Cracks Are Showing in Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ Strategy

Militants attended the funeral of fellow Hezbollah members in Beirut in July. Manu Brabo for The Wall Street Journal

Cracks Are Showing in Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ Strategy

WSJ-Aug19th2024

Iran projects power through a web of allied militias that it influences with money and weapons. But as the region sits on the brink of a wider conflict, the degree to which it can rely on its partners will be tested as never before.

Isolated and subject to international sanctions, Iran has aimed to exert influence by building up a coalition of militias ideologically aligned with Tehran’s anti-Western agenda and designing low-cost missiles and drones to make up for its limited air defenses. These allied militias fight directly against Israel, the U.S. and other Western interests, allowing Iran to avoid direct responsibility that would encourage a response targeting its own soil.

But cracks are now beginning to show in the strategy.

Iran blamed an attack that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Israel, and its vow to retaliate has put the entire region on edge. It marked the second time this year that Israel attacked Iran directly—Israel targeted an air-defense system near a key Iranian nuclear facility in Isfahan after Iran sent more than 300 missiles and drones into Israel in mid-April.

Now, as Iran weighs how it responds to Haniyeh’s killing, it needs to figure out how to hit Israel enough to establish deterrence without encouraging a reprisal on Iranian soil. The varied interests of various allied militias—including those in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen—could complicate things.

“Iran’s doctrine is premised on pushing insecurity away from its borders, aiming for violence to remain contained, bleeding out its adversaries but avoiding all-out war,” says Thomas Juneau, an Iran-focused professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.

An attack on Iran proper could cause significant damage, as Tehran has struggled to demonstrate its defenses can respond to a break into its airspace.

In January, after Tehran struck jihadist targets in Pakistan, Islamabad responded with an airstrike of its own on Iran’s border areas. Then came Israel’s attack on Isfahan in April.