Politics
Iran remains a threat to the Middle East
The Iranian axis is in fact considerably weakened.
First, the most powerful arm of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah, has been significantly weakened, having lost almost all of its leadership and the vast majority of its massive arsenal in Lebanon. Worse still, Iran's most convenient smuggling route to Hezbollah in Lebanon, through Syria, is now closed.
After the victory of Abu Mohammed al-Julani's jihadist army, Syria moved from Iran's playground to the backyard of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The latter is reluctant to allow Iran to maintain its foothold in the region.
The magnificent network of tunnels discovered along the Syrian-Lebanese border, which Iran used to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah, has become inaccessible, and the airspace over Syria has also been closed to 'Iran. This increased the Ayatollah's panic, due to the lack of alternative routes to continue arming Hezbollah.
Shiite militias in Iraq have declared their refusal to continue fighting for the axis, and Hamas now finds itself at an unprecedented level of power in the Gaza Strip.
Despite this, Tehran continues to resort to convoluted means to exert negative influence on the region.
There remain two important areas of influence for the Ayatollah's regime: the Jordanian kingdom and the West Bank. In both areas, there is a significant population of frustrated Palestinians who, over the years, have become convinced that the current leadership – whoever it may be – does not suit them and must be overthrown to get what they currently lack: the earth. , wealth and national pride.
On the Jordanian scene, Tehran has long exploited the kingdom's weakness, its poor economic conditions and the inherent divisions between Jordan's Bedouin tribes. He encouraged the Palestinian masses to support Islamist groups, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others, to weaken King Abdullah and prepare for an invasion and attack on Israel from Jordanian territory.
Simultaneously, Iran uses Jordanian lands as a convenient transit for trafficking Captagon drugs, which until recently financed the Assad regime in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Additionally, Iran treated Jordanian territory as its own and smuggled large numbers of weapons to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank.
Today, with the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime and the presence of rebel forces along the Syrian-Jordanian border, Iran faces new competitors for its influence in Jordan. Yet as a wounded beast with his back against the wall, he could act much less calculatedly than before.
In the West Bank, Iran maintains its influence through Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which it has been arming for years to undermine the regime of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The current skirmishes between Fatah fighters and Hamas are not due to sporadic outbreaks of local rivalry but are the calculated result of Iran's long-standing cultivation efforts to replace the corrupt Abbas regime and Palestinian Authority through governance effectively controlled by Tehran. This would give Iran almost direct access to the Israeli border.
The Houthis are not remaining idle either, reminding the world that they exist and are a force to be reckoned with. However, ties between them and Iran appear less close than Tehran would like. The arming of the Houthis thus far, coupled with the leniency shown by the Biden administration in removing them from the blacklist of terrorist organizations, has artificially inflated the group's self-confidence. It is crucial to return them to their natural proportions.
Iran's long-standing involvement in the African scene, for example in Sudan, is also significant and should not be forgotten. By acting there, Tehran has effectively prepared the ground for using this devastated and battered state as a transit point for arms smuggling to its desired targets.
IN ADDITION to these three areas, Tehran is fighting to achieve its ultimate goal: nuclear capability. Such a capability would enormously strengthen its bargaining power with regional competitors like Turkey and global powers like the United States. It is therefore of the utmost importance to limit these capabilities now before Iran reaches the point of no return.
An arms race
A nuclear Iran would likely draw the region into an arms race, with other countries like Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia aspiring – and in some cases already working towards the same goal.
Moreover, the Iranians, who view Sunni rebels in Syria as bitter enemies and have even recently begun to declare this publicly, are reluctant to characterize Turkey and its “Turkish Sultan,” Erdogan, as adversaries, even though the rivalry between them is obvious and sinister.
Erdogan, the big winner of the current situation in Syria, has become the central figure who encourages regional actors to negotiate their share of the regional pie. This is because it took control of an energy transportation route bypassing the China-Iran-Europe route.
Erdogan is now able to transport energy across the Turkish bloc of nations (Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, etc.), Syria (now effectively under Ankara's control), and Saudi Arabia to Europe. This route is shorter and cheaper than the first, giving Erdogan substantial power and influence in the region.
Therefore, we may see Tehran swallow its pride and move closer to Erdogan to negotiate its share. It is also likely that Iran will attempt to “buy” or bribe its way into the Syrian-Lebanese smuggling tunnels to continue arming Hezbollah. Of course, all this will undoubtedly come at the expense of Iranian citizens, who have suffered for years from the lack of resources diverted by the regime to achieve its imperial ambitions.
As the world examines the aftermath of the jihadist uprising in Syria and how to deal with it, it is crucial to understand that a defeated enemy is often a most dangerous enemy. The Iranian threat remains alive and present in the region and must not be ignored.
The writer is a member of the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a former Knesset member and former deputy ambassador to Egypt.
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