The Israel-Hamas War Has Turned Into A Trap For Iran’s Regional Ambitions

-Analysis-

CAIRO — Across the Middle East, the Gaza war is considered an important moment in the conflict between two key regional camps.

The first is known as the “Arab moderation camp,” which mainly includes Egypt and Arab Gulf states believe in a solution based on the principle of the two-state solution.

The second is the “resistance camp,” which is made up of Iran and a number of Arab militias backed by Iran. Like Hamas, they all believe in the goal of eliminating Israel, and therefore reject the two-state solution and condemn any Arab effort to resolve the conflict peacefully.

The disagreement between the two camps, with its importance, is one of the manifestations of a deeper disagreement related to shaping the structure of the entire region.

Risk of destabilization

The resistance camp is Islamic. It envisions the future of the region in the form of a sole imperial Islamic state. That state is by nature based on the ruins of the national idea, which is considered the foundation of the current Arab ruling regimes.

It is no coincidence that the resistance camp consists mainly of militias. Militias are the most important tool available to strike the principle of state sovereignty at its core, because the basis of any state’s sovereignty is the state’s monopoly on forming military organizations of armies and official security services.

Yet the contribution of a country, such as Iran, in establishing or financing militias also depends on the availability of appropriate conditions within the country in question. Destabilization turns a country into a failed state, providing the opportunity to form militias and extend their control over parts of the country’s territory.

The Arab region has a long history with militias, due to the weak national formation in a significant number of its countries. But the current active militias no longer carry a national liberation ideology or a leftist revolutionary ideology.

Rather, all of them, with limited exceptions, now carry an Islamic ideology, and thus carry an “imperial” perception, meaning that it transcends peoples, nationalities and state borders, allowing them to declare loyalty to a state that is considered foreign in concept. Hezbollah, for example, has Lebanese nationality and Iranian allegiance. The bottom line is that the militia composition of this camp is completely consistent with its principles.

In fact, the Islamic Republic of Iran itself has a militia character. The ruling regime possesses a huge force parallel to the regular army: the Revolutionary Guard. which is responsible for protecting the ruling system based on the principle of guardianship of the jurist. The Revolutionary Guard has internal security forces parallel to the police called the Basij, and it also has a military arm for external operations called the Quds Force.

The Quds Force is responsible for training and arming the other militias of the “resistance camp,” notably Hezbollah, the Shiite militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, and the Houthis in Yemen. Both Hezbollah and the Iraqi militias adhere to the Jaafari Shiite branch, which is Iran’s official sect, while the Houthis follow the Zaidi branch.

The Palestinian cause

The resistance camp faces a fundamental problem in expanding in the region due to its very nature. Shiites of all sects are a minority in the Arab region. So the resistance camp cannot rally the peoples of the region, including in Palestine, by urging them to follow the Shiite law of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, which entails that only a Shiite jurist has the religious right to rule.

So they use other rallying calls, leftist in origin, such as defending the oppressed, fighting colonialism or what Iran calls the global arrogance, and, of course, general Islamic slogans.

In this context, the Palestinian cause is important for the resistance camp because it has historically played — and continues to play — a fundamental role in the history of the Arab region and the conflicts of its countries and ideological currents. It represents the best and most realistic opportunity for this camp to spread its ideas and build loyalty.

As the PLO moved toward a two-state solution, the resistance camp tended to embrace Hamas.

As the Palestine Liberation Organization moved toward a two-state solution, the resistance camp tended to embrace Hamas, arming it and contributing to its financing in complex ways and to openly support it in the ongoing war.

This does not mean that the Shiite opposition camp embraces the Palestinian issue as a mere tool or pretext. Its hostility toward Israel is fundamental to the doctrine of this camp on religious grounds. This common belief has turned into something similar to a military alliance, which declared “unity of the squares” in 2021, on the occasion of launching rockets at Israel from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza at the same time.

