(The Conversation) – Recent revelations that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the US have held secret talks as a way of resolving months of attacks by Tehran-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea have raised eyebrows. Surely the two countries have been implacable foes for decades? How could they be engaged in constructive negotiations?

On first glance this seems unlikely. Since its establishment following the 1979 revolution in Iran, the ideology of the Islamic Republic established in its wake has played heavily on anti-imperialism and the rejection of what is seen as “US hegemony”.

Tehran has tended to divide the international system in terms of what it sees as the “oppressed” and the “oppressors” with the US as the chief oppressor and the Islamic Republic the defender of the oppressed.

These ideas were an important part of political culture and debates among many Iranians before 1979 in response to what many people felt had been excessive foreign interference. Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s first supreme leader, co-opted these ideas.

In practical terms, this meant a rejection of the Carter administration’s close involvement in Iranian affairs, despite human rights abuses under the Shah of Iran.

The desire to reject US influence was perhaps evident in the takeover of the US embassy in 1979 and the subsequent hostage crisis. With the Iran-Iraq War which broke out after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, defence against the US also became an integral part of the Islamic Republic’s ideology because it was perceived that Iraq had US support.

But to view the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the US simply in terms of Khomeini’s ideology – or without appreciating different approaches from within the Islamic Republic over the years – provides an inaccurate picture. Historically, pragmatism and dialogue have also played an important role.

Mohammad Khatami, who was elected president of Iran in 1997, was pragmatic, and considered dialogue integral to the Islamic Republic’s ideology. He sought to bring Iran out of the isolation from the international system that had been characteristic since the 1979 Revolution.

Hindustan Times video: “Iran-U.S. ‘Secret Talks’ Near Houthi Territory | Biden Pleading Tehran For Help In Red Sea? | ”

Khatami’s Dialogue Among Civilisations speech to the United Nations in 1998 drew on intellectual debates about the aims of the Islamic Revolution and reforming the Islamic Republic. His speech recommended designating 2001 as the year of dialogue among civilizations, a proposal that was unanimously adopted by a vote of the UN general assembly.

In 1998, Khatami addressed the American people on CNN, as a part of this dialogue. He drew parallels between the American war of independence and Iran’s search for a national identity, declaring: “We feel that what we seek is what the founders of the American civilisation were also pursuing four centuries ago. This is why we sense an intellectual affinity with the essence of the American civilisation.”

In 2001, Khatami condemned the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Under his direction, Iran also signed a secret deal to provide assistance to US forces in their campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan that year.

‘Axis of Evil’

But a combination of factors, including being labelled as a key member of George W Bush’s “axis of evil”, contributed to more strained relations with Washington under Khatami’s successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Considered by many as a populist leader, Ahmadinejad’s policy towards the US (and Israel) was aggressive, ideological, and less pragmatic. With a dramatic rise in human rights abuses under Ahmadinejad, western concerns centred on Iran’s uranium enrichment activities and Bush’s “war on terror” rhetoric prompted a steady deterioration in the Islamic Republic’s relations with the US.

After Barack Obama took office as US president in 2009, reports of fraud in the Iranian presidential election of that year brought Iranians in big cites on to the streets. Obama condemned what he called the “unjust” violence against protesters. Meanwhile EU, UN and US sanctions hardened as a response to Iran’s developing nuclear programme.

Nuclear deal

At this stage Iran’s political establishment could see the need to restore the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy both with the Iranian people and internationally. The election of Hassan Rouhani as president in 2013 went some way to resolving both of these issues.

In contrast to Ahmadinejad, Rouhani promoted a policy of “constructive engagement”. A series of secret meetings between the Obama and Rouhani administrations contributed to the signing of the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) – the Iran nuclear deal – in July 2015. This restricted Iran’s nuclear programme in return for a promised easing of sanctions.

The JCPOA was just one sign of this pragmatism between Tehran and Washington. The US and the Islamic Republic also cooperated in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS). The removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 with the subsequent de-Ba’athification policy created a security vacuum in Iraq which allowed IS to grow.

Despite different priorities and their ongoing rivalry, the Islamic Republic and the US needed to cooperate against what each saw as the greater enemy. This sort of backchannel communication was seen again recently when the US secretly warned Tehran it had intelligence of a planned IS attack in Iran in January.

Ultimately, the Islamic Republic’s priority is its own survival. This is all the more pertinent following the massive “woman, life, freedom” protests.

The death in custody in September 2022 of the Kurdish-Iranian woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, for what the Islamic Republic’s morality police said was improper wearing of her hijab, sparked the largest protests since the 1979 revolution drawing horrific violence from authorities. An upshot was that many ordinary Iranians questioned the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

Given this crisis of legitimacy at home, it makes sense for the Islamic Republic to balance its ideological fervour with a degree of pragmatism in its relations with the outside world. Hence the indirect secret talks with the US – conducted with an Omani diplomat as the go-between – over the Red Sea attacks.

If pressure applied by the Islamic Republic and Washington on the Houthis and Israel respectively can bear fruit in some way, both sides increase their chances of coming out with a political win when they most need it.

Shabnam Holliday, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Plymouth

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On Saturday, the US and Britain had flown a fourth round of bombings, directed at 18 Houthi military targets. The BBC says that they were directed at “storage facilities, drones, air defence systems, radars and a helicopter of the militant movement.”

A Houthi government spokesman downplayed the impact of the bombings and asserted that there was nothing the US could do about the movement’s Red Sea attacks.

If the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force commanders really think that a few bombing raids can knock out the Houthi capabilities, they haven’t been paying attention. The Saudis, the UAE and other members of a coalition bombed Yemen intensively from 2015 until 2021, as Sarah G. Phillips pointed out. At the end of the war the Houthis were still in control of 80% of the Yemeni population of some 33 million, who live on about a third of the land area of the country. They have certainly hidden away most of their munitions, having had to operate under aerial bombardment for almost a decade, and the targets being hit by the US and the UK are likely inconsequential.

Nationalist troops of the internationally recognized government of President Rashad al-Alimi have contained the Houthi forces to the south and the east but were never able to push them out of the most populous regions of the country in the north. I recently published a paper on how the United Arab Emirates worked with southern secessionists to establish control of the littoral of the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but that is a thin sliver of southern territory.

[By the way, broadcast journalists, Houthi is pronounced like “who the” in English — Arabic has a “th” sound. I don’t know why the Americans keep saying Hootie.]

Reuters reports that about $1 trillion of goods is transported through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal annually, on some 19,000 vessels. That is about 30% of global seaborne trade, and it comes to about 12% of total world commerce. About 10% of global energy supplies go through this route.

Hindustan Times Video: “Red Sea On The Boil: American Ship Attacked; Houthis Reiterate Support To Palestinians | Watch”

The volume of goods transported through the Red Sea has fallen between 42% and 66% since the Houthis began attacking container ships. Many ships are going around the Cape of Good Hope and up the coast of West Africa, adding some 10 days to the journey from Asia to Europe, and upping the cost. Countries in the region have taken an economic hit. Egypt has suffered a 40% fall in Suez Canal revenues.

