Down but Not Out: Reassessing the Axis of Resistance

The events of the last year have upended many assumptions about the Axis of Resistance, the loosely defined network of Iran and its core partners. For as long as the Islamic Republic of Iran has sought to export revolution and project power in the Arab Middle East, surprisingly persistent debates have raged over core questions. Did Iran tightly command a network of proxies and dependents—or did it stand at the center of a loose network of like-minded groups and opportunistic fellow travelers? Did the almost-nuclear Axis of Resistance pose a strategic challenge to Israel, the United States, and Saudi Arabia—or was it a serious but limited military challenger capable of disrupting its enemies but not containing them? Were Iran and the Axis better than their competitors at urban warfare, more ideologically persuasive, and better at motivating allies and agents—or was their power overestimated by adversaries who read too much wider significance into the outcomes of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Lebanon–Israel war of 2006?

During the past year of regional warfare across the Middle East, Iran and its Axis of Resistance broke long-standing taboos that had limited escalation and avoided direct conflict between Iran and Israel. It turned out that Iran and its Axis partners had created a reputation that far exceeded their actual powers. Now, in the aftermath of a series of catastrophic defeats for the Axis of Resistance, their emboldened rivals—including Israel, the United States, and local competitors across the Middle East—risk a new mistake: dangerously underestimating the Iran-backed web of militias and hybrid actors.

This period of ongoing transformation is a time for questions and hypotheses rather than premature assessment. Iran’s regime, Hezbollah, and Hamas are substantially weakened—but no one can yet say for sure just how weakened. Key Axis of Resistance groups will continue to play a regional role, and in their local spheres of influence might even continue to dominate rivals. The question is not whether these groups can be completely sidelined—they cannot. It’s how much power they will wield.

This report tries to make sense of the new state of play. It marks a first step in a long reappraisal, which will continue as the Middle East’s ongoing wave of regional conflict moves toward its next equilibrium. A subsequent companion report, “The Axis of Resistance Returns to Its Local Roots,” will assess the main surviving Axis players that closely coordinate with Tehran, and their evolving strategies since October 7. This research into the Axis today challenges earlier assumptions—including the authors’ own—about the Axis’s capabilities. At the same time, it cautions against a simplistic wholesale dismissal of Iran and its partners. Before the United States or Israel declares Mission Accomplished, policymakers need to take a hard look at how entrenched and relevant the Axis of Resistance groups still remain.

Fresh analysis suggests some initial conclusions. The Axis had a limited regional reach, was unable to deter Israel—and cannot deter Israel now. At the same time, resistance militias retain substantial local firepower, which they can leverage for national or subnational power even with a diminished regional profile. Not all resistance actors are alike—some, like the Assad regime, appear gone forever, while others, like the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine, remain indisputably powerful in their domestic contexts. Finally, the season of untrammeled interstate competition, the revival of crude imperial mores, and the maximalism of Israel and its partners—intended to once and for all diffuse the challenge mounted by Iran’s alliance network—could actually trigger a revival of Axis ideology and grassroots power.¹

Military losses have transformed the Axis, revealed some of the exaggerations around its abilities, and significantly weakened its short-term potency. Yet the Axis retains economic and political might. For many policymakers who work on the Middle East, the events of the last year have made a mockery of the Axis—“a house of cards”—and proved its sponsor, Iran, to be a paper tiger.² But in reality, it is far too soon to write the obituary for the Axis of Resistance.

A Bad Year for the Axis

There is little debate that 2024 was devastating for the Axis of Resistance.

Israel broke Hezbollah’s military capacity and eviscerated its leadership with a combination of technological superiority, remarkable intelligence penetration,³ and ruthlessness. Before the year was out, Israel had assassinated a who’s who of Axis leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, in Beirut, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Retaliatory strikes by Iran and the Houthis, from Yemen, cratered Israeli roads and rattled nerves, but did little significant damage. And finally, in December, Turkish-backed Islamist rebels in Syria deposed the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which, even as it had become something of a reputational liability for Iran, had remained a logistical linchpin for the Axis.

Still, after considerable reversals, the Axis commands tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of fighters spread across the entire Middle East. These groups still have significant weapons and means of financing, some of which are acquired through channels that analysts are only beginning to understand. They retain local constituencies and continue to operate as states within states. They maintain their links to Iran, which, within limits, still coordinates their activity and aid. Less tangibly, an ideological vibrancy of opposition to Israel and the United States continues to animate the Axis—even as the depth of commitment to that ideology varies among Axis groups.

The administrations of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu appear intent on bulldozing forward on their expansive Middle Eastern agendas⁴ while treating the Axis of Resistance as a broken alliance whose leftover parts might need to be mopped up here and there, but which no longer pose a real threat. The United States and Israel make these assumptions at their own peril—and at the risk of security and stability throughout the region.

