The Conversation– May 14, 2024
Gaza War is Bolstering Iran’s Standing in the Muslim World
as Anti-Americanism Surges
SHAHRAM AKBARZADEH
Iran’s leadership has been a direct beneficiary of the months-long war in Gaza. With every missile that Israel fires on Gaza, every US veto of a UN Security Council ceasefire resolution, and every arrest of an anti-war protester on American university campuses, Iran’s rejection of the US-dominated world order gains more credibility in the Muslim world.
The ruling clerical regime in Iran has built its foreign policy on the pillar of anti-Americanism, rejecting what it frames as the “injustice” of US domination and “bullying” of other countries. Washington’s continued support for Israel’s war on Gaza in the face of an increasing international backlash has only reinforced this narrative.
While the US has tried to backtrack and signal that humanitarian considerations should guide Israel’s conduct of the war, the damage to US credibility has been done. Many around the world – and specifically in Muslim countries – do not see the belated US warnings to Israel as genuine.
And Tehran’s message of anti-Americanism is resonating with large segments of the public in the Muslim world.
In one regional opinion survey in late October, for instance, just 7% of respondents said the US had a positive impact on the war, compared to 40% who viewed Iran’s role as positive.
And in December, the highly respected Arab Barometer reported that approval ratings for the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had surpassed those of the Saudi crown prince and Emirati president.
This change in Iran’s standing in the region is being watched with concern by the political elite in the neighbourhood.
What Iran sought to achieve by attacking Israel
Iran’s image has been further enhanced by the fact it is the only Muslim state to attack Israel against the backdrop of public outrage over the war in Gaza.
The Iranian missile and drone attack on Israel on April 13 was calibrated to achieve two key objectives.
First, Iran’s leaders sought to preserve the country’s image as the self-appointed head of the “axis of resistance”, comprised of its proxies in the region – Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and other militia groups in Iraq and Syria.
Iran also wanted to demonstrate the effectiveness of its deterrence model, which is based on the threat of retaliation against Israeli aggression through its proxy actors and expanding missile and drone technology.
Coming two weeks after the Israeli attack on its diplomatic mission in Damascus, Iran could not afford to outsource its response to its proxies. While Iran was clearly not ready to start a war with Israel, not responding in-kind to the Israeli attack would have made it look weak and seriously diminished its standing among its allies and proxy groups.
But Iran’s leaders sought to minimise the damage and mitigate the risk of escalation by warning Israel of its attack in advance through intermediaries. This way, Iran could save face without getting embroiled in an all-out war.
Iran’s second objective was to demonstrate to the world that it has the drone and missile technology to hit back at Israel, if it chooses.
For more than a decade, Iran has showcased its missiles during annual military parades to support its claim it can hit Israel if threatened. Its attack last month involved more than 300 drones and missiles. Notwithstanding the fact the damage was minimal, the attack was proof Iran now has the capacity to inflict pain on Israel.
Israel’s limited response to Iran suggests that war has been averted, much to the relief of neighbouring countries. But the long-term implications are more favourable for Iran. This show of strength has likely helped its rejectionist foreign policy find receptive ears in the Muslim world and beyond.
When Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Pakistan on April 23, for example, he was greeted like a celebrity. This was ironic as, earlier this year, Iran and Pakistan had engaged in tit-for-tat aerial attacks.
The two countries agreed to boost bilateral trade to US$10 billion (A$15 billion) a year, about five times the current level. They also released a joint statement calling on the UN Security Council to take action against Israel, saying it had “illegally” targeted neighbouring countries and foreign diplomatic compounds.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also offered a message of support to Iran, saying:
China noted Iran’s statement that its action was restrained and was an act of self-defence in response to the attack on its embassy.
What this could mean for the region
The implications of a more emboldened Iran for the region are severe. The Iranian authorities feel vindicated by the events of the last seven months. This means their anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric will remain staunch as ever.
Iran’s drone and missile research and development program is also likely to receive a boost. And Iran’s support for its network of proxies and allies will remain firmly in place, as this enables the Iranian leadership to project power beyond its borders and retain its deterrence capability.
