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The crisis in the Middle East continues with no end in sight. Often overlooked amid all the misery in the region is Iran, which is having a “terrible, horrible, very bad year,” RAND's Raphael Cohen writes.
Iran has taken some serious blows recently. Its proxy groups are severely weakened, with Hezbollah's leader killed in Lebanon last month and reports today that Israel's forces have killed Hamas's leader in Gaza. What's more, further relief from Western sanctions is off the table.
Tehran has only itself to blame, Cohen says. Its risk-taking has reached dangerous levels. Consider Iran's strikes on Israel. Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at a militarily superior, superpower-backed adversary while calling for that adversary’s annihilation. Iran also reportedly plotted to assassinate former President Donald Trump in retaliation for the 2020 killing of Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Suleimani.
These risky actions and Tehran’s incompetence have threatened the regime’s stability. “The wisest option for Iran right now,” Cohen says, “would be to retreat to the shadows, rebuild its proxy network, and fight another day.”
But Iran seems unwilling to back down, and that has important implications. If threatening to act fails to deter further Iranian escalation, Cohen says, then Washington and its allies “may have no other choice” than to destroy Iran’s ability to attack Israel and aid its proxies. And if that happens, then as terrible as this year has been for Iran, next year might be even worse.
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