By Charbel A. Antoun

As U.S. carrier groups mass in the Gulf and Tehran signals defiance, Washington faces a strategic trap of its own making. Iran’s proxy network is weaker than at any point in the past decade — yet more volatile, more fragmented, and more likely to turn a “limited strike” into a regional firestorm. 

For years, Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” served as the backbone of its regional strategy. Through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force, Tehran built a constellation of militias capable of bleeding adversaries and shaping conflicts from Beirut to Sanaa. Funding pipelines, drone and missile transfers, and ideological indoctrination allowed Iran to punch far above its weight. 

That architecture has been shaken by a cascade of shocks: the October 2023 Hamas attack and Israel’s Gaza war; crippling blows to Hezbollah; the 2024 collapse of Bashar al-Assad in Syria; and the U.S.–Israeli “12-Day War” of 2025. Syria’s fall snapped the land bridge to Lebanon and Gaza. The old hub-and-spoke system didn’t bend — it broke. 

What remains is a loose, improvised confederation. Tehran’s grip is slipping even as its proxies grow harder to neutralize. The Axis is weaker — but wilder. Less obedient. More erratic. And more dangerous in its unpredictability. 

Hezbollah was once Iran’s crown jewel: disciplined, heavily armed, and central to Tehran’s deterrence strategy. The 12-Day War changed that. Israeli strikes gutted senior commanders, destroyed stockpiles, and exposed vulnerabilities in air defense and communications networks. 

Under a fragile ceasefire, Hezbollah remains capable of firing into northern Israel, but its leadership is cautious, its arsenal depleted, and its political standing strained. Iran is funding a slow rebuild, but the group is no longer the reliable spearhead it once was.

If Hezbollah is weakened, the Houthis are ascendant. Ansar Allah controls large swaths of Yemen, has survived U.S., British, and Israeli strikes and continues to disrupt Red Sea shipping. Their long range attacks on Israel during the 12-Day War showcased both capability and intent.

They combine Iranian technology with their own ideological zeal and operational autonomy. They are Tehran’s least controllable partner — and the most likely to escalate in ways that drag the U.S. Navy into direct confrontation. 

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad emerged from the Gaza war with shattered leadership and minimal offensive capacity. They remain symbolically important to Tehran but operationally diminished.

Iraqi Shia militias, in contrast, retain significant influence. Groups like Kataib Hezbollah are embedded in Iraq’s political and security institutions, giving Iran leverage over Baghdad while maintaining the ability to strike U.S. forces. Their rhetoric about “martyrdom operations” spikes during crises — but Iraq’s internal politics may restrain them more than Tehran can. 

Assad’s fall in December 2024 was the single most consequential blow to Iran’s regional strategy. The loss of Damascus severed the logistical backbone of the “Axis of Resistance.” Iran’s Syrian militias are now scattered, leaderless and strategically irrelevant. Tehran has shifted to maritime routes through Yemen, covert transfers through Iraq, and dispersed global networks. 

A degraded Axis can still overwhelm Israel through simultaneity. Hezbollah rockets, Houthi drones, and Iraqi militia incursions — even poorly coordinated — could force Israel into a multi‑front crisis that strains its economy, air defenses, and public morale. 

The threat is no longer a disciplined Iranian campaign. It is a chaotic storm of actors with uneven capabilities and unpredictable timing. 

Roughly 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria remain exposed to rocket and drone attacks. Tens of thousands more in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain sit within range of Houthi missiles and Iraqi militia operations. During the 12-Day War, U.S. bases were repeatedly targeted — a preview of what a new confrontation could unleash. 

Any strike on Iran risks immediate retaliation across multiple theaters. 

Tehran’s influence has eroded. Its proxies are bruised and fragmented, but they are also more decentralized, more ideological, and less responsive to Iranian control. 

A weaker Axis is not a safer one. It is a wilder one. 

What Washington must do now: First, plan for the proxies — do not treat them as an afterthought. Any U.S. strike must assume immediate retaliation from Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon. That requires simultaneous suppression of Houthi launch sites, Iraqi militia command centers and Hezbollah rocket infrastructure. Sequential strikes invite months of attrition. 

Second, the U.S. should replace maximalist demands with a narrow, enforceable deal. Zero enrichment, zero missiles, zero proxies is not a negotiating position — it is a stalemate generator. A realistic framework for an agreement should include a 20 percent enrichment cap, restored International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring, missile range limits, and incentives for verifiable proxy deescalation.

Sanctions relief should also be tied to measurable reductions in militia activity, not to abstract promises. 

Iran’s Axis is battered but alive. Its proxies are diminished but dangerous. And its ability to turn a targeted strike into a regional conflagration remains intact. 

If Washington misreads weakness as irrelevance, it risks stumbling into the multi‑front conflict Tehran has spent decades preparing for. 

* Charbel A. Antoun is a Washington-based journalist and writer specializing in U.S. foreign policy, with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. He is passionate about global affairs, conflict resolution, human rights, and democratic governance, and explores the world’s complexities through in-depth reporting and analysis.

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