UNCTAD says that “Average container shipping spot rates from Shanghai in early February 2024 more than doubled – up by 122% compared to early December 2023. The rates from Shanghai to Europe more than tripled, jumping by 256%.”

China’s $1.8 billion in investments in Africa has also been placed in jeopardy, and the Chinese portion of Djibouti port has been idled.

The Israeli port of Eilat has apparently been idled, and occasionally has to fend off Houthi ballistic missiles. About 5% of Israel’s imports by sea used to come in through Eilat.

The easiest way to stop this economic disruption, which could have an impact on supply chains and prices that echoes the COVID-19 era of 2021-2023, is for President Biden to cut off arms and ammunition to the mad bomber, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Rising prices and supply chain problems would not be good for Biden’s reelection bid.

The Helpers of God militia is supported by many Yemenis of the Zaydi Shiite persuasion, a form of Shiite Islam that is closer to Sunnism and which does not have ayatollahs or some of the distinctive rituals of the Iranian and Iraqi Twelver Shiism. The militia’s leader is Abdul Malik al-Houthi, who announced this past week an escalation of attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Although the Houthis receive some money and arms from Iran, from all accounts it is a minor factor. They are an Arab, Yemeni movement with their own motivations and they have a weapons-making capacity of their own. The Helpers of God have become the de facto government of most people in Yemen and they tax them for revenue. It is not at all clear that an energy exporter like Iran would want Red Sea shipping disrupted.

( RFE/RL ) – Iran’s so-called axis of resistance is a loose network of proxies, Tehran-backed militant groups, and an allied state actor.

The network is a key element of Tehran’s strategy of deterrence against perceived threats from the United States, regional rivals, and primarily Israel.

Active in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, the axis gives Iran the ability to hit its enemies outside its own borders while allowing it to maintain a position of plausible deniability, experts say.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has played a key role in establishing some of the groups in the axis. Other members have been co-opted by Tehran over the years.

Iran has maintained that around dozen separate groups that comprise the axis act independently.

Tehran’s level of influence over each member varies. But the goals pursued by each group broadly align with Iran’s own strategic aims, which makes direct control unnecessary, according to experts.

Lebanon’s Hizballah

Hizballah was established in 1982 in response to Israel’s invasion that year of Lebanon, which was embroiled in a devastating civil war.

The Shi’ite political and military organization was created by the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country’s armed forces.

Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Iran Program at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, said Tehran’s aim was to unite Lebanon’s various Shi’ite political organizations and militias under one organization.

Since it was formed, Hizballah has received significant financial and political assistance from Iran, a Shi’a-majority country. That backing has made the group a major political and military force in Lebanon.

“Iran sees the organization as the main factor that will deter Israel or the U.S. from going to war against Iran and works tirelessly to build the organization’s power,” Citrinowicz said.

Hizballah has around 40,000 fighters, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. The State Department said Iran has armed and trained Hizballah fighters and injected hundreds of millions of dollars in the group.

Photo by أخٌ‌في‌الله on Unsplash

The State Department in 2010 described Hizballah as “the most technically capable terrorist group in the world.”

Citrinowicz said Iran may not dictate orders to the organization but Tehran “profoundly influences” its decision-making process.

He described Hizballah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, not as a proxy but “an Iranian partner managing Tehran’s Middle East strategy.”

Led by Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah has developed close ties with other Iranian proxies and Tehran-backed militant groups, helping to train and arm their fighters.

Citrinowicz said Tehran “almost depends” on the Lebanese group to oversee its relations with other groups in the axis of resistance.

Hamas

Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has had a complex relationship with Iran.

Founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, Hamas is an offshoot of the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization established in Egypt in the 1920s.

Hamas’s political chief is Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in Qatar. Its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is commanded by Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be based in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is estimated to have around 20,000 fighters.

For years, Iran provided limited material support to Hamas, a Sunni militant group. Tehran ramped up its financial and military support to the Palestinian group after it gained power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.

But Tehran reduced its support to Hamas after a major disagreement over the civil war in Syria. When the conflict broke out in 2011, Iran backed the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Hamas, however, supported the rebels seeking to oust Assad.

Nevertheless, experts said the sides overcame their differences because, ultimately, they seek the same goal: Israel’s destruction.

“[But] this does not mean that Iran is deeply aware of all the actions of Hamas,” Citrinowicz said.

After Hamas militants launched a multipronged attack on Israel in October that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Iran denied it was involved in planning the assault. U.S. intelligence has indicated that Iranian leaders were surprised by Hamas’s attack.

Seyed Ali Alavi, a lecturer in Middle Eastern and Iranian Studies at SOAS University of London, said Iran’s support to Hamas is largely “confined to rhetorical and moral support and limited financial aid.” He said Qatar and Turkey, Hamas’s “organic” allies, have provided significantly more financial help to the Palestinian group.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad

With around 1,000 members, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is the smaller of the two main militant groups based in the Gaza Strip and the closest to Iran.

Founded in 1981, the Sunni militant group’s creation was inspired by Iran’s Islamic Revolution two years earlier. Given Tehran’s ambition of establishing a foothold in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Iran has provided the group with substantial financial backing and arms, experts say.

The PIJ, led by Ziyad al-Nakhalah, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

“Today, there is no Palestinian terrorist organization that is closer to Iran than this organization,” Citrinowicz said. “In fact, it relies mainly on Iran.”

Citrinowicz said there is no doubt that Tehran’s “ability to influence [the PIJ] is very significant.”

Iraqi Shi’ite Militias

Iran supports a host of Shi’ite militias in neighboring Iraq, some of which were founded by the IRGC and “defer to Iranian instructions,” said Gregory Brew, a U.S.-based Iran analyst with the Eurasia Group.

But Tehran’s influence over the militias has waned since the U.S. assassination in 2020 of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was seen as the architect of the axis of resistance and held great influence over its members.

“The dynamic within these militias, particularly regarding their relationship with Iran, underwent a notable shift following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The U.S. drone strike that targeted Soleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of mostly Shi’ite Iran-backed armed groups that has been a part of the Iraqi Army since 2016.

Muhandis was also the leader of Kata’ib Hizballah, which was established in 2007 and is one of the most powerful members of the PMF. Other prominent groups in the umbrella include Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Seyyed al-Shuhada, and the Badr Organization. Kata’ib Hizballah has been designated as a terrorist entity by the United States.

Following the deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, Kata’ib Hizballah and other militias “began to assert more autonomy, at times acting in ways that could potentially compromise Iran’s interests,” said Azizi.

Many of the Iran-backed groups that form the PMF are also part of the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which rose to prominence in November 2023. The group has been responsible for launching scores of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza.

“It’s important to note that while several militias within the PMF operate as Iran’s proxies, this is not a universal trait across the board,” Azizi said.

Azizi said the extent of Iran’s control over the PMF can fluctuate based on the political conditions in Iraq and the individual dynamics within each militia.

