The Iranian-led axis of resistance in the wake of upheaval in Syria | Israeli-Palestinian conflict News

Tehran, Iran – For decades, Iranian authorities have meticulously built an “axis of resistance” of like-minded factions to oppose Israel and the United States throughout the region.

The alliance includes armed entities and government actors in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, as well as Palestinian groups.

With the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Tehran lost not only a four-decade alliance with the ruling family in Damascus, but also major lifelines.

Amid claims that the axis has collapsed, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week claimed such views were “ignorant” and false.

The extent of resistance, he said, would “encompass the entire region,” because the axis is not material that can be destroyed, but rather a faith and commitment that only grows stronger under pressure and who will succeed in expelling the United States from the region.

Expelling the United States, particularly from neighboring Iraq, remains one of Tehran’s main goals in avenging the January 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and one of the main architects of the axis.

Cutting off access to Hezbollah

With the help of Iran from the early 1980s, Hezbollah became a major political force in Lebanon, with a military force stronger than the country’s traditional army. The group has suffered considerable blows at the hands of Israel over the past year, including the assassination of its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and its top commanders.

The message from Tehran emphasizes that “Hezbollah is alive” despite the Israeli assault, with Khamenei saying that resistance from Lebanese and Palestinian forces means “defeat” for Israel.

For now, it is undeniable that Tehran has lost a strategic ally in Syria and that this will impact its regional influence in the short term, according to Tehran-based researcher and author Ali Akbar Dareini.

“The most significant damage to Iran’s security interests is the severance of land links with Lebanon. The Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut axis has facilitated Iran’s access to Hezbollah,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The collapse of the Assad government significantly calls into question the prospects for rebuilding and re-equipping the resistance network, particularly Hezbollah,” Dareini said, adding that Israel will now be even more emboldened to attack the Lebanese group despite a ceasefire. -the precarious fire which has held until now. amid numerous violations.

Israel also took advantage of Al-Assad’s fall to move deep into Syria, occupying large swaths of territory in the south while launching hundreds of airstrikes across the country.

In a second speech on Tuesday, Khamenei stressed that “the Zionist regime believes that it is preparing through Syria to encircle Hezbollah forces and uproot them, but the one who will be uprooted is Israel.”

While Iran has said it wants to maintain relations with Syria and that the new ruling group’s distance from Israel will be a major deciding factor, Ahmed al-Sharaa, commander in chief of the new administration, says that Syria is tired of wars and does not do it. I do not wish 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 only a few kilometers from Damascus, but added that “they will be buried in Syria” in the future. .

New blows against members of the Axis

An emboldened Israel hit Yemen’s Houthis again, launching strikes on Yemeni infrastructure Wednesday night for the third time since July, killing nine people and hitting an oil facility, ships at a major port and power plants.

Israeli media also report that the Israeli military and intelligence services may continue their decades-old policy of assassinating leaders in Yemen in order to destabilize the group.

They have set their sights on 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, according to the Israel Hayom newspaper.

In addition to attacks on shipping lanes near its waters in open protest against Israel’s war on Gaza, the Yemeni group has continued its attacks on Israel.

The Houthis announced Thursday that they had fired two ballistic missiles at military targets in Israel, which appeared to have been at least partially intercepted, with shrapnel landing on a school and damaging it without causing casualties.

The Houthis launched another ballistic missile in Tel Aviv on Saturday, injuring 16 people and leaving a crater in a public park. Two interceptor missiles were filmed failing to bring down the missile, with the group’s military spokesman promising further attacks.

In Iraq, the United States has asked Baghdad to 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 threatened to use the army if the Iraqi government did not adhere.

Many predominantly Shiite armed groups aligned with Iran are now part of Iraq’s official security forces.

The United States has been a staunch ally of Israel throughout its war on Gaza and other actions in the Middle East.

“Resistance without axis”

The Axis can no longer function as a cohesive network of states and militias stretching from Iran to the Levant, said Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the School in Advanced International Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

“It has lost its roots in the Levant. Even if it is still present in Iraq and Yemen, it will not play the same strategic role that it had until now,” he told Al Jazeera.

“For it to become relevant again, it will have to be in a different form and then depending on the evolution of the situation in the Levant.”

The axis, which has contributed to Iran’s goal of becoming a regional power, scored some of its most vaunted victories during the Syrian civil war – when it kept al-Assad in power with help of Russia and repelled ISIL (ISIS) and other armed groups. .

The Iranian-led axis rests on three main pillars that were changed by al-Assad’s fall, according to Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The first was a geographic connection between key members, which was complemented and extended to the Mediterranean by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, with Yemen’s Houthis occupying the southern flank, he explained.

The second was close coordination and unity among members, with a principle that a threat to one axis member was considered a threat to all, triggering a collective response.

“The third pillar was its ideological foundation: the very notion of resistance. This ideology, characterized by strong anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments, served as the central unifying idea behind the axis,” he told Al Jazeera.

Azizi said the first two pillars are now badly damaged or even destroyed, but the third remains and may have been strengthened in some ways.

“This evolving situation could be described as ‘resistance without an axis’. What we are observing is that Iran is attempting to reinforce the first line of its forward defense in Iraq and Yemen, while the rest of the axis operates at a significantly reduced capacity and with much less coordination than by the past.