Toppling Iran's House of Cards

As its grip on the Middle East crumbles, Iran and its proxies are faced with a difficult choice.

In the morning of 27 September, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah awoke in his residence in Beirut. On the agenda for that afternoon was a meeting with his senior officials in the jihadist militia’s headquarters, housed beneath residential buildings in Beirut’s southern Dahieh suburb. While Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was declaring to the United Nations General Assembly that the Jewish state “will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border,” Nasrallah’s top brass were discussing how to inflict even greater casualties on Israeli civilians, in addition to the tens of thousands whom they had already displaced through incessant incendiary fire into northern Israel since 8 October.

Later that evening, Hassan Nasrallah and his entire chain of command were no more, obliterated in an Israeli air strike. After hours of denial, Hezbollah finally confirmed the next day that their leader had been eliminated in the blast - a devastating blow to the Iran-backed militia he had led for more than three decades. Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic regime in Iran, took to X (formerly Twitter) to proclaim that the “Zionist criminals” had been unable to inflict any real damage upon the “solid structure of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.” Of course, Khamenei is not prepared to admit that a group to which he sends approximately USD 700M every year has suffered irredeemable losses at the hands of his forsworn enemies. 

Yet, it would seem that Khamenei remains alone in his denial. Countless Syrians celebrated the assassination in the streets of rebel-controlled Idlib with music and sweet foods, joined by similar celebratory movements across the Middle East. While some elements of the Western left and diplomatic ranks, such as UN Secretary-General António Guterres, have criticised the momentous development as a reckless and unnecessary move by Israel, others have praised it as a new era for peace. Emirati journalist Amjad Taha referred to Nasrallah’s death as a “historic victory for the world” and an end to Hezbollah’s reign of terror. Former US official Jared Kushner highlighted that in less than six weeks, Israel has “eliminated as many terrorists on the US list of wanted terrorists as the US has done in the last 20 years.”

Nasrallah’s assassination, and that of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh before him, serve to display a far more significant trend in Middle East geopolitics: the Iranian regime is failing. It has proved unable to deliver on its seven-front war against Israel, and its proxies are becoming more impotent with each passing day. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have put Hamas on the run, and it is reportedly operating as a guerilla group with no organised military power. On 29 September, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) were able to conduct targeted strikes on crucial infrastructure in Yemen as a response to Houthi attacks. Israel’s message to Iran is crystal clear: If you move, you are next. 

Yet, the Islamic regime appears hell-bent on asserting its ever-decreasing strength, often at the expense of its own security and that of its neighbours. Its unprecedented barrage of at least 180 ballistic missiles into Israeli civilian areas on 1 October sparked fear throughout Israel, though it was a complete military and strategic failure. The only confirmed death is of a Palestinian man from Gaza, Sameh al-Asali, who was crushed by a missile fragment near Jericho. The attack has distanced Iran from the West, its actions condemned by officials across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and a slew of other countries. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed revenge: “Whoever attacks us - we will attack.” 

The Islamic regime in Iran has always been a destroyer of worlds. It has never discriminated between Muslim and Jew, Sunni or Shia, man or woman, in its quest for domination. Ahmad Vahidi, the regime’s interior minister, has been charged with masterminding the bombing of an Israeli cultural centre in Argentina in 1994 which left 85 people dead and 300 wounded. The late military chief of its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, was connected to the massacres of more than 500,000 innocents and the additional displacement of 13 million people during the Syrian civil war, and helped execute hundreds of hospital bombings and chemical attacks in residential areas. The US Defense Intelligence Agency reported in August 2023 that Iran had provided Russia with hundreds of one-way attack UAVs for use in its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

It is absurd to expect that a gentle and pacifist approach to the Iranian regime will convince its leadership to change course. For years, Western leaders have approached the regime with Chamberlainite levels of appeasement, which few have been brave enough to oppose. Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre recently denounced the West’s historically weak position on Iran:

“I think the idea of allowing a genocidal, theocratic, unstable dictatorship that is desperate to avoid being overthrown by its own people, to develop nuclear weapons, is about the most dangerous and irresponsible thing that the world could ever allow…”

- Pierre Poilievre, 8 October 2024 (Global News)

However, the Islamic regime’s constant provocations may be proving too much to bear. On 11 October, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan informed the media that the U.S. and its G7 partners would be bolstering sanctions to target Iranian financial stability. On 13 October, a Pentagon spokesperson announced that the United States would be deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Israel to help it fend off future ballistic missile barrages launched by IRGC forces.

Ali Khamenei is now faced with a choice. Will his regime continue to brutally suppress civil and political liberties in Iran? Will it continue to inflict untold damage on Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the rest of the Middle East? Will it continue to sponsor terror proxies and lie to Western audiences in an attempt to eradicate Israel and its international allies?

With time, these questions will be answered. But one thing remains clear. If Khamenei continues down this path of doom, he will find himself with no cards left to play.