The strength of each group within the PMF varies widely, with some containing as few as 100 members and others, such as Kata’ib Hizballah, boasting around 10,000 fighters.

Syrian State And Pro-Government Militias

Besides Iran, Syria is the only state that is a member of the axis of resistance.

“The relationship between Iran and the Assad regime in Syria is a strategic alliance where Iran’s influence is substantial but not absolute, indicating a balance between dependency and partnership,” said Azizi.

The decades-long alliance stems from Damascus’s support for Tehran during the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

When Assad’s rule was challenged during the Syrian civil war, the IRGC entered the fray in 2013 to ensure he held on to power.

Hundreds of IRGC commander and officers, who Iran refers to as “military advisers,” are believed to be present in Syria. Tehran has also built up a large network of militias, consisting mostly of Afghans and Pakistanis, in Syria.

Azizi said these militias have given Iran “a profound influence on the country’s affairs,” although not outright control over Syria.

“The Assad regime maintains its strategic independence, making decisions that serve its national interests and those of its allies,” he said.

The Fatemiyun Brigade, comprised of Afghan fighters, and the Zainabiyun Brigade, which is made up of Pakistani fighters, make up the bulk of Iran’s proxies in Syria.

“They are essentially units in the IRGC, under direct control,” said Brew.

The Afghan and Pakistani militias played a key role in fighting rebel groups opposed to Assad during the civil war. There have been reports that Iran has not only granted citizenship to Afghan fighters and their families but also facilitated Syrian citizenship for them.

The Fatemiyun Brigade, the larger of the two, is believed to have several thousand fighters in Syria. The Zainabiyun Brigade is estimated to have less than 1,000 fighters.

Yemen’s Huthi Rebels

The Huthis first emerged as a movement in the 1980s in response to the growing religious influence of neighboring Saudi Arabia, a Sunni kingdom.

In 2015, the Shi’ite militia toppled the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government of Yemen. That triggered a brutal, yearslong Saudi-led war against the rebels.

With an estimated 200,000 fighters, the Huthis control most of the northwest of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, and are in charge of much of the Red Sea coast.

The Huthis’ disdain for Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional foe, and Israel made it a natural ally of Tehran, experts say. But it was only around 2015 that Iran began providing the group with training through the Quds Force and Hizballah. Tehran has also supplied weapons to the group, though shipments are regularly intercepted by the United States.

“The Huthis…appear to have considerable autonomy and Tehran exercises only limited control, though there does appear to be [a] clear alignment of interests,” said Brew.

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza, the Huthis have attacked international commercial vessels in the Red Sea and fired ballistic missiles at several U.S. warships.

In response, the United States and its allies have launched air strikes against the Huthis’ military infrastructure. Washington has also re-designated the Huthis as a terrorist organization.

Copyright (c)2024 RFE/RL, Inc. Used with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1250 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 450, Washington DC 20036.

Via RFE/RL

I recall rooting for the Israelis, advertised then as crucial American allies, against Egypt, Syria, and other regional enemies at least ostensibly allied with the Soviet Union in that Cold War era. I bought the prevailing narrative of a David-versus-Goliath struggle. I even got a book on the Yom Kippur War that captivated me by displaying all the weaponry the U.S. military had rushed to Israel to turn the tide there, including F-4 Phantom jets and M-60 main battle tanks. (David’s high-tech slingshots, if you will.) Little did I know that, in the next 50 years of my life, I would witness increasingly destructive U.S. military attacks in the Middle East, especially after the oil cartel OPEC (largely Middle Eastern then) hit back hard with an embargo in 1973 that sent our petroleum-based economy into a tailspin.

As one jokester quipped: Who put America’s oil under the sands of all those ungrateful Muslim countries in the Middle East? With declarations like the Carter Doctrine in 1980, the U.S. was obviously ready to show the world just how eagerly it would defend its “vital interests” (meaning fossil fuels, of course) in that region. And even today, as we watch the latest round in this country’s painfully consistent record of attempting to pound various countries and entities there into submission, mainly via repetitive air strikes, we should never forget the importance of oil, and lots of it, to keep the engines of industry and war churning along in a devastating fashion.

Right now, of course, the world is witnessing yet another U.S. bombing campaign, the latest in a series that seems all too predictable (and futile), meant to teach the restless rebels of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and possibly even Iran a lesson when it comes to messing with the United States of America. As the recently deceased country singer Toby Keith put it: Mess with this country and “We’ll put a boot (think: bomb) in your ass.” You kill three soldiers of ours and we’ll kill scores, if not hundreds, if not thousands of yours (and it doesn’t really matter if they’re soldiers or not), because… well, because we damn well can!

America’s leaders, possessing a peerless Air Force, regularly exhibit a visceral willingness to use it to bomb and missile perceived enemies into submission or, if need be, nothingness. And don’t for a second think that they’re going to be stopped by international law, humanitarian concerns, well-meaning protesters, or indeed any force on this planet. America bombs because it can, because it believes in the efficacy of violence, and because it’s run by appeasers.

Yes, America’s presidents, its bombers-in-chief, are indeed appeasers. Of course, they think they’re being strong when they’re blowing distant people to bits, but their actions invariably showcase a distinctive kind of weakness. They eternally seek to appease the military-industrial-congressional complex, aka the national (in)security state, a complex state-within-a-state with an unappeasable hunger for power, profit, and ever more destruction. They fail and fail and fail again in the Middle East, yet they’re incapable of not ordering more bombing, more droning, more killing there. Think of them as being possessed by a monomania for war akin to my urge to play with toy soldiers. The key difference? When I played at war, I was a wet-behind-the-ears 10 year old.

The Rockets’ Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air

No technology may be more all-American than bombs and bombers and no military doctrine more American than the urge to attain “peace” through massive firepower. In World War II and subsequent wars, the essential U.S. approach could be summarized in five words: mass production enabling mass destruction.

No other country in the world has dedicated such vast resources as mine has to mass destruction through air power. Think of the full-scale bombing of cities in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II, ending in the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Think of the flattening of North Korea during the Korean War of the early 1950s or the staggering bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1960s and early 1970s. Or consider the massive use of air power in Desert Shield against Iraq in the early 1990s followed by the air campaigns that accompanied the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003 (and never quite seemed to stop thereafter). The butcher’s bill for such bombing has indeed been high, quite literally millions of non-combatants killed by America’s self-styled “arsenal of democracy.”

Buy the Book

And indeed, as you read this, another country is now faithfully following America’s example. Israel is systematically destroying Gaza, rendering it essentially uninhabitable for those Palestinians who survive the ongoing rampage. In fact, early in its war of annihilation, Israeli leaders cited the Allied destruction of the German city of Dresden in 1945 in support of their own atrocious air and ground campaign against the Palestinians.