Instead, policymakers should seek to stop the Axis groups from wreaking more havoc by focusing on three lines of analysis: the new threats posed by these groups; their deep popular support; and the failures of rights, governance, and security that continue to make Axis groups relevant in Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, and elsewhere. With the traditional military options of the Axis hobbled, it will, in all likelihood, look for ways to inflict economic pain (think Red Sea shipping), target less-fortified U.S. allies in the Gulf, and ramp up other types of asymmetric attacks.

Roots of “Resistance”

This report defines the Axis of Resistance as the Iran-led alliance of states and sub-state or hybrid actors in the Middle East. The Axis is an open alliance; the groups it comprises, including Iran, declare their membership and share a common political-military project of opposing Israel and the United States. Some alliance members share additional projects or ideologies, including millenarian Shia eschatology, armed struggle against Israel, a global gray economy designed to subvert Western sanctions and financial institutions, or the regional production of weapons systems (in particular, drones and long-range missiles).

Notwithstanding these bonds and similarities, however, the Axis of Resistance is, at heart, an informal network—more than a centralized alliance—and is not known to be bound by formal treaties or agreements. The exact modality of connection between Axis groups and Iran—including how much assistance these groups receive from Iran, and how much autonomy they enjoy—has been the subject of much debate for many years. Researchers have nearly reached a consensus, however, that while these groups must closely coordinate with Iran, they also have a great degree of independence, and are at least as beholden to their local constituencies as they are to Iranian backers.

The Axis of Resistance, after the fall of Assad, includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis (also known as Ansar Allah) in Yemen, Hamas in Palestine, multiple Shia militias in Iraq, the Iranian state, and some Iranian sub-state or hybrid actors under the aegis of the Iranian state. Each of these groups established themselves for different reasons of local concern. Hamas is a descendant of the Muslim Brotherhood, established in 1987 as a Sunni Islamist movement to represent the national interests of the Palestinian people; it has, of course, evolved into much more. Iran helped establish Hezbollah as a Shia Islamist militia in 1982 to resist the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. The militant group succeeded in expelling Israeli occupiers in 2000, and has since grown into a much bigger entity, both entwined with the Lebanese state and functionally independent. In Yemen, the Houthis formed as a Shia Islamist movement in the 1990s to represent the country’s large and marginalized Shia minority. They later became a key player in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. Iraqi Shia Islamist affiliates like Kata’ib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba’ emerged during the American-led occupation after the 2003 invasion, but gained more power, popularity, and relevance by joining Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units in the fight against the Islamic State from 2014.

From these diverse local contexts, these groups converged on a few common transnational aims, without ever giving up their local concerns, and in the process gained the support of Tehran.

The term “Axis of Resistance” emerged in the 2000s, perhaps as an opportunistic reaction to President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” coinage. Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran invoked “resistance” and “Islamic resistance” from their founding days, and seem to have quickly and comfortably adopted the “axis” moniker to showcase the idea of Iranian power. Hezbollah foregrounded its resistance identity at least all the way back to its foundational public statement of ideology, the 1985 “Open Letter” published in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir.⁵ Over the decades, the group has lessened the public emphasis on jihad or the Islamic dimensions of its ideology, while consistently centering resistance against Israel and the United States.⁶ The Houthi foundational slogan, the sarkha doesn’t explicitly use the word “resistance,” but references the fight against Israel and the United States.⁷

The Axis gained more currency as a concept throughout the Middle East after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. In that war, Lebanon endured a punishing Israeli air campaign, but Hezbollah emerged with a stronger hand, and Nasrallah became one of the most popular and trusted leaders in the Arab world.

But the Axis of Resistance moniker was much more than a catchy nickname or unifying credo. From around the time that the term came into use, Iran also began treating its members as part of a common project against U.S. and Israeli goals in the Middle East, best encapsulated in the “unity of fronts” doctrine that Tehran promoted with all its partners. The upshot of this doctrine was that all Axis members should attack or hold fire together, increasing their leverage against Israel and the United States.

As the Axis of Resistance grew stronger and added more members in the last two decades, it gained an aura of near invincibility. Analysts frequently assumed that Axis members had additional tricks up their sleeves, and if Israeli military excesses went too far, the groups would respond with damaging counterattacks, reveal new weaponry, or ensnare an overly stretched Israeli military in their web. Media outlets affiliated with the Axis of Resistance and key leaders of these groups conveyed the impression that they possessed the capability to launch a sweeping, multipronged assault on Israel—where they could catch Israel off guard, undermine its military superiority, and drain its American-supplied resources.⁸ This ability, they argued, meant the Axis could balance Western powers despite its apparent disadvantage in conventional military strength. The network’s geographic spread—often referred to as the “Shia Crescent”—encircled Israel. The Axis presented access to Iranian-supplied weaponry, alongside burgeoning domestic production capabilities in certain regions, as a critical factor capable of sharply tipping the balance of power in their favor—a view supported by notable analysts.⁹

The aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attacks proved that much of this aura was overblown. Analysts, including the authors of this report, have had to reevaluate their pre-Gaza-war assumptions about Axis capabilities.

