Iranian Backyard Activism in the Middle East

Iran’s regional engagement in the Middle East is more focused on the military activism rather than diplomatic and political partnerships. Despite Tehran’s scattered achievements in political stage, like reaching a détente with arch-rival Saudi Arabia, the country’s upper hand in the developments following October 7 attacks and the ensuing Gaza war lies in the pervasive militia it has been founding and instructing across the region. From Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and most possibly Palestine, Iranian proxy militia have been one of the main pieces of the chess game played by regional and global powers.

The escalations and confrontations in Iraq since last October reshaped the general conception about the position and mission of these militia in the region. The Islamic Republic actually utilizes these forces, while denying any responsibility, to fill the vacuum it has been imposed in the political sphere following decades of antagonism with the United States and its strategic partners in the region. Iranian-backed forces in Yemen and Lebanon also made other challenges proving the nonnegligible role Tehran plays during critical periods. The Gaza war, in effect, opened the eyes to a realistic image of the Iranian influence and its strategic depth across the region.

These militia, having various branches in Iraq and elsewhere, bolster Tehran’s direct presence in geo-strategic countries of the Middle East. The Red Sea crisis procreated by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen manifests the country’s agenda to engage in strategic zones. Against their claims about the assault’s pertinence to the bloodshed in Gaza, the Houthis conditioned their attacks in the Red Sea to swamp the United States in a rare challenge having to engage in a campaign from which Saudi Arabia gained no accomplishment in six years.

Tehran’s influence over Hezbollah in Lebanon has given rise to a challenging border security for Israel during the critical days of war in Gaza. It was one of the rare moments Israel couldn’t afford to engage in a hostility with its neighbor in the north and the fact was evident for the rulers and commanders in Tehran. Iranian forces in Syria, despite inflicting recurrent damages in recent months, helped reinforce the Iranian influence and its regional activism. The country is one among not many administrations which are directly cooperating with Syrian military forces.

Iran’s direct militia involvement in crisis-stricken zones of the Middle East favors the country’s grand project in keeping the hostilities outside its soils. By deploying forces or training and commanding local troops in the region, Tehran has managed to engage in combats, mostly proxy confrontations, with Israel and the United States in Syria and Iraq. This strategy, along with retaining a steady level of deniability, has served the Iranian security following any surge in violence and hostility in the past decade. The Iranian-trained militia, in effect, have provided the country with a safe zone to play out as the Iranian backyard. Tehran faces a clash of interests over the stability of the regional countries in which it has direct engagement. Its thirst for peace and security in the region clashes with a need to find the target countries in conflicts providing it with a pretext to expand its backyard activism. Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon are pregnant with these sorts of security, economic, and political impasses.

The strategy to keep the combat in the backyard also serves the security of the Iranian nation leading to a spike in the popularity of the policies inside Iran. Tehran keeps up with its antagonism with the United States, targeting its positions in Iraq and elsewhere while inflicting little more than trivial damages. The country depicts itself as the pioneer of the fight against what it alleges as a colonial force in the region enjoying even more popular appreciation. Besides, it draws on local experience to expand influence over the regional nations provoking their anti-US sentiments like what happened after the recent American strikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. The militias boost Iranian chances of enhancing its regional influence and turning into a major player in the Middle East.

The grand militia stratagem of Iran has been a decisive side of the post-October-7 zeitgeist of the region. Tehran has already laid down the foundations for making best use of a conflict to push the American forces into a calamity. Undermining American influence in the Middle East through a proxy war that bear little consequences for Tehran has been a main agenda behind the militia training program in Iraq and other countries of the region. For Iran, a top agenda has been to introduce itself as the leader of Muslim world through plausible achievements in its antagonism with the United States.

An early spillover of escalation of violence from Gaza to the region was spotted in Iraq where unofficial forces working under the general “Hezbollah in Iraq” raided American positions for hundreds of times. Displaying restraint in the beginning to avert direct confrontations, Washington started responding to the attacks after a couple of months. The belligerence culminated in a drone attack against “Tower 22” base in Jordan killing three American service members. American response to the attack could not serve Iranian interests any better. While conservative groups and a major part of the public called for direct attacks against Iran in its soils, Washington attacked some of the alleged Iranian positions in the region, with the number of victims still unannounced. The US response was utterly congruent with Iranian expectations and its programs to keep the hostilities outside its soils. Iranian response was even more ironic; calling for a cessation of attacks by the militia in Iraq following a pressure by Iraqi society on American presence in Iraq and its military involvement despite earlier announcements about the termination of combat mission. Washington’s early show of restraint to the attacks were actually compromised by the Iranian-backed militia whose decent third response was an actual show of rationality for the observers and people in Iraq, Iran and across the region.

Washington’s prudent response was a gift for the Iranian militia seeking a chance to reinforce their place in the Iraqi political and security stage. Tehran has also echoed its anti-colonial discourse against American regional involvement, leaving no space for Washington to take a victor gesture; Tehran compromised the victory leaving it the room for more political and economic leverages.