Looking at this dispassionately as a military historian, the Dresden reference makes a certain twisted sense. In World War II, the Americans and their British allies in their “combined bomber offensive” destroyed German cities indiscriminately, seeing all Germans as essentially Nazis, complicit in the crimes of their government, and so legitimate targets. Something similar is true of the right-wing Israeli government today. It sees all Palestinians as essentially members of Hamas and thus complicit in last year’s brutal October 7th attacks on Israel, making them legitimate targets of war, Israeli- (and American-) style. Just like the United States, Israel claims to be “defending democracy” whatever it does. Little wonder, then, that Washington has been so willing to send bombs and bullets to its protégé as it seeks “peace” through massive firepower and genocidal destruction.

Indeed, of late, there has been considerable debate about whether Israel is engaged in acts of genocide, with the International Court of Justice ruling that the present government should strive to prevent just such acts in Gaza. Putting that issue aside, it’s undeniable that Israel has been using indiscriminate bombing attacks and a devastating invasion in a near-total war against Palestinians living on that 25-mile-long strip of land, an approach that calls to mind the harrowing catchphrase “Exterminate all the brutes!” from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness.

In a sense, there’s nothing new under the sun. Certainly, the Old Testament itself provides examples of exterminatory campaigns (cited by Bibi Netanyahu as Israel first moved against the Palestinians in Gaza). He might as well have cited a catchphrase heard during America’s war in Vietnam, but rooted in the medieval crusades: “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”

America’s Unrelenting Crusade in the Middle East

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush got into trouble almost instantly when he referred to the “war on terror” he had launched as a “crusade.” Yet, as impolitic as that word might have seemed, how better to explain U.S. actions in the Middle East and Afghanistan? Just consider our faith in the goodness and efficacy of “our” military and that all-American urge to bring “democracy” to the world, despite the destruction visited upon Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen over the last several decades. Or go back to 1953 and the role the CIA played in the overthrow of Iran’s legitimate democratic ruler and his replacement by the brutally repressive regime of the Shah.

Try to imagine such events from the perspective of a historian writing in the year 2200. Might that future scribe not refer to repeated U.S. invasions of, incursions into, and bombing campaigns across the Middle East as a bloody crusade, launched under the (false) banner of democracy with righteous vengeance, if not godly purpose, in mind? Might that historian not suggest that such a “crusade” was ultimately more about power and profit, domination and control than (as advertised) “freedom”? And might that historian not be impressed (if not depressed) by the remarkable way the U.S. brought seemingly unending chaos and death to the region over such a broad span of time?

Consider these facts. More than 22 years after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. still has at least 30,000 troops scattered across the Middle East. At least one Navy carrier strike group, and often two, dominate the regional waters, while striking numbers of military bases (“Little Americas”) are still sprinkled across countries ranging from Kuwait to Bahrain, from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates and beyond. So many years later, about 900 U.S. troops still illegally occupy part of Syria (not coincidentally, where that country produces most of its oil) and 2,500 more remain in Iraq, even though the government there would like them to depart.

Yankee Go Home? Apparently Not in My Lifetime

Meanwhile, American military aid, mostly in the form of deadly weaponry, flows not only to Israel but to other countries in the region like Egypt and Jordan. Direct U.S. military support facilitated Saudi Arabia’s long, destructive, and unsuccessful war against the Houthis in Yemen, a conflict Washington is now conducting on its own with repeated air strikes. And of course, the entire region has, for more than two decades now, been under constant U.S. military pressure in that war on terror, which all too quickly became a war of terror (and of torture).

Recall that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the death of roughly a million Iraqis and the displacement of millions more as refugees. How could that not be considered part of a “crusade,” even if a fitful and failing one? Yet, here’s the rub: just as those Catholic crusades of the Middle Ages weren’t entirely or even primarily about religion, so today’s American version isn’t motivated primarily by an anti-Muslim animus. Of course, there is indeed an inescapably religious aspect to such never-ending American war-making, but what drives those wars is largely naked greed, vengeance, and an all-American urge both to appease and amplify the military-industrial-congressional complex.

Of course, as was true in the years after 9/11 and is still true today, Americans are generally encouraged to see their country’s imperial and crusading acts as purely defensive in nature, the righteous responses of freedom-bringers. Admittedly, it’s a strange kind of freedom this country brings at the tip of a sword — or on the nosecone of a Hellfire missile. Even so, in such an otherwise thoroughly contentious Congress, it should be striking how few members have challenged the latest bombing version of this country’s enduring war in the Middle East.

Forget the Constitution. No Congressional declaration of war is believed necessary for any of this, nor has it mattered much (so far) that the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of those wars and the acts of destruction that go with them. As it happens, however, the crusade, such as it is, has proven remarkably sustainable without much public crusading zeal. For most Americans, those acts remain distinctly off-stage and largely out of mind, except at moments like the present one where the deaths of three American soldiers give the administration all the excuse it needs for repetitive acts of retaliation.

No, we the people exercise remarkably little control over the war-making that the military-industrial-congressional complex has engaged in for decades or the costs that go with them. Indeed, the dollar costs are largely deferred to future generations as America’s national debt climbs even faster than the Pentagon war budget.

America, so we were told by President George W. Bush, is hated for its freedoms.  Yet the “freedoms” we’re allegedly hated for aren’t those delineated in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.  Rather, it’s America’s “freedom” to build military bases across the globe and bomb everywhere, a “freedom” to sell such bellicose activity as lawful and even admirable, a “freedom” to engage in a hyperviolent style of play, treating “our” troops and so many foreigners as toy soldiers and expendable props for Washington’s games.  

It’s something I captured unintentionally five decades ago with those toy soldiers of mine from an imagined glorious military past.  But after a time (too long, perhaps) I learned to recognize them as the childish things they were and put them away.  They’re now long gone, lost to time and maturity, as is the illusion that my country pursues freedom and democracy in the Middle East through ceaseless acts of extreme violence, which just seem to drone on and on and on.

Copyright 2024 William J. Astore

Tomdispatch.com

Israel’s Defense Minister called the Palestinians of Gaza “human animals” when he announced a “complete siege” of Gaza after the horrid Hamas terrorist attack of October 7.

Galant’s willingness to destroy most of the homes in northern Gaza and to displace over a million people, leaving them cold, hungry, thirsty and increasingly victims of disease, surely was enhanced by his conviction that he is dealing with animals rather than human beings. Some might defend him, saying that he only called Hamas “human animals.” But if that were true, why is he treating all Palestinians in Gaza worse than dogs?

The Nazi dehumanization of Jews is notorious. They called them rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures

Such language proliferates in times of tension and war. The impulse to it should be resisted by ethical persons, and even just by normal non-psychopathic human beings.

Prominent New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, alas, fell victim to the seductions of such language in his Friday column. He openly said that he approaches the Middle East at times from the perspective of the Warner Brothers’ Animal Planet channel.

Friedman actually wants a two-state solution and so wants something for Palestinians more than what they now have, and he is hated by the Israeli far right (which is increasingly the Israeli mainstream) for these stances. So it is unfortunate that he deployed the language of insects for Iran and Hamas members. He might defend himself by pointing out that he called the United States an “old lion” of which no one in the region is afraid any more, or that he caricatured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a lemur. But in his column, the old lion and the lemur are not depicted as vicious or disgusting.