The Underperforming Axis

The Hamas surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 upended the existing norms of conflict in the region. Hamas exposed profound vulnerabilities in Israeli security. The Palestinian group massacred Israeli citizens and took hostages at scale, triggering Israel and the United States to abandon any remaining restraints in their approach to war.¹⁰

But as Israel laid waste to Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks, and then adventured beyond Israeli borders to fight other Axis groups, assassinate leaders at will, and directly strike Tehran,¹¹ the Axis began to lose its sheen. Iran, it turned out, was not able to coordinate and control the Axis military capabilities—and many of the most vaunted deterrent capabilities versus Israel either collapsed under wartime pressure or had never existed. Internal fissures among Axis members proved a significant impediment to Iran’s supposed “unity of fronts.” A prime example of these fissures were the October 7 attacks themselves, which Hamas reportedly kept secret from Iran, in an apparent bid to draw the entire Axis into a defense of Hamas without prior agreement.

As the Gaza war unfolded, powerful forces like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah, the Houthis, and even the ailing Assad regime in Syria ended up prioritizing their own national or domestic interests over Iran’s priorities or the Hamas–Israel war. And Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes against Israel had, at most, limited strategic impact.

Hezbollah, vaunted as Iran’s most capable and disciplined military partner, was also unable to check Israel’s military aims. The day after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Hezbollah entered the fray as part of the “unity of fronts” strategy, launching a rocket at Israeli positions at Shebaa farms, a portion of Lebanese territory that Israel has long occupied.¹² Confident in its ability to set the rules of engagement and convinced that Israel, like itself, wanted to avoid spreading the Gaza war to Lebanon, Hezbollah miscalculated and severely underestimated Israel’s resolve.

The Lebanese group initially demanded a truce in exchange for a cessation of its attacks. However, backed into a corner, Hezbollah dropped that demand and agreed to the Hezbollah–Israel truce in November.¹³

The fall of 2024 delivered blow after blow to the group. Israel infiltrated Hezbollah’s supply chain, booby-trapping thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies, injuring thousands and debilitating its communication network.¹⁴ The Hezbollah position dramatically deteriorated following the assassination of longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike on September 27.¹⁵ Just two days later, Israel assassinated his successor, Hashem Safieddine.¹⁶ Then, on October 1, Israeli forces crossed into southern Lebanon.¹⁷ Israel’s relentless airstrikes also decimated Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and obliterated much of its missile arsenal.

Hezbollah could not even effectively resist Israel’s ongoing campaign to destroy Lebanese infrastructure and depopulate border areas. Today, Hezbollah has been reduced to its weakest condition since the late 1980s. Israel has repeatedly reneged on the November ceasefire agreement, with no apparent consequence, and now says it will indefinitely occupy five hilltops in Lebanese territory.¹⁸

Other Axis threats of mayhem turned out to be exaggerated. The Axis lacked both the infrastructure and the technological know-how to sustain a prolonged, multifront campaign against Israel. Rather than operating as a cohesive, coordinated force, the network seemed bound more by rhetoric. Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi’s threats to escalate to “much higher levels” and Kata’ib Hezbollah’s fiery denunciations of Israeli airstrikes as “treacherous” made headlines, but delivered little in the way of tangible results.

But while the Houthis have caused problems for Israel and its partners, and have disrupted global shipping, they have not reversed the region’s strategic balance of power. Though the Houthis occasionally launched surprise strikes that pierced Israel’s Iron Dome, these attacks were sporadic and lacked strategic impact. Instead, Iraqi and Yemeni groups relied on symbolic acts—drone strikes and joint operations—that felt more like political theatre than military might.

Iraq’s resistance factions threaten neither the Iraqi state nor U.S. reach. Syria’s dictatorial dynasty, which styled itself a jewel in the crown of the Axis and the indispensable cornerstone in Iran’s much ballyhooed and ultimately phantom “land bridge” and the Shia Crescent, evaporated in a single week in December.

A New Strategic Landscape

The cascade that began on October 7 continues, and is likely to surge well into the second Trump term. Opportunists from Washington to Ankara to Tel Aviv to Riyadh entertain hopes of remaking a regional order in their favor. Their military ventures might smack of overreach, and certainly involve new lows in ethnic cleansing and war crimes—but they also reflect a sea change in the regional balance of power and order of battle. The upheaval has particularly spotlighted the fragility of Iran’s military strategy.

Analysts thought that the Axis could not be fully dismantled, thanks to its horizontal structure. According to that thinking, the network would seamlessly replace killed leaders, ensuring continuity.¹⁹ But after the United States assassinated Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, the Axis transitioned from a top-down, Iranian-driven hierarchy to a more horizontally integrated alliance. This shift was already underway before the assassination but gained momentum under the leadership of his successor, Esmail Qaani. Soleimani was the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, and had spent decades talent-spotting in the region, and cultivating personal relationships with every major Resistance leader. Perhaps the Axis never recovered the operational capacity that resided in those relationships. While Iran retained its role as the strategic architect, the new structure granted members greater autonomy and allowed them to forge independent ties with Tehran and one another.