But this bright slogan contradicts Iran’s tactical slogan of “strategic patience,” which means avoiding direct confrontation with Israel and the United States, and even with neighboring countries, until sufficient force and appropriate conditions are available. Until then, Iran will use its arms as a frontline for skirmishes, which will bear the burden of limited confrontations with Israel, especially Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Gaza dilemma

Regardless of whether Hamas launched the Oct. 7 operation on its own or after consultation with the “unity of the squares” forces, Israel’s violent response and its determination to eradicate Hamas has created a difficult dilemma for the alliance: either respond by waging an all-out war against Israel based on the unity of the squares; or resort to “strategic patience.”

The fact is that this Iran-led camp has adhered to the latter tactic, while trying to save its credibility — or save face — by carrying out limited operations, as a demonstration of its solidarity with Hamas. While it is not symbolic solidarity, Hamas has been virtually left alone to face its fate — amid repeated assertions that it launched the Oct. 7 attack without consulting other resistance forces.

When the Israel-Hamas war began, Hezbollah militia started to launch limited attacks on northern Israel. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah put those attacks in the framework of the rules of engagement, saying the goal was to distract the Israeli army from attacking Gaza with full force. He added that the attacks were limited in consideration for the rest of Lebanon’s factions that did not want an all-out war with Israel.

But strategic patience does not resolve the resistance camp’s dilemma.

Off the coast of Yemen, Houthis also began firing missiles and drones at Israeli vessels, or those heading to Israel, as they passed through the Arabian Sea and the southern Red Sea. They said their attacks would stop when the Israel-Hamas war stopped. And in Iraq, Shiite militias affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces also fired missiles at the few American forces in the country.

Iran’s recent attack on Israel was not in solidarity with Hamas. Its declared goal was limited to responding to Israel’s destruction of an Iranian consular building in Syria, where a number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders met. And Tehran has repeatedly said that it shares Washington’s desire not to expand the scope of the Israel-Hamas war.

But this policy does not resolve the resistance camp’s dilemma, because it does not achieve important results. Hezbollah’s limited strikes did not ease Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Rather, Hezbollah was hit with painful strikes and Hamas officials were assassinated in Lebanon.

The results of strategic patience 

Most importantly, Israel did not declare its commitment to the aforementioned rules of engagement. Rather it declared that it would achieve “peace for the Galilee” (northern Israel) through either peace or war. Either Hezbollah retreats from the border line toward the Litani River, or Israel will enter Lebanon with its army to liquidate it, as it is currently doing with Hamas.

All of these options are bitter for Hezbollah and Iran. Their preferred option, according to the tactic of strategic patience, is for the situation to remain as is.

Shiite militias were also forced to stop their operations against the U.S. forces

As for the Houthi rebels, their attacks, which cost them a large part of their military equipment, led to the deployment of the U.S. Navy to the crucial Bab al-Mandab Strait. And in the end, the Houthis did not significantly harm Israel — only a limited part of Israel’s maritime trade passes through the port of Eilat. But they did impact the trade of many other countries in the region and elsewhere, including Egypt.

In Iraq, Shiite militias were also forced to stop their operations against the U.S. forces due to Sunni and Kurdish opposition, and the embarrassment it caused to the Iraqi government. Such attacks could threaten the stability of Iraq, where Iran has built broad influence and major interests.

Moreover, the alliance’s calculated reaction stopped it from blackmailing Arab countries by accusing them of abandoning the cause. And Hamas’ call for Arabs to march towards Palestine was of little credibility given the limited application the unity of the squares.

But if the Oct. 7 attack greatly embarrassed the resistance camp, it has benefited from it by obstructing the train of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And the Palestinian cause has benefited from the attack, which returned it to the top of the list of priorities in the Middle East.

The Iranian camp and its proxies now face a difficult choice between large-scale regional war, which it does not want or making concessions that will weaken the camp, especially on the Lebanese front. So the return of the Palestinian cause to the forefront may not be in the resistance camp’s interest.

The Arab moderation camp, meanwhile, may benefit from international interest in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.