The Majority Report with Sam Seder Video: “Journalist Gives Heartbreaking Report From Gaza As Explosions Ring Out Around Her”

The three-time Pulitzer prize-winner compares Iran to a parasitoid wasp that lays its eggs in caterpillars. He says that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is like the wasp, and the caterpillars are Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, and Yemen’s Helpers of God (Houthis).

How does this language add to understanding? If he is saying that Iran has fostered Shiite militias in nearby countries on the model of its Revolutionary Guards, this is true.

But why would Lebanese be interested in Iranian training, weapons and monetary support?

In 1947-1948 Zionist militias ethnically cleansed over half of Palestinians, expelling them from their homes and farms and forcing some of them to Lebanon, where they dwelled in camps. As a liberal Zionist, I presume that Friedman applauds this ethnic cleansing, though the liberal part of the equation makes him sympathetic to Palestinians getting a state on 22% of the land of the British Mandate of Palestine, all of which was promised to the Palestinians by the British White Paper of 1939.

By the 1970s some of the younger generation were radicalized and formed armed bands to strike across the border into Israel. Many lived in south Lebanon among the Shiite population there. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, ostensibly to deal with the Palestinian attacks but actually to reshape Lebanese politics and install a far right wing Christian puppet government. The 1982 invasion left about 50,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians dead. Then the Israelis occupied about 10% of Lebanese soil for 18 years, subjecting the southern, largely Shiite population to their military rule in alliance with an artificially created Christian militia. Some Shiites, determined to resist the latest Israeli land-grab, formed Hezbollah in 1984 and began a long struggle to get the Israelis back out of their country. By 2000, they had succeeded.

No one in Lebanon, however, trusted the Israelis to cease attempting to dominate Lebanon, and so the rest of the Lebanese appointed Hezbollah as the border guards of the south.

Israel created Hezbollah by its occupation of Lebanon and its attempt to control it.

So Iranian influence in southern Lebanon is not a “natural” phenomenon of “injecting eggs.” It is a political alliance by the poor and the weak seeking a patron to help protect them from a serial predator.

If the Israelis had permitted a Palestinian state to emerge in the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians in Lebanon would have moved there. They told me so enthusiastically when I interviewed them in 2008. Then the whole history of Israel interventions in Lebanon would have been obviated and perhaps Hezbollah would never have been formed.

Likewise, several of the Iraqi Shiite militias were formed in response to the US occupation of that country for which Friedman was among the foremost cheerleaders. When the US occupation led to the formation of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the Shiite militias were the only force that could take it on in 2014-2015, and the US gave them air support at Amerli and Tikrit.

Had Bush, with Friedman cheering him on, not invaded Iraq, any Shiite militias in that country would be small and covert, as they were in the 1990s.

Then the Houthis in Yemen are rural Zaydi Shiites who reacted against Saudi dominance of their country and their region. The Saudis were trying to convert them to Wahhabism and were buying the Yemeni government to allow them to extend their influence. The Zaydis minded, and some in the north rebelled.

Mr. Friedman told us that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who bombed Yemen for seven years, further radicalizing the Houthis and driving them into Iran’s arms, is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Then he compared Hamas to a trap-door spider because it took hostages.

But we all know how the Palestinians in Gaza turned to Hamas and in what conditions the Israelis have kept the Palestinians of Gaza — virtually as prisoners in a concentration camp. 70% of the families in Gaza are refugees from southern Israel, from which the Zionists expelled them.

So the biggest problem with Friedman’s glib column isn’t even its racism. It is the illusion of explanation created by the use of insects as metaphors for human beings. By sidestepping imperialism, settler colonialism, and capitalist exploitation, by ignoring social class and history, Friedman can skate away with his facile sociobiology, having elucidated nothing, having understood nothing . . .

and having sidestepped the ways in which his own commitments, to liberal Zionism, exploitative forms of leveling capitalism, and to American imperialism in places like Iraq, created the mess he now dismisses as a nature documentary.

In fact, it is U.S. and Israeli actions that are driving the expansion of the war, while Iran and others are genuinely trying to find effective ways to counter and end Israel’s genocide in Gaza while avoiding a full-scale regional war. 

We are encouraged by Egypt and Qatar’s efforts to mediate a ceasefire and the release of hostages and prisoners-of-war by both sides. But it is important to recognize who are the aggressors, who are the victims, and how regional actors are taking incremental but increasingly forceful action to respond to genocide.

A near-total Israeli communications blackout in Gaza has reduced the flow of images of the ongoing massacre on our TVs and computer screens, but the slaughter has not abated. Israel is bombing and attacking Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, as ruthlessly as it did Gaza City in the north. Israeli forces and U.S. weapons have killed an average of 240 Gazans per day for more than three months, and 70% of the dead are still women and children. 

Israel has repeatedly claimed it is taking new steps to protect civilians, but that is only a public relations exercise. The Israeli government is still using 2,000 pound and even 5,000 pound “bunker-buster” bombs to dehouse the people of Gaza and herd them toward the Egyptian border, while it debates how to push the survivors over the border into exile, which it euphemistically refers to as “voluntary emigration.”

People throughout the Middle East are horrified by Israel’s slaughter and plans for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but most of their governments will only condemn Israel verbally. The Houthi government in Yemen is different. Unable to directly send forces to fight for Gaza, they began enforcing a blockade of the Red Sea against Israeli-owned ships and other ships carrying goods to or from Israel. Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have conducted about 30 attacks on international vessels transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden but none of the attacks have caused casualties or sunk any ships.

In response,  the Biden administration, without Congressional approval, has launched at least six rounds of bombing, including airstrikes on Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The United Kingdom has contributed a few warplanes, while Australia, Canada, Holland and Bahrain also act as cheerleaders to provide the U.S. with the cover of leading an “international coalition.”

President Biden has admitted that U.S. bombing will not force Yemen to lift its blockade, but he insists that the U.S. will keep attacking it anyway. Saudi Arabia dropped 70,000 mostly American (and some British) bombs on Yemen in a 7-year war, but utterly failed to defeat the Houthi government and armed forces. 

US, UK Launch Fresh Strikes Against Houthi Rebels In Yemen | India Today Video

Yemenis naturally identify with the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, and a million Yemenis took to the street to support their country’s position challenging Israel and the United States. Yemen is no Iranian puppet, but as with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Iraqi and Syrian allies, Iran has trained the Yemenis to build and deploy increasingly powerful anti-ship, cruise and ballistic missiles.

The Houthis have made it clear that they will stop the attacks once Israel stops its slaughter in Gaza. It beggars belief that instead of pressing for a ceasefire in Gaza, Biden and his clueless advisers are instead choosing to deepen U.S. military involvement in a regional Middle East conflict.

