Tehran, Iran – For decades, authorities in Iran have meticulously built an “axis of resistance” of like-minded factions to oppose Israel and the United States across the region.
The alliance includes armed units and government actors in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen as well as Palestinian groups.
With the Overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in SyriaTehran not only lost a four-decade-long alliance with the ruling family in Damascus, but also important lifelines for the Axis.
Amid claims that the Axis has collapsed, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week that such views were “ignorant” and wrong.
The range of resistance, such as the axis, would “encompass the entire region,” he said no hardware that can be destroyedRather, it is faith and commitment that will only grow stronger under pressure and will succeed in driving the US out of the region.
Expelling the US, particularly from neighboring Iraq, remains a key goal for Tehran to avenge the January 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and the Axis’ main architect.
Cut off access to Hezbollah
With Iran’s help beginning in the early 1980s, Hezbollah emerged as a major political force in Lebanon, with armed forces stronger than the country’s traditional army. The group has taken significant hits from Israel over the past year, including the assassination of its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and senior commanders.
The message from Tehran stressed that “Hezbollah is alive despite the Israeli attack,” with Khamenei citing resistance from Lebanese and Palestinian forces means “defeat” for Israel.
It is currently undeniable that Tehran has lost a strategic ally in Syria, and this will impact its regional influence in the short term, according to Tehran-based researcher and author Ali Akbar Dareini.
“The greatest damage to Iran’s security interests is the severance of ground communications with Lebanon. “The Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut axis has made it easy for Iran to gain access to Hezbollah,” he told Al Jazeera.
“The collapse of the Assad government poses significant challenges to the prospects of rebuilding and re-equipping the resistance network, particularly Hezbollah,” Dareini said, adding that despite a so far shaky ceasefire, Israel will now be even more emboldened to support the Lebanese Attack group amid numerous violations.
Israel has also taken advantage of the fall of al-Assad to advance deep into Syria. occupy large areas of land in the south and launched hundreds of airstrikes across the country.
In a second speech on Tuesday, Khamenei stressed that “the Zionist regime believes it is preparing through Syria to encircle and uproot Hezbollah forces, but the one who will be uprooted is Israel.”
While Iran has said it wants to maintain relations with Syria and the new governing group Distance from Israel Ahmed al-Sharaa, commander in chief of the new government, said Syria was tired of war and did not want to make Israel an enemy.
Hossein Salami, commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said this week that it was “unbearable” that Israeli soldiers were now just a few kilometers from Damascus, but added: “They will be buried in Syria in the future.” .
More strikes on Axis members
An emboldened Israel struck again against the Houthis in Yemen on Wednesday evening, launching attacks on Yemeni infrastructure For the third time since July, nine people were killed and an oil facility, ships at a major port and power plants were hit.
Israeli media also report that Israeli military and intelligence services may be pursuing them Decades-old policy of assassinating leaders in Yemen to destabilize the group.
According to the Israel Hayom newspaper, they are targeting Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, as well as senior Yemeni military officials and a senior Iranian commander who coordinates the IRGC’s Quds Force efforts in the country.
In addition to attacks on shipping lanes near its waters in avowed protest against Israel’s war on Gaza, the Yemeni group has continued to carry out attacks on Israel.
The Houthis announced on Thursday that they had fired two ballistic missiles Toward military targets in Israel, which appear to have been at least partially intercepted, with shrapnel hitting and damaging a school without causing casualties.
The Houthis landed another ballistic missile in Tel Aviv on Saturday, injuring 16 people and leaving a crater in a public park. It was filmed that two interceptor missiles failed to shoot down the missile. The group’s military spokesman promised more attacks.
In Iraq, the U.S. is demanding that Baghdad dismantle Iran-aligned armed groups in the country, according to Ibrahim Al-Sumaidaie, a top adviser to the prime minister, who said in a television interview on Wednesday that Washington had threatened military force if the Iraqi Government should be attacked disagrees.
Many of the majority Shiite armed groups allied with Iran are now part of the official Iraqi security forces.
The United States has been Israel’s loyal ally throughout the war on Gaza and other actions in the Middle East.
“Resistance without an axis”
The axis can no longer function as a coherent network of states and militias stretching from Iran to the Levant, said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle Eastern studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
“It has lost its anchors in the Levant. Although it is still present in Iraq and Yemen, it will no longer play the same strategic role as before,” he told Al Jazeera.
“If it is to be relevant again, it must be in a different form and then depend on how the situation in the Levant develops.”
The Axis, which helped Iran become a regional powerhouse, won some of the most heralded victories during the Syrian civil war – when, with the help of Russia, it kept al-Assad in power and ISIL (ISIS) and other armed groups pushed back.
According to Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting scholar at the German Institute for International Politics and Security, the Iran-led axis was built on three main pillars that were changed by the fall of al-Assad.
The first was a geographical link between key members, complemented by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and extended to the Mediterranean the Houthis in Yemen He explained that he was holding the southern flank.
The second option was close coordination and unity between members, with a principle that meant that a threat to one Axis member was seen as a threat to all, triggering a collective response.
“The third pillar was its ideological foundation: the idea of resistance. This ideology, characterized by strong anti-American and anti-Israel sentiments, served as the central unifying idea behind the Axis,” he told Al Jazeera.
Azizi said the first two pillars were now severely damaged if not destroyed, but the third was still there and may have been strengthened in some aspects.
“This evolving situation could be described as ‘resistance without an axis’. “What we are seeing is that Iran is trying to strengthen the first line of its forward defense in Iraq and Yemen, while the rest of the axis is operating with significantly reduced capacity and far less coordination than in the past.”