Resistance leaders still seek, in their propaganda, to portray an ironclad alliance. But the Axis today is shaken—and shaky.

While Resistance leaders still seek, in their propaganda, to portray an ironclad alliance, the Axis today is shaken and shaky—a network still figuring out how to adapt. Israel’s campaign in Lebanon severely compromised Hezbollah’s military reach, disrupted the group’s command structure, neutralized Hezbollah’s supposed missile advantage, and almost certainly forced Tehran to rethink its total dependence on the Lebanese group to fight Israel. Hezbollah’s well-trained cadre of committed infantry fighters remains, but the balance of deterrence and threat has shifted in Israel’s favor. And Hezbollah’s collapse set the stage for the fall of Damascus—a critical hub for Iranian weapon transfers and coordination. Now, Syria is led by former members of the Sunni jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and from Iran’s perspective has flipped from being a linchpin in Tehran’s regional alliance structure to being a fiercely anti-Iran state.

Shifting Regional Cast of Characters

Regional dynamics since October 7 are transforming at a dizzying pace. The new state of play of the multiple overlapping power struggles in the Middle East is a radical departure from the past. Previous alliances persist, in broad strokes, but the relative strength of states and hybrid actors is quickly changing, and the fracturing of the Axis has left a power vacuum. Four major players—Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and the United States—are emerging as pivotal forces (for now) in a seismic regional realignment. This power shift is creating a high-stakes scramble for political and geostrategic gains.

Today’s Middle East features the Axis of Resistance in competition with another loose coalition that includes Saudi Arabia; the United Arab Emirates and their anti-Houthi proxies in Yemen; Israel; Jordan; Egypt; the Kurdish statelet in northeast Syria; and the United States. Other regional players are more fluid in their alliances. Turkey, Qatar, Iraq, the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, the new leadership in Syria, and jihadist groups like the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda successor groups—none of these entities have fixed allegiances when it comes to the major regional competition.

The weak state system in the Middle East has encouraged a proliferation of powerful hybrid actors, which draw on state power but operate without many of the traditional constraints of states.²⁰ This sprawling cast of characters has begun shifting with greater speed and more confusion than ever before, in reaction to Trump’s shattering of international norms—a process that has accelerated and become strikingly unpredictable since he began his second term. Trump is putatively an isolationist, and has entertained conflicting messages on Iran.²¹ On the one hand, he has professed a new openness to diplomacy.²² On the other hand, he has officially renewed the American “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran and seems just as capable of suddenly deciding he needs to crush Tehran.²³ A decision to go to war against Iran, despite its risks, could gain consensus among more Republicans, particularly because the United States is now more closely aligned with Israel than ever before. The catalyst for an American intervention might be a decision by Israel, not Washington. U.S. intelligence agencies recently warned that Israel is likely to strike facilities that are crucial to Iran’s nuclear programs, and Israel has not given up on its broader goal of causing regime change.²⁴ A retaliatory strike from Tehran could pull the United States into a conflagration it never intended to join.²⁵

The events of the last year have also upended the Levant, with unpredictable consequences. Hezbollah’s defeat opened the way for the first Lebanese government since 2008 that does not give veto power to Hezbollah. Hezbollah had also been a protector of the Assad regime, and the Lebanese group’s weakening paved the way for Assad’s surrendering of power to a relatively small group of rebels backed by Turkey. The state of flux in Syria and Iran’s actual and perceived weakness creates systemic instability. Prior to October 7, the perception of Iranian strength created some predictability, structure, and guardrails between Hezbollah and Israel, for example, as well as between the United States and Iraqi resistance factions. In other arenas, most notably Yemen and Syria, the perceived strength of Iran might have served to intensify rather than limit armed conflict. Today, Iran’s limitations invite new and renewed challenges from states and sub-state players who seek a chance to advance their own causes and interests.

New Risks and Opportunities

Even Middle Eastern powers that were not directly involved in conflict with the Axis or its enemies have experienced major changes in risks and opportunities in the last year. Turkey, for example, has emerged as the new dominant force in Syria.²⁶ Ankara could now serve as a vital conduit, facilitating Moscow and Tehran’s efforts to reconnect with Damascus. Meanwhile, with Turkish allies in charge in Syria, Turkey’s dependence on both Iran and Russia has waned considerably. Yet Ankara is likely to navigate these waters with care, avoiding outright provocation of Russia and Iran. This carefulness may involve granting Iran’s allies limited room to maneuver—so long as Turkish economic interests remain firmly protected, especially its desire to monopolize regional energy transit routes bridging the Middle East and Europe.²⁷