The United States and Israel have now conducted airstrikes on the capitals of four neighboring countries: Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Iran also suspects U.S. and Israeli spy agencies of a role in two bomb explosions in Kerman in Iran, which killed about 90 people and wounded hundreds more at a commemoration of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020.

On January 20th, an Israeli bombing killed 10 people in Damascus, including 5 Iranian officials. After repeated Israeli airstrikes on Syria, Russia has now deployed warplanes to patrol the border to deter Israeli attacks, and has reoccupied two previously vacated outposts built to monitor violations of the demilitarized zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Iran has responded to the terrorist bombings in Kerman and Israeli assassinations of Iranian officials with missile strikes on targets in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Amir-Abdohallian has strongly defended Iran’s claim that the strikes on Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan targeted agents of Israel’s Mossad spy agency. 

Eleven Iranian ballistic missiles destroyed an Iraqi Kurdish intelligence facility and the home of a senior intelligence officer, and also killed a wealthy real estate developer and businessman, Peshraw Dizayee, who had been accused of working for the Mossad, as well as of smuggling Iraqi oil from Kurdistan to Israel via Turkey.

The targets of Iran’s missile strikes in northwest Syria were the headquarters of two separate ISIS-linked groups in Idlib province. The strikes precisely hit both buildings and demolished them, at a range of 800 miles, using Iran’s newest ballistic missiles called Kheybar Shakan or Castle Blasters, a name that equates today’s U.S. bases in the Middle East with the 12th and 13th century European crusader castles whose ruins still dot the landscape.

Iran launched its missiles, not from north-west Iran, which would have been closer to Idlib, but from Khuzestan province in south-west Iran, which is closer to Tel Aviv than to Idlib. So these missile strikes were clearly intended as a warning to Israel and the United States that Iran can conduct precise attacks on Israel and U.S. “crusader castles” in the Middle East if they continue their aggression against Palestine, Iran and their allies.

At the same time, the U.S. has escalated its tit-for-tat airstrikes against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. The Iraqi government has consistently protested U.S. airstrikes against the militias as violations of Iraqi sovereignty. Prime Minister Sudani’s military spokesman called the latest U.S. airstrikes “acts of aggression,” and said, “This unacceptable act undermines years of cooperation… at a time when the region is already grappling with the danger of expanding conflict, the repercussions of the aggression on Gaza.”

After its fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq killed thousands of U.S. troops, the United States has avoided large numbers of U.S. military casualties for ten years. The last time the U.S. lost more than a hundred troops killed in action in a year was in 2013, when 128 Americans were killed in Afghanistan. 

Since then, the United States has relied on bombing and proxy forces to fight its wars. The only lesson U.S. leaders seem to have learned from their lost wars is to avoid putting U.S. “boots on the ground.” The U.S. dropped over 120,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria in its war on ISIS, while Iraqis, Syrians and Kurds did all the hard fighting on the ground. 

In Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies found a willing proxy to fight Russia. But after two years of war, Ukrainian casualties have become unsustainable and new recruits are hard to find. The Ukrainian parliament has rejected a bill to authorize forced conscription, and no amount of U.S. weapons can persuade more Ukrainians to sacrifice their lives for a Ukrainian nationalism that treats large numbers of them, especially Russian speakers, as second class citizens. 

 Now, in Gaza, Yemen and Iraq, the United States has waded into what it hoped would be another “US-casualty-free” war. Instead, the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza is unleashing a crisis that is spinning out of control across the region and may soon directly involve U.S. troops in combat. This will shatter the illusion of peace Americans have lived in for the last ten years of U.S. bombing and proxy wars, and bring the reality of U.S. militarism and warmaking home with a vengeance. 

Biden can continue to give Israel carte-blanche to wipe out the people of Gaza, and watch as the region becomes further engulfed in flames, or he can listen to his own campaign staff, who warn that it’s a “moral and electoral imperative” to insist on a ceasefire. The choice could not be more stark.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Via Code Pink

On Friday, massive crowds gathered in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to protest the US air strikes. Houthi leaders addressed them, saying that they are standing up for the weak and oppressed among the people of Palestine. Hatred for the US is boiling over throughout the Arab world.

The Times and Sunday Times Video: “Yemen’s Houthi rebels stage angry protest after US airstrikes”

The Biden administration had been persuaded to seek peace between the Houthis and their Gulf foes. It lifted the terrorist designation of the Houthis because international aid groups warned that it prevented them from dealing with the de facto government of Yemen in providing food and other aid. Some 16 million Yemenis in the north have faced hunger and malnutrition because of the war on them by Saudi Arabia and the UAE since 2015 — a war to which the US contributed logistics and strategic advice.

But now the US State Department has restored the terrorist designation to the Houthis.

So think about the ironies. Biden had not wanted to designate the Helpers of God as terrorists so as to avoid starving ordinary civilian Yemenis living under their rule.

But then Israel launched what some have called a genocide against the noncombatant civilian population of Gaza, which UN agencies are arguing is starving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

The Houthis launched missile attacks on shipping to protest the starvation of the Palestinians.

Biden has not only done zero, zilch, nada to address the danger of famine in Gaza, but now in order to uphold the Israeli denial of basic nutrition to the Palestinians he has gone to war with Yemen and is setting things up so that there is a danger of thousands of Yemenis dying of hunger.

Meanwhile, the Kahanaist Jewish Power bloc, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, forms a key part of the Israeli government. He is the Minister of National Security, sort as if the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan were Secretary of Homeland Security in the US. The State Department had listed its parent party, Kach or Kahane Chai, as a terrorist organization until 2022. It said the delisting was “bureaucratic,” but it was likely done to let people like Ben-Gvir off the hook.

So to recap: Ben-Gvir and his ilk are not only now not listed as terrorists, but the Biden administration is supporting their genocidal policies against Palestinians in Gaza to the hilt.

In order to allow them to go on starving Palestinians, Biden is now willing to starve the 33 million Yemenis.

The Israelis ran out of ammunition some time ago. They can only continue this war because Biden resupplies them in real time, daily. Biden could stop it any time he wanted. He doesn’t want to. And he is willing to risk a wider Middle East war for Netanyahu and his creepy fascist friends in the Israeli cabinet.

Bombing militias from 30,000 feet is a waste of munitions. You can only defeat a guerrilla movement with infantry and armor assaults that take territory and deprive it of a base from which to operate. The terrorist group ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) was rolled up in Syria by the YPG, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, with US and allied air support. ISIL was rolled up in Iraq by the Iraqi army that President Obama rebuilt in alliance with Shiite militias, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that were trained and armed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Yes, in 2014-2018 the US was de facto allied with the Revolutionary Guards and their Iraqi allies, though neither Washington nor Tehran would ever admit it. In both instances, no progress could have been made by merely bombing ISIL from a great height. They’d still be in control of Raqqa and Mosul if it hadn’t been for the ground troops.

