clout, directly and via the PMF, on the Iraqi government to oust the Americans. Increasingly unwelcome, Washington too seeks to gradually withdraw forces possibly eventually abandoning its Kurdish allies. Recently, the Iraqi Islamic Resistance has been coordinating with another of Tehran’s clients, the Houthis of Yemen, in directing almost daily launches of suicide drones and cruise missiles at airbases and ports such as Ovda, Ramon, Haifa, and Eilat and cities including Tel Aviv and Haifa in Israel. Moreover, in early July, Houthis set up a political-military office in Baghdad close to PMF headquarters and near the Green Zone. They have begun buttressing PMF efforts to unite southern Iraq’s tribal and religious leaders under Tehran’s sway. Control within Iraq also gives Tehran access to land bridges and porous borders across which ideology, disinformation, and disruption can be spread to the populations of Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s Islamist regime began deepening ties with the Syrian dictatorship during the 1980s. Tehran became the lifeline for Damascus when civil war broke out in March 2011. Iran now counts on the IRGC-supported Assad government’s armed Alawite military to share Syria’s naval, land, and air bases, collect intelligence about Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Jordanian activities, and to maintain cross-country access to those regions. Pro-Iranian groups such as Fatemiyoun Saraya, Zeynabiyoun Saraya, Liwa al-Baqir, Saraya al-Khorasani, and Quwat al-Ridha number between 18,000–20,000 troops. In addition to propping up the Alawite regime, they too facilitate the IRGC’s supply chains of weapons, funds, and personnel into Lebanon, Jordan, and the West Bank, and the smuggling of narcotics to undermine Sunni populations of Iraq, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Those supply chains even include underground tunnels, at least one of which ran for approximately 25 miles from Damascus to the Lebanon border, to hide activities from American and Israel surveillance. In these manners, Syria serves as a frontline dependency for Iran to destabilize other societies in West Asia. Israel, Kurds of Eastern Syria, Syrian Defense Forces constituted by Kurds, and the U.S.A. are constantly breaking up those nefarious supply chains. Jerusalem has become especially adept at eliminating IRGC and Syrian field commanders who guide Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian militias targeting Israel—including those based in the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Despite Israeli and American inflicted damage, however, Tehran shows no sign of pulling back efforts to maintain an anti-American vassal regime in Damascus and, via Syria, to target the societies of Washington’s allies and to harm U.S. troops.
Hezbollah counts 30,000–45,000 fighters who maintain the political-military party’s stranglehold over Lebanon’s politics, society, and economy. That Lebanese Shiite group has been beholden to Iranian commanders and politicians since 1982. Hezbollah administered territory—including neighborhoods in Beirut and southern and eastern Lebanon—serve as extensions of Iran. There, Hezbollah provides Tehran’s forces with access to military bases, including maritime ones, plus intelligence. Not surprisingly, Hezbollah-controlled regions of Lebanon—especially the border with Israel—are prime locations for Iran’s warfare and propaganda against the Jewish state. Attacks by Hezbollah display the rising presence of advanced Iranian technology; recently even heavy rockets have been fired at Israeli military posts. Concern is mounting within the US and Israel militaries that Iran-supplied precision missiles soon will be capable of overwhelming Iron Dome defenses. Additionally, Hezbollah serves as the direct conduit for Iranian munitions into Gaza. A range of Iran-provisioned Palestinian militias, such as Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are present in Lebanon too, making that fragile nation a major staging ground for Iran’s machinations within Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Killing of Hezbollah and IRGC leaders by Israel has made limited impact on the lethal and political consequences of Iran’s presence which includes accessing Mediterranean Sea routes to destabilize North Africa and Southern Europe.
Iran’s support of Sunni Palestinian militants is ideological, fiscal, tactical, and logistical. Hamas from 1987,and subsequently Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and over time smaller armed groups such as Abd al-Qadir al-Hosseini Brigades, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Lions’ Den, Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, Palestine Mujahideen Movement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Popular Resistance Committees, have come to depend on Iran to help pay, train, and equip some 30,000–45,000 soldiers. Not surprisingly, reports from the Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces and the IRGC indicate Tehran was involved in planning the October 2023 attack by Hamas which triggered the war in Gaza. Despite its hard-hitting response, the Israel Defense Forces have not been able to stem Iranian munitions from refueling Hamas to continue rocket fire into Israel’s cities and ground attacks against Israeli troops. Gaza, as a result, has become yet another territorial outpost of Iran from which missiles penetrate the Iron Dome. Its focus set on controlling the West Bank as well, Tehran is pushing via propaganda and militias, for an albeit corrupt and inefficient Palestinian Authority to “fall into utter disgrace (and) be dissolved.” Fearing this mounting challenge to their three-decade authority, Palestinian Authority officials accuse Tehran of “
