Mark Toth and Col. (Ret.)
Iran’s “axis of resistance” is paralyzing U.S. foreign policy and national security interests across the Middle East — and thus far, the Biden administration has been far too complacent. Originally conceived by Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad in 2020, Tehran’s proxy armies have become fully operational under Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Ghaani, as detailed by Jason Brodsky and Yossi Mansharof for the Middle East Institute.
These fighters are also highly coordinated.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s militias do not act in a vacuum. Their use is targeted, and purposeful in design. Nor do they operate in a regional void. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine continues to devolve into a World War I-like trench slugfest, Moscow and Tehran are using Iran’s axis of resistance on a geostrategic basis against Washington.
View it as Khamenei’s axis of resistance amalgamating with Putin’s rogue players we call his “arsenals of evil.” The exigencies of his war in Ukraine going awry are forging the growing partnership regionally and even globally.
Iranian drones continue to be widely deployed by the Kremlin in Ukraine. In Israel’s war with Hamas, the Iran-backed terrorist group is using North Korean made F-7 rockets, and Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen are using Soviet-era Russian military helicopters to attack and interdict shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Predictably, President Biden dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel on Monday amidst “concerns about the war spilling out wider into the region,” CNN reported, in an attempt “to rein in [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war campaign.”
Yet Israel is not the problem; Iran is.
Iran has this game down well. It escalates tensions in the Middle East to undermine U.S. national security interests and foreign policy initiatives, and then calculatingly waits for Biden and his national security team to instinctively work to de-escalate crises. Each time the Biden administration falls for this, U.S. interests and America’s reputation are diminished — and the nation’s military security is exposed.
The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel is probative in this regard. Khamenei and Ghaani — likely at Putin’s urging as cover for Moscow’s Oct. 9 counteroffensive in Avdiivka, Ukraine — escalated the situation by training Hamas fighters and tacitly approving their attack. As a result, U.S.-led efforts to normalize diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel were scuttled.
Also illustrative are the Iran-backed militia attacks on U.S. military forces in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 7. Excluding attacks by the Houthis, U.S. forces have come under attack more than 120 times. It wasn’t until Jan. 4 that the Pentagon demonstratively struck back, killing Moshtaq Talib Al-Saadi in Baghdad, a local Iraqi leader of the IRGC-sponsored militia group known as al-Nubjaba’a. Consequently, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani wants 2,500 U.S. troops fighting ISIS out of Iraq — yet notably not Shia militants aligned with Iran.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah, like Hamas and the Houthis, also plays an important role on behalf of Khamenei and Ghaani. The Shia militia group headed by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has continued to shell northern Israel, forcing the displacement of Israeli civilians and damaging Israel’s domestic economy.
On Tuesday, as retaliation for Israel’s killing of senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in a suburb of Beirut, Hezbollah conducted a drone strike on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) northern headquarters. Al-Arouri, who was Hamas’s military commander in the West Bank, had fled to Lebanon after the IDF began its ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.
Early on in the war against Hamas, Israel deferred to a White House request that Jerusalem avoid preemptively striking Hezbollah. Once again, the Biden administration’s fears of regional escalation weighed heavily in Washington’s calculus.
Increasingly, however, Israel views Hezbollah as a serious threat that, unless dealt with, could transform into an existential threat given its partnership with Tehran. Israel’s repeated attacks on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon appear to be designed to force the issue. Thus far, Nasrallah’s response has been muted.
That in itself is telling. Iran likely intends for Hezbollah to serve as a distraction, to shift Israel’s focus away from Iran’s effort to become a nuclear power. In early January, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that Iran was accelerating enrichment of its Uranium-235 to near weapons grade, and that it likely could construct as many as five nuclear bombs in under 30 days.
The Biden administration’s response to the IAEA report? The U.S. issued a joint statement with France, Germany and the United Kingdom condemning Iran and urging reengagement with the IAEA. The communiqué ended as weakly as it started: “We remain committed to a diplomatic solution and reaffirm our determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon.”
Washington policymakers must begin connecting the dots in these national security matters. Putin’s arsenals of evil have aligned their interests with Khamenei’s axis of resistance, and collectively they have metamorphosed into an “axis of escalation” serving the interests of Russia, Iran, North Korea and, tangentially, China, as it ramps up its machinations against Taiwan.
Have the president’s men run out of ideas? Biden needs to consider bringing in subject matter experts from outside the administration to generate new ideas — as President John Kennedy did with the National Security Council Executive Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
These are not regional crises in need of White House de-escalation efforts. They are codependent and need to be confronted proactively. The Biden administration must stop allowing Iran to manipulate it into inaction or defensive posturing. Iran’s axis of resistance must be confronted. If not, the U.S. risks escalating a nuclear crisis in the Mideast itself.
Franklin Roosevelt wisely said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It is time to stop fearing escalation.
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