Likewise, bombing Sanaa will likely have no effect whatsoever. Houthi drones and rocket launchers can be hidden and are hard to locate and strike. The Houthi leadership is good at hiding out. The movement fought the Yemeni central government until 2014 when they took over the capital. From 2015 until a couple of years ago they faced an intensive bombing campaign led by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, that damaged a lot of infrastructure (bridges, ports, roads) that are essential to keeping people alive. But the Houthi movement, which is a political ideology and party-militia embedded in clans, handily survived. In fact, ultimately the Saudis sought a ceasefire, and the United Arab Emirates gave up on fighting the Houthis and just built up their own southern proxy force, the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, in order to assert control of the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden coasts and the port of Aden. I recently published an article on the struggle in South Yemen.

The Houthis are Zaydi Shiites, a different denomination than prevails in Iran and Iraq. They have no ayatollahs and are closer to the Sunnis. They are not a mere Iranian cat’s paw but a deeply Arab Yemeni movement that originated in a northern protest against the encroachments of Saudi Wahhabism in their area, and the Saudi dominance over the old nationalist government of Ali Abdullah Saleh. They are a poor people’s movement and very indigenous. They come by their sympathy for the oppressed Palestinians honestly. But of course they are also playing to the Arab street, hoping to drum up support by being the only Arab government actually to stand up to Israel over its murderous Gaza campaign, which has largely killed innocent civilians.

Although we are constantly told that Israel is a strategic asset for the US in the Middle East, nothing could be farther from the truth. The US has to spend trillions of dollars to secure the region for US petroleum and other business interests, in part because of the opposition to Washington that its knee-jerk backing for whatever the far right wing government in Tel Aviv does.

Now US troops are being injured in Iraq and Syria by rockets and missiles fired by Arab Shiite militias in sympathy with the people of Gaza. The Biden administration feels it needs to respond, and so it keeps bombing Iraq, a putative US ally.

And the great container shipping companies are avoiding the Red Sea because of the Houthi attacks. The cost of shipping has gone up 182%, and the crisis could go on for months, rekindling inflation. Some 30% of world seaborne trade goes through the Red Sea, 10% of world trade in total, and 12% of energy exports. US airstrikes are only making the shipping companies even more nervous, determining them to go around Africa instead, adding 10 days and a great deal of expense to their routes.

From attacks by rebels in the Red Sea to raids in northern Israel and the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas, Western analysts have pointed a finger of blame toward Iran.

Regardless of how involved Tehran is directly in the planning and carrying out of such incidents, the accusations get at a broader truth: In Middle Eastern geopolitics, Iran’s strategy of aligning with violent nonstate actors – notably Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – influences the regional balance of power.

As experts in Iran’s relationship with its network of proxies, we understand that Iran’s connection with each group is distinct yet interlinked, revealing Tehran’s regional objectives. From southern Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen, these alliances shape the political landscape and highlight the nature of influence and control in proxy warfare. It serves as a counterweight to Iran’s relatively limited conventional military capabilities, forming a key part of its foreign policy.

Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’

Managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s paramilitary security service that answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, these regional groups form what Tehran has labeled the Axis of Resistance.

The relationship between the groups and Tehran is designed to serve as a balance against both U.S. influence in the region and that of Washington’s regional allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But to characterize the Axis of Resistance as straight proxies is slightly off. Rather, Iran’s approach – spanning Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Palestinian territories – is to extend its influence through strategic partnerships. While based on shared objectives and ideologies, these alliances allow varying degrees of autonomy. Iran provides resources and coordination, but each group maintains its own agenda and local support base, functioning more as partners than proxies. And the relationship between Iran and each member of this Axis of Resistance is unique.

Hezbollah: Iran’s pivotal partner

Established in the early 1980s, Hezbollah – a Shiite militant organization – emerged with direct assistance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, primarily as a response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Aiming to establish an Iranian-influenced base on Israel’s border, Tehran provided training, financial support and weaponry, bolstering Hezbollah’s growth and capabilities.

Photo by أخٌ‌في‌الله on Unsplash

This collaboration has led to Hezbollah developing a sophisticated arsenal, including advanced drone technology, chemical weapons and expanded rocket capabilities.

As a result of its involvement in the Syrian civil war and ongoing hostilities with Israel, Hezbollah has professionalized its military. By deploying troops to support the Syrian government in line with Iran’s support for the regime, Hezbollah has transitioned from guerrilla tactics to more conventional warfare. Additionally, its ongoing conflict with Israel has sharpened its military strategy and capabilities. This helped elevate Hezbollah to a notable political and military role within Lebanon’s government, which has frequently aligned with Iran’s geopolitical interests.

This evolution has also enabled Hezbollah to become a mentor and supporter for other Iran-backed groups. Hezbollah has imparted its expertise in drone operations to organizations such as Fatemiyoun in Afghanistan, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah and Houthi fighters.

The relationship between Tehran and Hezbollah has deepened over the years, evolving from mere assistance to a robust strategic alliance. The entities share goals, strategies and materials. The close relationship between Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Khamenei further cements this alliance.

Despite Iran’s considerable influence, particularly in regional conflicts, Hezbollah retains autonomy in domestic Lebanese politics and its social services.

This Hezbollah-Iran alliance is arguably more significant than Iran’s relationship with other proxies and is instrumental in Tehran’s regional strategy. It not only extends Iran’s influence in the Middle East but also serves as a counterbalance to its adversaries, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Hamas: United against Israel

Emerging in the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of 1987, Hamas forged ties with Iran in the early 1990s. Despite the ideological differences – Hamas is predominantly Sunni Islamist, while Iran is a hard-line Shiite regime – they found common ground in their opposition to Israel and a shared vision for Palestinian liberation.

Iran’s backing of Hamas includes financial aid, military training and, crucially, the supply of rocket technology. This funding has escalated Hamas’ operational capabilities, enabling the development of a more sophisticated and far-reaching rocket arsenal.

Iran’s support has shifted the balance in Hamas’ conflict with Israel, demonstrating Iran’s influential role in regional power dynamics.

The alignment between Iran and Hamas, however, has fluctuated. In 2012, differences over the Syrian civil war introduced a rift in their relationship. Hamas’ tacit support for Sunni rebels in Syria was at odds with Iran’s allegiance to the Assad regime, leading to a temporary withdrawal of Iranian support.

However, this strain was not permanent. In subsequent years, the Iran-Hamas relationship was realigned and reinforced, evidenced by Iran’s resumption of substantial military aid. The sophisticated planning and execution of the Oct. 7 attack showed how Hamas has been able to improve its military capacity with a helping hand from Iran.

Nonetheless, the group maintains a degree of political and strategic independence, primarily focusing on Palestinian interests.

This dynamic reflects Iran’s broader regional strategy: to empower allied groups in extending its reach, while granting them autonomy to pursue specific agendas.

Houthis: Strategic ally against Saudi Arabia

Emerging in the 1990s in Yemen as a Zaidi Shia Islamist group, the Houthi movement initially focused on religious and cultural revivalism before progressively becoming engaged in Yemen’s political and military arenas.