For its part, Saudi Arabia could capitalize on its growing edge over Iran, boldly advancing its bid for regional leadership. Even if Riyadh works to sideline Tehran, it will likely also continue to play a calculated game—sticking to its recalibrated foreign policy, emerging from 2019 onwards, which aims to deepen economic and political ties with rival powers.²⁸ The turning point for Saudi Arabia came that year, when the billions it had spent on U.S. weapons failed to prevent an attack on the Kingdom’s most critical oil sites—at the peak of Trump’s first maximum pressure campaign. (The Houthis claimed the attack, but Riyadh and Washington blamed Tehran.²⁹) The biggest source of distress from this incident for Saudi Arabia was the lack of immediate U.S. support. But Riyadh also drew a more general conclusion: it could no longer rely on the United States as the guarantor of Gulf security.³⁰ Hence, Saudi Arabia sought to contain regional conflicts by prioritizing negotiations with Tehran and its allies, to distance itself from U.S.–Iranian tensions that could forestall its economic ambitions.³¹

Riyadh also drew a more general conclusion: it could no longer rely on the United States as the guarantor of Gulf security.

The Saudi strategy also extended to reestablishing diplomatic ties with Tehran, to reduce the risk of attacks on its economic interests if chaos spiraled out of control in the region.

Saudi Arabia, following this logic, is carefully maintaining communication channels with Iran and its allies, balancing diplomacy while relying on others—such as the United States and Israel—to adopt a more aggressive posture against Tehran and its influence network. Riyadh recognizes that, despite its setbacks, Iran is here to stay and its geographic proximity places the Kingdom at the most risk. By offering the carrot of dialogue while quietly allowing the stick wielded by its partners, the Kingdom can watch Tehran’s clout weaken over time without intervening. As one Saudi analyst aptly noted in an interview, this approach allows Riyadh to maintain plausible deniability while keeping its strategic ambitions firmly on track.³²

Saudi Arabia is also embracing its long-sought role as a mediator. The Kingdom hosted top American and Russian officials for talks on Ukraine, signalling a huge shift in global diplomacy.³³ Its public float to mediate future Iran–U.S. negotiations over a new nuclear deal signals, to Trump, the Kingdom’s value as an ally and strategically sets up Saudi Arabia as the most influential force in the Middle East. Riyadh is striving for a diplomatic win in one of these files. In exchange, the Kingdom hopes that the United States will step up its security commitments since, at this point, any attacks on Saudi Arabia by Axis-aligned groups would have more severe global repercussions. While the Kingdom is unlikely to replace other key regional diplomatic heavyweights, like Qatar and Oman, Riyadh’s efforts to remain in Trump’s good grace may indeed push Tehran to the side. The maneuver has already sparked concern in Iran, as evidenced by media reports that the government is decrying more aggressive Saudi posturing in Lebanon and Syria.³⁴

For the Emirates, these shifts could present a long-awaited opportunity. Securing U.S. backing for an offensive in Hodeida, Yemen, to dislodge the Houthis from the Red Sea—a long-standing Emirati goal previously thwarted by earlier U.S. administrations—might now finally be within reach. At the same time, regional actors are already forging stronger ties with Syria’s new leadership while working to weaken Hezbollah’s political control in Lebanon.

The Limits of Resistance Ideology

Western policy narratives, reflected most clearly in statements by Israeli and U.S. leaders, sometimes oversimplify the Axis of Resistance as a tightly controlled alliance of Iranian proxies that fight in lockstep at Tehran’s orders, and share unifying ideologies—for the Shia members of the network, in wilayat al-faqih (the doctrine of absolute leadership by clerics), and, for all members, in a project of resisting Israel and the United States while seeking to liberate Palestine.³⁵

In reality, at fraught junctures, the alliance between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas has often been strained, and the parties have sometimes even clashed. While its members share a deep animosity toward Israel and the United States—and share the overarching goal of driving them out of the region—recent events have shown that most are more concerned about domestic priorities and survival.

Take the example of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi Axis group that has a similar name to the famous Lebanese party but is a completely distinct entity with a mostly local agenda. As Israel broadened its assault on Gaza in the winter after the October 7 attacks, Kata’ib Hezbollah entered the fray on January 28, 2024 with a drone attack on an American outpost in Jordan called Tower 22, killing three U.S. soldiers.³⁶ Yet after Iran subsequently pleaded with Kata’ib Hezbollah to call a ceasefire, the Iraqi faction quickly opted for restraint, avoiding further moves that might have spiraled into a costly confrontation.

Other Axis members were even less involved after October 7. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, despite owing his regime’s survival to Iranian and Hezbollah support, chose to stay completely on the sidelines of the conflict.³⁷ Even after Israeli airstrikes in Damascus destroyed key Iranian assets in April 2024, Assad resisted Iranian calls for retaliation and focused instead on his diplomatic promises to the Emirates.³⁸ Assad even reportedly facilitated Israeli strikes on Iranian targets inside Syria, apparently in a bid to limit Iranian leverage over his regime.³⁹

The individual domestic concerns of Axis groups, which more often than not surpassed the broader goals of the Axis, were most evident in Hezbollah’s decision to pursue a ceasefire deal with Israel. The move stemmed not from solidarity with the “Palestinian cause” but from a hard calculus of survival. The Lebanese group understood that prolonging the war could decimate its forces and alienate its local support base—a risk it couldn’t afford to take. This stark pragmatism shows the limits of the Axis’s unity, exposing a network that prioritizes self-preservation over ideological commitment when its survival is at stake.