None of this bodes well for Iran’s neighbours. An ideologically energised Islamic regime in Iran would be less accommodating to regional concerns, particularly those aired by governments that have already normalised relations with Israel (such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain), or are believed to be heading in that direction (Saudi Arabia).
Moreover, the political credibility of many Arab leaders has suffered in the eyes of their citizens due to their perceived ineffectiveness in supporting the Palestinians in Gaza.
Iran’s leaders did not plan the series of events that started with the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7. In fact, they were just as surprised by Hamas’ actions as the Israeli intelligence agencies. But they are the obvious beneficiary of the turn of events.
The United States and Israel are gifting Iran and its message of defiance enormous appeal, well beyond the imagination of Iranian authorities.
Shahram Akbarzadeh, Convenor of the Middle East Studies Forum (MESF), and Acting Director the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University
Shahram Akbarzadeh is Professor of Middle East and Central Asian Studies at Deakin University (Australia), and co-author of Crisis Zone: Middle East Politics and International Relations (Routledge, 2018)
Gaza war helps Iran repair image in region—but for how long?
By Kelly Skinner
Israel’s assault on Gaza has in some ways proven to be a boon for Iran, furthering some of its strategic objectives and boosting its reputation in the region. In Nov. 2023, a report by the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy found that an average of 40% of respondents in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria said Iran’s actions have had a positive impact on the war. In Egypt and Syria, such sentiments were expressed by half of respondents.
Polling from the Arab Barometer echoes this trajectory. A Dec. 2023 report indicated that three weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 Palestinian surprise attack on Israel, Iran’s supreme leader had approval ratings that matched or surpassed those of the Saudi crown prince and the Emirati president. While Tunisia is geographically far from West Asia, public opinion there is often treated as a “bellwether” by pollsters. Indeed, the Arab Barometer has noted that in previous surveys, “Tunisians have had views similar to those found in most other Arab countries.”
The boost to Iran’s reputation comes in the wake of Increasing efforts to widen Arab-Israeli normalization. This has stoked Iranian concerns about becoming isolated and prompted a shift in Tehran’s strategy. Against this backdrop, in his Sept. 2023 address before the United Nations General Assembly, President Ebrahim Raisi laid out Iran’s focus on cooperation with neighboring states while maintaining hostility towards Israel and the United States.
Retained focus on regional diplomacy
Following the Palestinian surprise attack on Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the actions of Hamas. Yet, he also made a point to strongly deny any Iranian role in the assault on Israeli border communities near Gaza. By balancing support for the Iraqi, Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, and Yemeni members of the Iran-led regional alliance network known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’ with his denial of direct involvement in Oct. 7, Khamenei signaled that Iran preferred to avoid a wider conflict. This is while both Israel and the US were warned to limit their actions to avoid expanding the Gaza war.
Khamenei’s actions set the stage for Iran’s broader diplomatic efforts in the region over the past six months. Indeed, the Islamic Republic has taken full advantage of the opportunity posed by the fighting in Gaza to further its diplomatic agenda. For instance, contrary to expectations in some quarters, the normalization process with Saudi Arabia has not been derailed. Instead, ties have been strengthened with the Kingdom.
Shortly after Israel’s incursion into Gaza in Oct. 2023, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the phone. This notably marked the first time the leaders had spoken since the two countries agreed to restore ties in Mar. 2023, ending seven years of estrangement. The convergence of Iranian and Saudi interests and cooperation on the Palestinian cause is particularly noteworthy given that the Kingdom is a staunch US ally and has refrained from rejecting normalization with Israel.
The Iranian-Saudi rapprochement progressed further as Raisi traveled to Riyadh in early Nov. 2023 for a special summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the Gaza war. This marked the first time in over a decade that an Iranian president visited Saudi Arabia. Iran followed up this landmark diplomacy through a mid-February diplomatic tour of Arab countries including Lebanon, where the Iranian foreign minister once again reiterated that there is no desire for a regional war, as well as Algeria, Syria, and Qatar. In addition, Tehran has been pushing for another meeting of the ﾠOIC.