Fueled by grievances against the central government and foreign interference in Yemen, the group shifted to an armed rebellion. This evolution was marked by growing confrontations with the Yemeni government and involvement in a wider regional conflict against a coalition led by Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia. This set the stage for their alliance with Tehran.

The Houthis’ alignment with Iran was spurred by shared religious beliefs as well as opposition to both Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

The collaboration with Iran gained momentum following the Houthis’ capture of Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 – a move that is believed to have triggered an escalation in Iranian support.

Support from Tehran came in the shape of sophisticated weaponry, military training and financial aid, and it has substantially enhanced the Houthis’ missile and drone capabilities. The Houthis have utilized this growing capability to challenge Saudi Arabia and, more recently, Israel

Empowered by Iranian support, the Houthis have expanded their operations to include assaults on U.S. and other international vessels in the Red Sea.

Despite the depth of Iranian support, the Houthis retain a level of autonomy, specifically in local Yemeni politics. While Iran’s influence is notable, it does not translate into outright control. Instead, the Houthis are positioned more as strategic allies within Iran’s regional agenda rather than mere proxies.

Iran’s expanding influence

Iran’s proxy network, which extends to groups in Iraq, Syria and beyond, is a key part of Tehran’s strategy to expand its influence and confront that of Washington and its allies.

These partnerships, though seldom involving absolute control, also demonstrate Iran’s adeptness in navigating geopolitical landscapes. The Axis of Resistance allows Iran to adapt its strategy to shifting regional dynamics. For example, positioning Hamas under the Revolutionary Guard’s guidance fits a strategy to confront Israel as regional dynamics shift toward normalization between Israel and Arab states.

France 24 English Video: “Amid US strikes, Yemen rebels bask in praise, international limelight”

Such partnerships also pose a challenge to Iran’s adversaries. Deterring these proxy groups requires navigating a complex web of relationships, interests and ongoing conflicts. And this complexity, coupled with Iran’s pivotal role, has reshaped the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape, signaling a period of heightened tensions with broad international implications.

Sara Harmouch, PhD Candidate, American University and Nakissa Jahanbani, Assistant Professor at the Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy West Point

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As the Houthi militant group in Yemen ramps up its attacks on vessels in the Red Sea – ostensibly in response to what it calls Israel’s “genocidal crimes” in Gaza – the US and UK have responded with multiple military strikes in the last week. The US has also re-listed the group as a global terrorist organisation.

The hope is these strikes will pressure the Iran-aligned Houthis to back down. It won’t, however. Short of a complete halt to Israel’s war in Gaza and a 180-degree shift in Western support for Israel’s approach, there is little that will dissuade the Houthis to change course in the foreseeable future.

There are three main reasons for this, none of which are principally about Iran’s regional strategy.

The group has already survived years of airstrikes

The first, and most obvious, reason is the Houthi movement, whose political wing is known as Ansar Allah, has already withstood years of airstrikes in its war with a Saudi-led and Western-backed coalition from 2015–2022.

Prior to this, the Houthis fought six wars against the central Yemeni government from 2004–2010. Guerrilla warfare is not new to them, and harassing ships off their coast does not require sophisticated weapons.

The blockade that accompanied much of the recent war (which is currently in a shaky truce) also helped the Houthis to finetune their weapon smuggling networks from Iran, as well as their own domestic weapon production.

As a result, airstrikes alone are unlikely to deliver a knockout blow to their military capacity and will almost certainly increase their appetite for a fight.

US and UK launch new airstrikes on “multiple targets” in Yemen | BBC News Video

That is because they can – for the first time – more strongly frame their actions in the context of fighting against the US and Israel, per their slogan: “God is Great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam.”

With dissent rising, the Houthis have found ‘quasi-legitimacy’

The second reason they are unlikely to be deterred is more important, but less understood, because it is about Yemen’s domestic politics.

The Houthis currently control much of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a, which accounts for around 70% of the population. The people in these regions have been subjected to years of acute and structural violence by the Houthis. This includes:

• the forced disappearances of political opponents and religious minorities

• the extrajudicial killings of journalists and executions of civilians, including minors

• the recruitment of child soldiers

• withholding public sector salaries since 2016

• the laying of landmines in populated areas, sniper attacks on civilians and the use of siege warfare

• the systematic extortion of businesses and implementation of a caste-based taxation system

• the implementation of male guardianship rules for women

• and the weaponisation of food and water, including the diversion of food aid for private enrichment.

It is important to note the Saudi-led coalition and internationally recognised Yemeni government have also been accused of committing war crimes and grave human rights violations in Yemen, including the ruthless bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

At least 150,000 people are estimated to have died violently in the war that began in 2015, though the challenges with collecting such data are considerable. This also does not include the many more thousands that have died from preventable starvation and disease.

“Photo by Mohammad mansour on Unsplash”

The behaviour of the Houthis in power has made them deeply unpopular. Dissent is dangerous due to the sophisticated system of repression and neighbourhood surveillance the Houthis have imposed in the areas they control. But Yemenis began taking to the street in protest last year anyway in Ibb and the besieged city of Ta’izz.

Then on September 26, just before Hamas’ assault on southern Israel and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Yemenis defied the authorities in large numbers.

In protests in the capital city of Sana’a, they celebrated the anniversary of the 1962 revolution that ousted the country’s leader, the Zaydi Imam, Mohammed al-Badr – and with him, the kinship-based autocracy that many Yemenis claim the Houthis seek to reinstate.

Seeing this (rightly) as a demonstration against them, the Houthis were shaken. Amnesty International reported they responded with an “alarming wave of arrests” and “a draconian show of force.”

Against a background of rising dissent at home, the Houthis’ actions and Western retaliation have given the group the gift of “quasi-legitimacy,” according to Yemeni analysts. The US-led strikes also give credence to the Houthis’ demands that critics “shut their mouths.”

And just as important, the US strikes can boost the Houthis’ military recruitment efforts. And this could help them attempt to seize the government-held oil wells in Marib again, which the group needs to become economically sustainable.

Anger is rising against the West across the region

The third reason the Houthis are unlikely to be deterred by airstrikes or a terrorist designation is that their actions articulate the wider region’s fury at Israel’s war in Gaza, which has so far claimed the lives of 25,000 Palestinians, and the decades of Western support for Israel’s policies in occupied Gaza and the West Bank.

They have also tapped into profound grievances about the West’s policies more generally and its record of reinforcing unpopular regimes in the face of popular action for change. This includes the selling of weapons and bestowing of political legitimacy to authoritarian regimes in exchange for what the West considers “stability” in the world order.

Yemenis are, however, keenly aware that the Houthis’ rise and expansion was enabled by this same external push for stability, which came at the expense of Yemenis’ ability to determine local solutions to local problems.

By centring the defence of Palestinians in their actions, the Houthis have found a way to discredit their domestic opponents – something that has largely eluded them for 20 years. This will make them even harder to dislodge from power and will likely consign ordinary Yemenis to further violence at their hands.

Sarah G. Phillips, Professor of Global Conflict and Development at The University of Sydney; Non-Resident Fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.