Illicit financial networks have consolidated over time, affording the Axis groups a degree of financial autonomy.

However, while the Axis is less than an ironclad alliance, it is also more than a loose network of Iran-aligned groups. It relies on an intricate global web of financial systems to launder money, facilitate arms shipments, and sustain military operations across its ranks. While Israel, bolstered by U.S. support, has inflicted devastating blows to the Axis’s military capabilities, Axis financial and logistical networks remain largely intact. These groups operate within an extensive shadow financial network that was initially created by Iran, but which has since taken on a life of its own. The IRGC uses sophisticated strategies that involve transnational organized crime groups—exploiting diaspora networks—and setting up sham businesses to launder money and sidestep international sanctions.⁴⁰ The Corps relies on hawala, an informal money trader system, to clandestinely circulate funds without being detected by authorities.⁴¹ Such illicit financial networks have consolidated over time, and have afforded the Axis groups a degree of financial autonomy to sustain operations even when direct Iranian support is limited. These networks will certainly survive the loss of Axis military capabilities, and could even provide the basis for a revised form of transnational influence for the Axis.

Overestimated but Still Important

A subsequent Century International report, “The Axis of Resistance Returns to Its Local Roots,” will examine in close detail the shifting capabilities and interests of the most powerful remaining Axis actors that still coordinate closely: the Iranian state, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

For as long as the Islamic Republic of Iran has sought to export revolution and project power in the Arab Middle East, surprisingly persistent debates have raged over core questions about the degree of Iran’s control over its allies and partners, their collective military power, and their ability to coordinate politically, ideologically, and tactically. Today, a clearer picture is emerging. Iran appears to stand at the center of a loose network of like-minded groups and opportunistic fellow travelers—not at the top of a hierarchical, tightly controlled alliance of proxies, allies and dependents. Despite Iran’s nuclear program and missile arsenal, its Axis did not prove a strategic match to Israel and the United States. It can disrupt regional competitors, but not contain or deter them. Previous battlefield successes—against U.S. forces in Iraq, Israeli forces in Lebanon, and Syrian revolutionaries—did not translate into regional capacity against Israel’s highly motivated and technologically advanced state military, which enjoyed untrammeled support from the United States.

Governments and analysts believed, prior to October 7, that Iran and its network possessed deterrent and strike capabilities that did not materialize. Further research might reveal the explanation for these overestimations of Axis power—whether the Axis lied to exaggerate its own power, or whether Israel penetrated and disrupted Axis capabilities that were real but too weakly defended.

Axis failures since October 7 should not obscure the capabilities it retains. The Axis maintains a flexible network for illicit finance, smuggling, and arms construction. Locally, Axis forces in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran retain determined fighters and considerable materiel. Axis forces couldn’t fight a coordinated regional war, but they can still exercise coercive power in their domestic arenas—and can still disrupt their more powerful adversaries using asymmetric spoiler tactics.

Israel’s ongoing campaign across the Middle East might soon veer into overreach. So too might the aspirations of local Axis opponents in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, all of which are trying to change the local balance of power and dominate Axis groups that were recently ascendant or untouchable. But these Axis groups, diminished though they may be on a regional level, still possess the power to repel or even dominate their local competitors. Similarly, constituencies of the failed Resistance project, like the remnants of the Assad regime, are contained right now, but will be able to contest power, or undermine their opponents, if they mobilize. The apparent defeat of the Axis could well be the prelude to a new phase of miscalculation and overreach that leads to another period of destabilizing conflict and state erosion in the Middle East.

This report is part of “Networks of Change: Reviving Governance and Citizenship in the Middle East,” a Century International project supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Open Society Foundations.

Header Image: Senior commanders of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force march in a parade of troops during military exercises on January 10 in Tehran, Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij, a paramilitary group that has played a prominent role in suppressing protests, held military exercises in the Iranian capital. Source: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