All in all, the bolstering of Iran’s reputation in the region—simultaneous with the hit to the image of the US—may have aided this engagement.
Dynamics during conflict
Historically, Iran has seen its popularity thrive in the Arab world during conflicts between its regional allies and Israel.
This dynamic was evident during and after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. In 2008, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies’ Arab Opinion Index found that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the most popular leader in the Arab world, followed by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, and then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13). The same poll also showed that while 11% of Arab respondents had deemed Iran as one of the two countries posing the greatest threat in 2006, this number decreased to 7% in 2008. At the same, perceptions of the US and Israel as threats increased from 72% to 88% and 85% to 95%, respectively.
However, not long afterwards, Iran’s reputation in the region took a significant hit due to its support for Assad as the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. The Islamic Republic’s support for the Ansarullah movement—better known as the Houthis—was also damaging. However, this did not stop Tehran from increasing its backing after Saudi Arabia’s 2015 military intervention in Yemen.
https://amwaj.media/article/gaza-war-helps-iran-repair-image-in-region-but-for-how-long
Center for Strategic & International Studies – May 3, 2024
Assessing Israel’s Strike on Iran
Commentary by Alexander Palmer, Daniel Byman, Seth G. Jones, and Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.
The dangerous back-and-forth between Israel and Iran appeared to end—at least for now—on April 19 when Israel destroyed part of an S-300 long-range air defense system in Isfahan, Iran. Based on the authors’ analysis of the attack, Israel walked a tightrope between escalating the conflict further and inaction, while also signaling to Tehran that it could conduct precision strikes against strategic locations—such as Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility and its broader air defense system.
An Israeli attack on a diplomatic facility in Damascus that killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers on April 1 triggered the crisis. Iranian leaders probably felt the need to show their domestic population and elites that the country could not be attacked with impunity. Iran responded with a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones on April 13, the first direct attack ever launched against Israel from Iranian soil.
Given the scale and unprecedented nature of Iran’s attack, the Israeli response seems small. But the April 19 attack is best understood as a calibrated attempt to deter Iran while avoiding escalation. Israel’s response carried a clear threat against Iran’s most sensitive political and military targets, particularly its nuclear infrastructure, while avoiding key triggers for further escalation. The design of the strike suggests that Israel wants to avoid war with Iran, just as Iran is signaling that it does not seek war with Israel.
Although it lacked the scale of Iran’s bombardment, Israel’s response was menacing in a different way, serving as an implicit threat against Iran’s most important military capabilities—particularly its nuclear infrastructure. The S-300 is Iran’s most advanced air defense system and is permanently deployed at Iran’s most important military and political sites. S-300 batteries are located in Tehran, Bandar-e Bushehr, and Isfahan according to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment.
Tehran is of course Iran’s capital, while Bandar-e Bushehr holds an important naval facility, an airbase, and major energy infrastructure. Isfahan is also the location of an airbase, but it more importantly lies approximately 100 kilometers south of the Natanz enrichment complex and 20 kilometers north of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, two sites at the core of Iran’s nuclear program. Given the central importance of Iran’s nuclear program to both Tehran and Tel Aviv, the strike probably conveyed a threat.
At the same time, Israel appears to have little interest in a broader regional war. A larger strike that caused significant damage or resulted in many casualties might have forced Iranian leaders to prove to their own people and to the many IRGC veterans in political leadership that Iran would strike back.
The damage at Isfahan was sufficiently small scale to prevent such political outrage. The attack probably destroyed only a single 30N6 Flap Lid or 30N6E Tomb Stone engagement radar. While this represents greater damage than Israel suffered on April 13, the system is replaceable. Satellite imagery shows damage to the site where an engagement radar usually sits. But Iran appeared to have replaced the damaged radar within a day of the attack, although commercial satellite imagery is insufficient to determine whether the system is operational or whether Iran replaced the engagement radar with a 96L6E Cheese Board early warning and acquisition radar that would leave the site nonoperational while allowing Tehran to claim that the attack did no damage.
The attack could also have escalated the conflict if Iran feared that the strike was part of a larger operation. Even though Israel kept its strike small, Iran might have feared the attack against its air defense infrastructure could have been a prelude to more consequential strikes against its military or political infrastructure. If Tehran believed that such an attack was underway, it would have faced pressure to launch its own strikes before its missiles or aircraft were destroyed on the ground.
The strike minimized this fear by targeting only the shortest-range radar in Iran’s air defense complex, designed not to locate threats but to guide interceptor missiles to their target. Although the system would be ineffective until a new engagement radar was installed, Iran would also have maintained relatively high confidence that the sky above Natanz was not about to be full of Israeli jets.
Finally, the attack might have led to further escalation and war if Iran believed it crossed a new symbolic threshold that forced Tehran to escalate in response. But the attack avoided this escalation by replicating the visible features of previous attacks against military facilities in Iran, which were likely conducted with quadcopter drones, and by striking military rather than civilian targets. Some evidence suggests that this time Israel struck Iran with a missile launched from Syrian airspace, but Iranian leaders do not seem to believe that the attack was sufficiently different as to require a response that would risk open war. Iranian media claimed that air defenses had destroyed three drones over Isfahan and made no mention of a missile.
The level of calibration apparent in Israel’s strike suggests that Israel still wants to avoid open war with Iran, matching Iran’s signaling that it does not want open war with Israel. But this new status quo is hardly guaranteed to hold. For example, changes in domestic politics could make both countries more willing to risk war. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have gained international and domestic support for his measured response, but war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot argued for a counterattack while Iranian drones and missiles were still in the sky over Israel on April 13. In addition, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Israel to “go berserk” and deliver “a crushing attack” in response to Iran’s bombardment before suggesting that Israel’s response was insufficient. While Iran’s politics are more opaque, there are almost certainly hard-liners pressing for more open action against Israel.
Even though both sides stepped back from the brink, the Middle East is a more dangerous place because of April’s crisis. Both Israel and Iran crossed important symbolic thresholds, and both parties could be more willing to escalate to comparable attacks in the future. And there will be plenty of opportunities for them to do so. Israel appears to be gearing up for an invasion of Rafah, its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon continues to rage, and Iranian-backed groups still conduct attacks across the region. With its airstrike, however, Israel appears to have successfully walked a tightrope between escalation and inaction.
Alexander Palmer is an associate fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Daniel Byman is a senior fellow with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. Seth G. Jones is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, director of the International Security Program, and director of the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. is a senior fellow for imagery analysis with the iDeas Lab and Korea Chair at CSIS.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/assessing-israels-strike-iran
The Conversation – January 31, 2024
What is Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ and why is it uniting in fury against the US and Israel?
By Mariam Farida
Days after a drone attack killed three US soldiers at a military outpost in Jordan – an attack blamed on a shadowy Iranian-linked militia group – it appears a wider regional conflict may have been averted. At least for now.
The US has indicated it will take a tiered response to the attack – though it hasn’t said how – and the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has said that Tehran is “not looking for war.”
But Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have now launched more than 160 attacks against the US military since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and start of the war in Gaza. And Houthi militants in Yemen, also supported by Iran, have threatened to continue their attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
So, what is driving these groups in the so-called “axis of resistance” and how much control does Iran have over their actions?
Shia armed groups in Iraq
The militia blamed by the US for the drone attack in Jordan, Kata’ib Hezbollah, said earlier this week it was halting its military operations in Iraq under pressure from both Iran and Iraq.
It is just one of many Iran-backed groups in the country that operates under the umbrella banner of Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
Armed militias began emerging in Iraq in the wake of the US invasion of the country in 2003. These groups grew exponentially stronger when they organised as a collective front to confront the ISIS terror group.
The Popular Mobilisation Forces, or Al Hashd Al Sha’bi, was established in 2014 and became the main Shia paramilitary organisation confronting ISIS, alongside other Iran-backed groups such as Hezbollah in Syria.
