FA: Israel is underestimating the Allies of the Axis of Resilience

Axis of Resilience flags

In response to Hamas’s October 7 attack last year, the Israeli government launched a regional war meant to reshape the Middle East. Israel specifically targeted the so-called axis of resistance, a network of groups allied with Iran that includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and parts of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq.

Working on a scale that dwarfs previous efforts against the axis, Israel has spent the past year trying to destroy the network’s political, economic, military, logistical, and communications infrastructure, writes ‘The Foreign Affairs’.

It has also undertaken an unprecedented campaign against the axis’s leadership, killing the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and several senior commanders in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The ferocity of the Israeli offensive, which has been bolstered by advanced technologies and a strategy of total war that flattens and depopulates neighborhoods and cities, will significantly alter the balance of power in the Middle East. Yet for all its undeniable military superiority, not to mention its support from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, Israel is unlikely to eradicate the organizations and regimes that belong to the axis in the way it hopes.

Time and again the axis has demonstrated an adaptability and a resilience that attest to the deep connections its member groups maintain within their own states and societies. What’s more, the transnational relationships that compose the axis mean that Hamas, Hezbollah, and the other member organizations are best understood not merely as discrete nonstate actors or insurgent armed groups but as interlinking nodes of durable political, economic, military, and ideological networks.

These networks, which are regional and sometimes even global, have allowed the members of the axis to accommodate various shocks, including military setbacks.

The historical resilience of the axis of resistance suggests that Israel will find it difficult to eliminate groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. In all likelihood, the Israeli strategy of total war will continue to yield short-term tactical victories that degrade the capabilities of militant groups and states, forcing them into a kind of survival mode for a time. But without a political solution that comes to terms with the social embeddedness of the groups, the axis will likely draw again on local sources of influence, along with its transnational connections, to reconfigure itself at the local and regional levels.

Since October 7, in fact, smaller groups within the axis have seized the moment to strengthen their alliances. While Hamas, Hezbollah, and the IRGC endure the brunt of the Israeli offensives, groups such as Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen have capitalized on the turmoil to emerge as formidable regional players.

What fundamentally sustained these groups was a deep reliance on their local governing regimes and social bases. They embedded themselves within the fabric of their respective states to such an extent that the formal heads of government in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza are all either members of groups that belong to the axis or were chosen with those groups’ support. Furthermore, transnational ties among the groups have served as a crucial insurance policy during periods of shock.

To a much greater degree than in previous conflicts, Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah has drawn a strong response from other allies within the axis, such as the Houthis and Kataib Hezbollah, which has its roots in the Badr Corps of the 1980s and is currently linked to the PMF in Iraq. Previously, these groups were peripheral to the broader dynamics in Middle Eastern conflicts. Over the past year, however, they have deepened both their autonomy and their regional influence.

The Houthis, for instance, began for the first time to use antiship ballistic missiles to disrupt commercial shipping routes. They attacked ships traveling through the Red Sea, forcing freight companies to reroute around Africa, which led to increased costs and delays in the delivery of energy, food, and consumer goods around the world.

The post–October 7 reorientation has also fostered closer ties among some of the members of the axis of resistance. For several years, the Houthis maintained only a nominal presence in Iraq, with a single representative in Baghdad. That envoy’s work seemed more symbolic than substantive. In response to Israeli offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah, however, the Houthis deepened their collaboration with the PMF. This intensified cooperation saw an increase in weapons sharing and joint operations and showcased an enhanced capability to attack Israel.

Israel has strategically underestimated the resilience of the network and the extent to which a military solution, even one not constrained by international law, can bring about societal change in other countries. The past year has proved that the network is, to a meaningful extent, still able to adapt to military and economic challenges. While many of its member groups will remain underground or close to home during this period of intense conflict, they will nonetheless continue to draw on domestic support, on other members of the network across the region, and on global allies such as Russia and China.

To eradicate the network fully is an impossible task and would likely require, at a minimum, demolishing, occupying, and reestablishing new states wherever the groups are embedded. For a country such as Israel, which has been accused of war crimes at the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, that sort of effort would prompt blowback from key allies and the international community.

History suggests that Israel’s military actions are unlikely to succeed without a comprehensive political solution, especially when those actions are conducted outside its own territory. Instead, the Israeli campaign will probably result in an even more unstable Middle East, one in which genuine peace is only a distant possibility.

Israeli massacres of civilians, which have been condemned by the United Nations and by human rights organizations, have proved devastating for civil society and are being used by axis groups to foster their ideology of resistance. Somewhat counterintuitively, the populations in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria will now find it even more challenging to insist on accountability from the axis groups that govern their everyday lives, much less to demand reforms. These civilians, and not the members of the axis, will be the greater long-term casualties of Israel’s total war.

Rather than enabling Israel’s ruthless strategy, therefore, international actors need to find a political settlement that begins with a cease-fire to the bloody wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs