Is Iran closer to its endgame of weakening the West?

Hezbollah fighters carry the coffin of a comrade killed by Israeli shelling in Lebanon in October. The Lebanese militants are part of a so-called Axis of Resistance supported by Iran. AP

Looking at the latest phases of the Middle East in crisis, an astonishing sequence of events has erupted along Iran’s axis of proxies and allies.

Tehran has until now operated a variation of the Goldilocks approach to its networks. The operation of convenient alliances has allowed for just enough tension to contain any given showdown from spilling over into all-out or unlimited confrontation.

By sticking to recognisable lines, Iran’s networks have maintained a kind of equilibrium. European officials have been able to work with the constituent parts, and by extension, so has America. In the current crisis, as grave as it is, there has not yet been a departure from the known rules.

Over decades in a situation of near-international isolation, Iran has engineered countervailing leverage against western pressure. The current events, not least in the Red Sea, are a working demonstration of this reality.

Iran-aligned Houthi fighters enter the bridge of the Galaxy Leader, a cargo vessel seized in the Red Sea on November 19. Reuters

As the focus shifts to stopping the spreading conflict in the Middle East, Iran is presented with another opportunity to solidify its worldwide alliance of hardliners. Tehran, it seems, is not seeking direct confrontation but works to ensure that it gains and the US-backed side loses.

The term “Axis of Resistance” is poorly understood, yet it is one of the most important factors in the global security equation today. It is not simply about the survival of the Iranian leadership, though that is paramount, but the rise of a bloc that can defy the West.

Since the emergence of the regime following the exile of the Shah in 1979, the Iranian leadership has nurtured a global vision of anti-western hegemony that is more practical than commonly appreciated. Resistance may be a clunky word, but its meaning is clear.

The word Axis is, wrongly, not taken very seriously either. For example, on a regional level, Iran is often said to back but not control its affiliates. On a global level, not many treat the relationship between Venezuela and Iran as meaningful. But they should when Caracas uses the current situation to threaten to annex Essequibo state from neighbouring Guyana.

When figures such as the late journalist John Pilger propagate a worldview that is all about the conniving and insidious evil of US global power, there is little thought as to how it plays along with the Tehran mindset.

Yet there is a shared agenda that is constantly seeking to expand its own spheres and diminish those of the West. It is about bringing down western powers, and it is not only driven by Tehran’s pragmatic interests but by the deep and shared belief that the day of triumph will come.

The term 'Axis of Resistance' is poorly understood, yet it is one of the most important factors in the global security equation today

Iran has been successful in developing an agenda that perfectly synchronises with the emergence of a new Cold War. Its alliance with Moscow to supply Shahed drones to the Ukraine offensive is a manifestation of the Tehran playbook.

Looked at objectively, there is no guarantee that Iran can play a local or global role of the type it has established. Its diminishing resources are eaten up by its security agenda. In a report in April, the Emirates Policy Centre pointed out that Iran’s military was allocated 21 per cent of the country’s New Year budget.

While noting that the published budgetary figure was only a tiny piece of the puzzle, it also drew attention to the fact that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, one of five entities alongside the Ministry of Defence, was taking almost one third of the allocation. The IRGC is the operational hub of the Axis and, thus, a vital plank of Tehran’s global strategy.

Given the shrunken size of the Iranian economy due to sanctions and the moribund nature of its oil sector, it is perhaps more significant to note that the military economy may represent one third of Iran’s economic activity.

No one who has visited Tehran can be in any doubt of the visible importance of the Palestinian issue in the country. Apart from anything else, giant posters hang at every strategic location.

A report from the European Council on Foreign Relations noted last week that the first foreign leader to visit the Iranian regime after it took control of the country was Yasser Arafat. But as the Palestine Liberation Organisation sought constitutional politics and entered rounds of negotiation with Israel, the Iranians shifted focus to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Even then there has been a “push me, pull you” nature to those relationships. Islamic Jihad was frozen out of Iranian funds for a time when, in 2014, it refused to back the rise of the Houthi faction in Yemen. Meanwhile, Hamas’s positions on Syria at the outset of its civil war, as well as its 2017 revisions to its charter on the Palestinian consensus, were both too much for Tehran to swallow.

Behind the ideological ambitions, the long interests of operating an Axis mean that Iran treats its network as a franchise. As with a large commercial chain, having visibility and making an impact locally is the most important principle.

That means that local management asserts its interests and makes its own choices. As long as the general direction is broadly intact, the entire Axis functions as planned.

As pressure points have spread around the Middle East, there is no doubt that Iran’s focus on weakening the West is paramount. In 2024, it looks like it will view its capacity for achieving this endgame as having been boosted, not only over the past three months but in recent years.