Israeli special forces rescue troops from the Gaza battlefield [photo credit: IDF]
There are competing interpretations about how the war in Gaza is playing out but what strikes you in terms of emerging patterns?
This conflict builds on what has been a creeping pattern of
escalation that is beginning to be quite dangerous and very alarming.
Since the start of the Gaza war, Iran and Hezbollah have been repeatedly
messaging that they were not looking to get directly involved in the
conflict. And they've been quite deliberate in getting that message out.
Nevertheless, I think Israel has been looking to deter further group
activity and future group activity and so there has been an increasing
uptick in strikes. Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas commander was taken out in
Lebanon, and the IRGC commander Razi Mousavi was killed in Syria. We've
also seen a number of missile strikes against coalition forces in Iraq.
And the Americans have also been responding to that.
So the temperature is rising and with it what are the risks?
The temperature is certainly rising. And the conflicts are beginning
to blend together. And this is because the axis of resistance is also
showing its transnational potential, its interdependency across the
region.
Just remind our listeners who and what the axis of resistance is.
The axis of resistance is an Iran-backed network of regional groups
that includes state as well as non-state actors from Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, some smaller groups in the
West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon is a very important partner, a number of
groups in Syria, as well as the support of the Syrian state itself, a
massive array of groups in Iraq - some also part of the government and
some more parochial - and last and certainly not least, the Huthi or
Ansar Allah group in Yemen
And what does Iran do with the axis as the Gaza war continues?
I think Iran talks a big game and likes to say that it will respond.
It has a hard time directly hitting back against Israel in the region or
in Israel itself. And it has long relied on these groups to exert
deterrence, but also to do the hard work where Iran can't do it directly
There are those who take the view that with this axis of resistance, all roads lead to Tehran. Is that the case?
In regard to issues of regional security and stability pertaining to
Iran, I would broadly agree. However I think that underplays the role
and relevance of members of the axis of resistance and their agency, and
if we underplay their agency and their domestic context then we can't
really think through how to break or weaken the axis. And many of the
entry points or potential policy options are found by looking at the
domestic context across the region, be it in Lebanon or Iraq or Yemen.
So just thinking about the octopus, as the Israelis like to call Iran,
is short-sighted, but more broadly at the same time, that's also giving
Iran a lot of agency and power. Iran’s axis of resistance has been born
out of opportunity and crises in the region and Iran’s very deliberate
efforts at capitalising on those crises. The West, the US in particular,
has repeatedly shown it doesn't have the intent or the bandwidth to
develop a broader Iran strategy or to take a more aggressive posture
towards Iran. And so that I think leaves regional states in a precarious
position. They've supported containment in past sanctions of Iran and
through maximum pressure under the Trump administration. They supported
the US withdrawal from the JCPOA. And none of these efforts have really
altered or changed Iran's regional strategy. We might be seeing Iran
having embedded further into the region. And so I think what is needed
is much more of a determined, disciplined dialogue with Iran but also at
the same time to manage that dialogue with regional efforts of
deterrence and at the same time upscaling the regional security
landscape and its capability.
Let's look at the Huthis. What are they attempting to achieve in the Red Sea?
What the Huthis are trying to show is that they have a disruptive
capacity, they have an ability to maybe transfer the costs of the Gaza
war onto the open seas. I think in practice, though, they are not just
disrupting maritime shipping but showing their long- term staying power
in North Yemen and their ability to be a long-term threat, not just on
the open seas but for the Arabian Peninsula more broadly. And that
raises questions about how to deal with a group that was about to be
normalised. There were longstanding efforts led by the UN, but also very
much supported by the US government to negotiate and sign a ceasefire
agreement that would then shift the external war with the Huthis to one
that would focus on building a Yemeni peace process. That currently is
very much off the table.
Very much off the table. At the same time, though, the Huthis
have gone out of their way to reassure the Saudis and the Emiratis that
there's not going to be any missiles or drone attacks coming their way.
The other Huthi strategy is their stated position on the Gaza war:
'declare a ceasefire and the attacks on shipping will stop.' You can
take it at face value or not. But for now let's take it at face value.
Here in the UK and in Washington, the stance has been that the war in
Gaza and the Red Sea contestation are not connected. What do you make of
that? Because I'm puzzling to get my head around it.
Certainly I think policymakers in Washington and in the UK would like
to keep the portfolios separate which reflects longstanding strategy to
separate regional files, to deal with issues in a more siloed way than
linking them all together. The Huthis, should we take their words at
face value, are very much instrumentalising the war in Gaza, not just to
showcase their long-term potential destabilising capacity but,
obviously, also to develop more legitimacy across Yemen which has a
strong view against Israel's war and in support of Palestinian
statehood. But I find it hard to believe, even if the war in Gaza was
stopped tomorrow, that the Huthis could bounce back to business as
usual. What they might or might not realise in upping the ante as
they've done is to really raise red flags about their ability to be
normalised, as to whether they can be a reliable business partner or a
political actor, whether they can get down to the business of governance
and accountability.
Coming back to Iran, this is a regime that despite all its
domestic challenges and a weak economy, is still playing this asymmetric
warfare game very adroitly. And it seems to me, as the Iranians sense
weakness in America, perhaps playing it even better than ever. Do you
think that’s the case?
I think it's easy to see Iran winning. I hear a lot of people talking
about how Iran is the big winner from the war in Gaza. And it is
exploiting a lot of opportunities. However, I continue to see Iran in a
defensive posture in the region. I think it capitalises on and tries to
capture weakened or failing states and doesn't invest productively or
positively across the region. Iran isn't seen as an economic or
political model that anyone wants to emulate. And as you mentioned,
within Iran, there is a huge legitimacy crisis. There have been quite
profound protests that were inspired and motivated by Mahsa Amini in
September of 2022…
The young woman who was arrested and beaten to death because she was wearing a headscarf improperly.
Yes, exactly. And that led to a cascade of national protests across
the country, including protests that developed into economic demands,
political and equal rights demands led by women in particular and also
involving minority groups, the Kurds, Baluchis and Sunnis. And before
that we saw protests in 2019, 2017, 2009, a series of significant
protests and a mounting array of grievances from within the Iranian
population. And I think that's also important to consider. This is a
system and a state that is looking to continue to survive. But it's not a
system or a state that is investing in its people, that is building and
trying to reform its system of governance. It's not trying to manage
its internal environmental and climate change crisis. Today Iran is in a
defensive mode. And so I think it's important not to oversell or
overstate what is looking like a victory for Iran, because I'm not quite
sure this is a victory for Iran.