The Iran-led axis of resistance in the aftermath of Syria’s upheaval

Tehran, Iran – For decades, authorities in Iran have been meticulously building an “axis of resistance” of like-minded factions to oppose Israel and the United States across the region.

The alliance has included armed entities and government actors in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, along with Palestinian groups.

With the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Tehran lost not only a four-decade alliance with the ruling family in Damascus but also major axis lifelines.

Amid claims that the axis has collapsed, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asserted last week such views are “ignorant” and wrong.

The span of resistance, he said, would “encompass the entire region” as the axis is not hardware that can be destroyed, rather it is faith and commitment that only grows stronger under pressure and will succeed in expelling the US from the region.

Kicking the US out, especially from neighbouring Iraq, remains a top goal for Tehran to avenge the January 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and a main architect of the axis.

Cutting off access to Hezbollah

With Iran’s help from the early 1980s, Hezbollah grew into a major political force in Lebanon with a military force stronger than the country’s traditional army. The group has taken considerable hits from Israel in the past year, including the assassination of its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and top commanders.

The message coming from Tehran has emphasised that “Hezbollah is alive” despite the Israeli onslaught, with Khamenei saying the resistance of the Lebanese and Palestinian forces means “defeat” for Israel.

For now, it is undeniable that Tehran has lost a strategic ally in Syria and that will reflect on its regional influence in the short term, according to Tehran-based researcher and author Ali Akbar Dareini.

“The most important damage to Iran’s security interests is the severing of the ground link with Lebanon. The Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut axis made it easy for Iran to have access to Hezbollah,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The collapse of the Assad government significantly challenges prospects of rebuilding and re-equipping the resistance network, especially Hezbollah,” Dareini said, adding that Israel will now be even more emboldened to attack the Lebanese group despite a shaky ceasefire that has held so far amid numerous violations.

Israel has also taken advantage of the fall of al-Assad to push deep inside Syria, occupying vast swaths of land in its south while launching hundreds of air strikes across the country.

In a second speech on Tuesday, Khamenei emphasised that “the Zionist regime believes it is preparing itself through Syria to encircle Hezbollah’s forces and uproot them, but the one who will be uprooted is Israel”.

While Iran has said it wants to maintain relations with Syria and that the new governing group’s distance from Israel would be a major deciding factor, Ahmed al-Sharaa, commander-in-chief of the new administration, says Syria is weary of wars and does not wish to make an enemy of Israel.

Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said this week it is “unbearable” that Israeli soldiers are now merely kilometres away from Damascus, but added “they will be buried in Syria” in the future.

Further blows to axis members

An emboldened Israel has hit Yemen’s Houthis again, launching strikes on Wednesday night on Yemeni infrastructure for the third time since July, killing nine people and hitting an oil facility, ships in a major port, and power stations.

Israeli media also report that Israeli military and intelligence services may be pursuing their decades-old policy of assassinating leaders in Yemen to destabilise the group.

They have set their sights on Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, along with top Yemeni military officials and a senior Iranian commander who coordinates the efforts of the IRGC’s Quds Force in the country, according to the Israel Hayom newspaper.

In addition to attacks on shipping lanes near its waters in stated protest against Israel’s war on Gaza, the Yemeni group has kept up attacks on Israel.

The Houthis announced on Thursday they fired two ballistic missiles towards military targets in Israel, which appeared to have been at least partially intercepted, with shrapnel from one landing on a school and damaging it without inflicting any casualties.

The Houthis landed another ballistic missile in Tel Aviv on Saturday, injuring 16 people and leaving a crater in a public park. Two interceptor missiles were filmed failing to bring down the missile, with the group’s military spokesman promising more attacks.

In Iraq, the US has demanded Baghdad dismantle the Iran-aligned armed groups in the country, according to Ibrahim Al-Sumaidaie, a top adviser to the prime minister who said in a televised interview on Wednesday that Washington threatened military force if the Iraqi government does not accede.

Many of the Shia-majority armed groups aligned with Iran are now part of the official Iraqi security forces.

The US has been Israel’s stalwart ally throughout its war on Gaza and other moves in the Middle East.

‘Resistance without an axis’

The axis can no longer function as a coherent network of states and militias stretching from Iran to the Levant, Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, said.

“It has lost its anchors in the Levant. Although it is still present in Iraq and Yemen, it will not play the same strategic role it had until now,” he told Al Jazeera.

“If it is to be relevant again, it will have to be in a different form and then depending on what the evolving situation is in the Levant.”

The axis, which has aided Iran’s goal of becoming a regional powerhouse, achieved some of its most touted victories during the Syrian civil war – when it kept al-Assad in power with Russia’s help, and pushed back ISIL (ISIS) and other armed groups.

The Iran-led axis was built on three main pillars that have been altered by the fall of al-Assad, according to Hamidreza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The first was a geographical connection between key members, which was complemented and stretched to the Mediterranean by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, with the Houthis in Yemen holding the southern flank, he explained.

The second was close coordination and unity between members, with a principle that meant a threat to one member of the axis was considered a threat to all, triggering a collective response.

“The third pillar was its ideological foundation: the very notion of resistance. This ideology, characterised by strong anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments, served as the core unifying idea behind the axis,” he told Al Jazeera.

Azizi said the first two pillars are now severely damaged, if not destroyed, but the third remains and may have been strengthened in some aspects.

“This evolving situation could be described as ‘resistance without an axis’. What we are observing is Iran attempting to fortify the first line of its forward defence in Iraq and Yemen, while the rest of the axis operates at a significantly reduced capacity and with far less coordination than in the past.”