But with threat of ISIS decreasing after its military defeat in 2019, the Popular Mobilisation Forces shifted their attention back to US targets in Iraq.
In recent years, these groups have presented themselves as the muqawama, or “resistance”, against the US and its allies in Iraq. As such, they have launched hundreds of attacks against US and Turkish military bases and other targets in Iraq and Syria.
HezbollahHezbollah, or the “Party of God”, emerged in the 1980s as an armed militia to free the southern parts of Lebanon from Israeli occupation and to improve conditions for the marginalised Shia minority in Lebanon.
The party has subsequently portrayed itself as a legitimate political party in Lebanon. As such, Hezbollah has been able to successfully operate across multiple domains. It has a civilian (da’wa) role in social welfare and religious education in Lebanon, as well as a military-resistance role (jihad), carrying out attacks against US and Israeli targets in Lebanon and across the border with Israel.
Its relationship with Iran has deepened over the years, with Hezbollah receiving hundreds of millions of dollars a year from Iran for training and weapons.
Yet, Hezbollah has proved to be extremely competent in its ability to downplay its religious ideals and principles to operate with autonomy as a mainstream political organisation in Lebanon.
Houthis
Also known as Ansar Allah (“Supporters of God”), the Houthis are a Shia armed group that emerged out of the Zaydi sect from Yemen’s northern highlands in the 1990s. The group rebelled against Yemen’s government in 2014 and eventually took control over most of the country. The group then spent years, with Iran’s backing, fighting a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia that was trying to oust them.
Interestingly, even though Houthis were never directly engaged in attacking US targets (or its allies) in the past, this changed with the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.
The Iran connection
From the outset, what these groups have in common is a shared sectarian and ideological connection – Shia Islam.
Shias have historically been a minority in the Muslim world, suffering systematic persecution, political isolation and low socio-economic status in countries such as Iraq, Lebanon and the Gulf states.
But this began to change with the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the rise of Shia clergy in that country. The Iranian regime, mainly through its military apparatus, the Revolutionary Guards, sought to transfer the “Shia revolution” across borders to try to redress years of Shia political isolation and economic deprivation.
Hezbollah was considered the first and most successful of the Iran-backed organisations that arose from this movement. It was able to build and maintain a strong military arm and political presence in Lebanon that made it a key regional player – and still does.
With its weaponry and financial backing, Iran became the ideological guardian of this growing “axis” of groups across the Middle East. These proxy groups, in turn, have helped Iran maintain a great degree of strategic power in the region, which has become key to its foreign policy and its ability to wield influence.
United by resistance
But even though these groups share deep political and ideological connections, they still operate as nationalist organisations in their respective countries. As such, each has its own domestic interests and ambitions. This has included improving the livelihoods of Shia communities and gaining political power.
This has been framed as a form of resistance or muqawama. This can be viewed in different ways: resistance against occupation, resistance against oppressive regimes and resistance against imperialist, hegemonic powers.
This is a cornerstone of Shia ideology – the idea of “oppressors vs. the oppressed” – which grew from the martyrdom of Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, during the battle of Karbala in the year 680. This narrative has become the symbol of Shia resistance in its various forms.
This is part of the reason why groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have united under the same banner – “Axis of Resistance”. This theme extends to Hezbollah’s resistance against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, the Houthis resistance against the Saudi-coalition forces, and the armed Shi’ite groups in Iraq attacking ISIS and now US troops.
More recently, these groups have united as a form of resistance against Israel (and its main supporter, the US) over its war in Gaza.
The extent of Iran’s power over these proxies remains a big question. Iran has denied ordering the attacks on US forces in Iraq, Syria and now Jordan, saying each faction in the “axis of resistance” acts independently to oppose “aggression and occupation”.
The fact we are seeing a rise in military operations by all of these groups, however, indicates they are becoming increasingly essential to Iran and its strategy of expanding its influence and countering the US in the Middle East.
Mariam Farida is Lecturer in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies, Macquarie University
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