1. Thanassis Cambanis, “The Dangerous Delusion of Remaking the World by Force,” Century International, October 14, 2024, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/the-dangerous-delusion-of-remaking-the-world-by-force/.
2. See Alissa J. Rubin, “With Assad’s Fall, Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ Unravels,” New York Times, December 8, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/08/world/middleeast/irans-syria-axis-of-resistance.html, and Arash Azizi, “RIP, the Axis of Resistance,” The Atlantic, December 17, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/12/end-iran-axis-resistance/681024/.
3. Tamara Qiblawi et al., “Israel concealed explosives inside batteries of pagers sold to Hezbollah, Lebanese officials say,” CNN, September 27, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/27/middleeast/israel-pager-attack-hezbollah-lebanon-invs-intl/index.html.
4. Thanassis Cambanis, “The Dangerous Delusion of Remaking the World by Force,” The Century Foundation, October 14, 2024, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/the-dangerous-delusion-of-remaking-the-world-by-force/.
5. “Hizballah Issues ‘Open Letter’ on Goals, Principles,” Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000361273.pdf.
6. “Doctrine of Hezbollah,” Wilson Center, October 20, 2023, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/doctrine-hezbollah.
7. The Houthi sarkha: “God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse be upon the Jews, victory to Islam.”
8. Ali Fawaz, “The Axis of Resistance Marches . . . the Surprises of the Total War?” (in Arabic), Almayadeen, August 19, 2022, https://www.almayadeen.net/research-papers/مسيرات-محور-المقاومة-مفاجأة-الحرب-الشاملة-2-2; “Palestinian Resistance Praises Nasrallah’s Speech: Abortion of Plans to Separate the Fronts” (in Arabic), Almayadeen, September 19, 2024, https://www.almayadeen.net/news/politics/المقاومة-الفلسطينية-تشيد-بخطاب-السيد-نصر-الله–إجهاض-لمخططات; “Nasrallah: The War Has Entered an Open Stage and on All Fronts” (in Arabic) Alkompis, August 1, 2024, https://alkompis.se/news/نصر-الله-الحرب-دخلت-مرحلة-مفتوحة-وعلى-ك.
9. “Network Model Shows Resilience as Iran–Israel Clash Expands,” Amwaj Media, July 15, 2024, https://amwaj.media/article/network-model-shows-resilience-as-iran-israel-clash-expands; “How Might the Axis of Resistance Respond to Israel’s Escalation,” Al Jazeera, August 3, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/3/how-might-the-axis-of-resistance-respond-to-israels-escalation.
10. Sam Heller, “Washington Can’t Make Israel’s War in Gaza Moral. Instead, It Needs to End the War,” Century International, April 9, 2024, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/washington-cant-make-israels-war-in-gaza-moral-instead-it-needs-to-end-the-war/.
11. Tom Bennett, “What we know about Israel’s attack on Iran,” BBC, October 28, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr0yvrx4qpo.
12. “Israel, Hezbollah Exchange Fire, Raising Regional Tensions,” Al Jazeera, October 8, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/israel-hezbollah-exchange-fire-raising-regional-tensions.
13. Frank Gardner and Frances Mao, “Israel–Hezbollah Ceasefire Deal Agreed, Confirms Biden,” BBC, 26 November, 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75lpzq0re1o.
14. ​​Sheera Frenkel, Ronen Bergman, and Hwaida Saad, “How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers,” New York Times, September 20, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html.
15. Bassem Mroue and Melanie Lidman, “Hezbollah Confirms Its Leaders Hassan Nasrallah Was Killed in an Israeli Airstrike,” Associated Press, https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-hezbollah-airstrikes-28-september-2024-c4751957433ff944c4eb06027885a973.
16. William Christou, “Israel Confirms Killing of Hashem Safieddine, Presumed Next Leader of Hezbollah,” Guardian, October 22, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/22/israel-confirms-killing-of-presumed-next-leader-of-hezbollah.
17. “Israel Says Troops Crossed in Lebanon as Ground Offensive Launched,” Al Jazeera, October 1, 2024, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/1/israel-says-has-started-targeted-ground-raids-in-lebanon.
18.  “Israel Says Troops Will Stay In Five Locations Across Southern Lebanon,” Al Jazeera, February 17, 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/17/lebanon-wary-israeli-military-will-not-meet-withdrawal-deadline.
19.  Schaer, Cathrin, “What’s Next for Hezbollah and the ‘Axis of Resistance’?,” Deutsche Welle, October 1, 2024, https://www.dw.com/en/whats-next-for-hezbollah-and-the-axis-of-resistance/a-70376887.
20. See Thanassi Cambanis et al.,  Hybrid Actors: Armed Groups and State Fragmentation in the Middle East (New York: The Century Foundation, 2019).
21. “Trump Brings His Foreign Policy Improv Act to the Middle East,” Middle East Institute, March 12, 2025, https://www.mei.edu/publications/trump-brings-his-foreign-policy-improv-act-middle-east.
22. “Trump Says He Wrote to Iran and Wants to Negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Deal,” Guardian, March 7, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/07/trump-iran-nuclear-weapons.
