Iran fears setback may open a Pandora’s box

 

By James M. Dorsey

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With Donald j. Trump two weeks away from returning to the White House, Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) fear that recent setbacks could open a Pandora’s box.

Israel’s puncturing of Swiss cheese-sized holes in the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance has upended the Islamic Republic’s forward defence strategy, raised questions about the future of the IRGC’s Quds Force, its foreign operations arm, and risks turning Iran into a tradeable geopolitical commodity.

In addition, Israeli retaliatory strikes severely damaged Iran’s anti-air defences, making the country more vulnerable to attack.

The Axis grouped ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, the grouping’s erstwhile crown jewel, Iraqi Shiite paramilitaries, Hamas, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. With the loss of Syria and the substantial weakening of Hezbollah, the Axis is a shadow of itself.

Syria and Hezbollah constituted the Axis’ backbone because they shared borders with Israel, which allowed them to retaliate for potential Israeli strikes against Iran. The loss of Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah leaves the Houthis, alongside Iran itself, as the only credible antidotes to Israel and US influence in the region.

Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Source: Reddit

Graffiti calling for a ‘Free Iran’ on the façade of the Iranian embassy in Damascus illustrates the state of relations between Iran and post-Al-Assad Syria.

For Iran, Israel’s puncturing of the Axis puts a higher premium on other pillars of the Islamic Repulic’s defence strategy, including its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes. Iran is mulling weaponising its nuclear programme to compensate for the loss, for all practical purposes, of the Axis as its forward defence line.

Credit: ILTV Israel News

Israeli and Western officials fear that Russia could award Iran for its support in the Ukraine war by supplying it with technology to utilise enriched uranium in a nuclear warhead.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that Iran's nuclear programme is nearing the point of no return.

"The acceleration of the nuclear programme leads us nearly to the point of no return,” Mr. Macron said.

Next week, French, German, and British officials are scheduled to meet their Iranian counterparts for a second round of discussions on negotiating a new nuclear agreement with the Islamic Republic.

In 2018, Mr. Trump withdrew from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme. Already defunct because of the US withdrawal, the agreement formally expires in October.

For their part, Iranian officials worry that Russian President Vladimir Putin could sweeten Mr. Trump’s determination to end the Ukraine war by offering to halt Russia’s support for Iran in exchange for US pressure on Ukraine to concede territory and drop its quest for NATO membership.

On a visit to Paris last month, Mr. Trump called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine after separate talks with Mr. Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success. Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness… There should be an immediate ceasefire, and negotiations should begin," Mr. Trump said.

The fate of the Lebanon ceasefire that ended 13 months of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah and obliged the group to withdraw 30 kilometers north of the Lebanese-Israeli border by January 27 could prove to be a litmus test of how Iran handles its changed circumstances.

Like Hezbollah, Israel is scheduled to pull its troops out of Lebanon by the end of January.

Even so, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that the agreement would collapse if Hezbollah failed to comply.

“Israel…will continue to enforce (the ceasefire) fully and without compromise in order to ensure the safe return of northern residents to their homes,” Mr. Katz said, referring to tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from their homes because of the hostilities.

Mr. Katz spoke in response to Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem’s insistence that it was up to the group to decide whether or not it would abide by the ceasefire’s stipulations.

“Our patience (regarding Israeli violations of the ceasefire) might run out, or it may persist as it is now … and when we decide to act, you will see it immediately,” Mr. Qassem said.

Veteran Middle East affairs analyst Ehud Yaari predicted that the Lebanon ceasefire would fray with Hezbollah refusing to disarm and Israel continuing to operate on the Lebanese side of the border. Even so, Mr. Yaari suggested Hezbollah will likely keep tensions on a low boil.

“Hezbollah…however humiliated it may be, will not surrender its weapons to the authorities…  As a result, the working assumption is that the holes in the cease-fire agreement will continue to grow… The Israel Defence Forces will continue to strike at any attempt by Hezbollah to reorganise,” Mr. Yaari said.

Various new Lebanese groups issued statements in recent weeks asserting that they were part of a ‘popular resistance’ against the presence of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. It was unclear whether the groups were linked to Hezbollah.