23. “Trump Reimposes ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran, Aims to Drive Oil Exports to Zero,” Reuters, 4 February 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-set-reimpose-maximum-pressure-iran-official-says-2025-02-04/.
24. “U.S. Intelligence Agencies Believe Israel Is Likely to Strike Iranian Nuclear Facilities This Year,” CNN, February 13, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/politics/us-intelligence-israel-strike-iran-nuclear/index.html.
25. “Is It Benjamin Netanyahu’s Goal to Drag the U.S. into a War with Iran?” Arab News, November 2, 2024, https://www.arabnews.com/node/2575042/middle-east.
26. “The Return of the Emperor: Does Erdogan Want to Restore the Ottoman State,” ISNA, September 2, 2024, https://www.isna.ir/news/99060302544/بازگشت-امپراتور-اردوغان-می-خواهد-دولت-عثمانی-را-احیا-کند.
27. Francesco Siccardi, “Understanding the Energy Drivers of Turkey’s Foreign Policy,” Carnegie Endowment, February 28, 2024, https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/02/understanding-the-energy-drivers-of-turkeys-foreign-policy?lang=en&center=middle-east.
28. Anna Jacobs, “Understanding Saudi Arabia’s Recalibrated Foreign Policy,” International Crisis Group, September 14, 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/gulf-and-arabian-peninsula/saudi-arabia/understanding-saudi-arabias.
29. “Two Major Saudi Oil Installations Hit by Drone Strike, and U.S. Blames Iran,” New York Times, September 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refineries-drone-attack.html.
30. “Attack on Saudi Oil Facilities Test Us Guarantee to Defend Gulf,” New York Times, September 19, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/world/middleeast/saudi-iran-attack-oil.html.
31. “Why Saudi Arabia Is Staying On the Sidelines in the Red Sea Conflict,” Foreign Policy, January 16, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/16/saudi-arabia-red-sea-conflict-houthis-us-strike/.
32. Saudi analyst, interview with the author, Riyadh, September 2024.
33.  Mostafa Salem, “Why Is Saudi Arabia Hosting Talks to End the Ukraine War?,” CNN, February 17, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/middleeast/saudi-riyadh-us-russia-talks-analysis-intl-latam/index.html.
34. Ibid.
35. “Statement of Robert Wells, Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Before the Committee on Homeland Security, United States House of Representatives,” U.S. Department of Justice, March 20, 2024, https://www.justice.gov/ola/media/1344326/dl?inline; “A Clear and Present Danger to the United States Homeland,” Homeland Security Committee, March 20, 2024, https://homeland.house.gov/2024/03/20/a-clear-and-present-danger-to-the-united-states-homeland-chairman-green-delivers-opening-statement-in-hearing-on-iranian-regime-terrorist-proxies/; “Netanyahu Says Iran Axis ‘Smashed’, Endorses Trump’s Gaza Plan in Newsmax Interview,” Jerusalem Post, February 10, 2025, https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-841399; “The Role of Iraqi Shia Militias as Proxies in Iran’s Axis of Resistance,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies,  January 14, 2025, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2025/01/14/the-role-of-iraqi-shia-militias-as-proxies-in-irans-axis-of-resistance/.
36.  Jon Gambrell, “What Is Tower 22, the Military Base That Was Attacked in Jordan Where 3 U.S. Troops Were Killed?,” Associated Press, January 29, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/us-jordan-drone-attack-iran-tower-22-israel-hamas-war-0265beed527e3009a966c0531c08838e.
37. Armenak Tokmajyan, “Bashar al-Assad of Syria Has Been Ousted From Power,” Carnegie Endowment, https://carnegieendowment.org/middle-east/diwan/2024/12/bashar-al-assad-of-syria-has-been-ousted-from-power?lang=en.
38. Bilal Y. Saab, “Iran’s Desire to Retaliate After Israel’s Damascus Strike Is Balanced with Its Need to Avoid a Wider Conflict,” Chatham House, 12 April, 2024, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/04/irans-desire-retaliate-after-israels-damascus-strike-balanced-its-need-avoid-wider-conflict.
39. Hassan Hassan and Michael Weiss, “Inside Israel’s Shadow War Against Iran in Syria,” New Lines Magazine, December 16, 2024, https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/inside-israels-shadow-war-against-iran-in-syria/;
    “Leaked Documents Suggest Secret Dealings Between Assad and Israel,” The New Arab, December 11, 2024, https://www.newarab.com/news/leaked-documents-suggest-secret-dealings-between-assad-israel.
40. Hamidreza Azizi, “Beyond Proxies Iran’s Deeper Strategy in Syria and Lebanon,” European Council on Foreign Relations, June 5, 2024, https://ecfr.eu/publication/beyond-proxies-irans-deeper-strategy-in-syria-and-lebanon/.
41. Christian Leuprecht et al., “Tracking Transnational Terrorist Resourcing Nodes and Networks,” Florida State University Law Review 46. no. 2, https://ir.law.fsu.edu/lr/vol46/iss2/7/; “Fuel Oil Smuggling Network Rakes in $1 Billion for Iran and Its Proxies,” Reuters, December 3, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/fuel-oil-smuggling-network-rakes-1-billion-iran-its-proxies-2024-12-03/.

Tags: iran, axis of resistance, Networks of change