Mashad Friday Prayer leader and Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei representative Ahmad Alamolhoda vows to foster an armed resistance in Syria.

Similarly, it’s unclear whether Iran would support Hezbollah or the new groups in a renewed confrontation with Israel and how it would do so if it decides to intervene, despite assertions by Iranian hardliners that Iran may foster in Syria “another movement in the field of resistance, in order to confront the schemes of the enemy."

The loss of Syria has deprived Iran of its prime funnel for the supply of arms and funds to Hezbollah.

Moreover, overt support for Hezbollah’s collapse of the ceasefire would complicate Iran’s efforts to persuade the incoming Trump administration to engage with the Islamic Republic to get crippling US economic sanctions lifted.

Iran’s setbacks raise questions about the Quds Forces’ utility in regional operations five years after the US assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard unit’s charismatic commander.

Internationally, Iran may see continued value in the Quds Forces’ alleged targeting of Western officials, journalists, Jews and Israelis, and Iranian dissidents in Europe and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Syria could define the Forces’ regional usefulness.

Against the backdrop of concern about their place in post-Al-Assad Syria among Alawites, the Shiite Muslim sect from which Mr. Al-Assad hails, the Revolutionary Guard is mulling supporting potentially armed resistance against the country’s new rulers.

Meanwhile, Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani rushed to Baghdad to counter US pressure on Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al-Sudani to reign in tens of Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militias operating under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilisation Forces.

At a ceremony this week to mark the fifth anniversary of the killing of Mr. Soleimani and a prominent Iranian-backed militia commander, Mr. Al-Sudani prided himself on keeping Iraq out of the Middle East’s various conflicts.

Iraqi officials and militia commanders said Mr. Qaani was discussing a reorganisation of the Iran-backed armed groups. The reorganisation could involve disbanding some of the groups or converting them into exclusively unarmed political organisations.

The Revolutionary Guards fear that instability in Syria could spill into Iraq, with the Islamic State using the country as a launching pad for attacks in Iraq.

Mr. Qaani arrived in Baghdad days before Mr. Al-Sudani was scheduled to visit Iran.

Credit: The Tower

Although nominally reporting to Mr. Al-Sudani as part of the Iraqi military, the Popular Mobilisation Forces operate independently.

The Forces agreed in December to halt attacks on Israel after launching dozens of drones at the Jewish state since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023.

The agreement leaves the Houthis as the only Iranian-backed group still confronting Israel with frequent ineffective missile attacks.

At the same, time, the Popular Forces withdrew from the Iraqi-Syrian border. The withdrawal narrows Iran’s options to compensate for the loss of Syria as a supply funnel to Hezbollah by throwing into doubt the feasibility of an overland route through northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, and northern Syria.

In an intriguing development, Mr. Qani also met with Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the US-backed, predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It was unclear where the two men met.

This SDF is battling in northern Syria the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, an amalgam of 40 rebel groups.

Last week, Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, engaged for the first time with the SDF, the US military’s shock troops in the fight against the Islamic State.

In contrast to the Syrian National Army, Mr. Al-Sharaa did not include the SDF in a recent agreement among rebel groups to disarm and integrate into a reconstituted Syrian military.

The SDF’s quest for Kurdish autonomy within a federated Syria puts it at odds with Mr. Al-Sharaa and neighbouring Turkey’s insistence that Syria should be a centralised state.

Turkey has created a buffer zone in northern Syria to push the SDF, which it has designated as a terrorist organisation, back from the Turkish-Syrian border.

“Iran has maintained good ties with the SDF. In a context in which Turkey is ascendant in Syria, and the US withdraws under Trump, (the SDF) could form a mutually beneficial partnership (a vector for Iran to re-exert influence there),” said analyst Farzan Sabet, reinforcing indications  Iran may see the support of disaffected minorities in Syria as a way of compensating for its recent setbacks.

In a twist of irony, support for the Kurds would not only align Iran with the United States but also with Israel.

Rohani TV, a Syrian Kurdish broadcaster, reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar had given “positive guarantees to the rights of the Kurds.” It was unclear what the guarantees entailed.

Last month, Mr. Saar described the Kurds as Israel’s “natural allies.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.