Will Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ Hold Together?

Israel’s strikes on Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran signal that no leader within Iran’s “axis of resistance” is beyond reach. But what exactly is this alliance, how tight is Iran’s grip, and what are the stakes for the region and the United States if Israel goes to all-out war with it?

The “axis of resistance” refers to a longstanding and evolving coalition of states and groups, originally fostered in the 1950s by Arab nationalist regimes like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, which used proxies to challenge Western and Israeli influence in the Middle East. Today Iran leads the axis, fostering and supporting groups like Hezbollah and various Shiite militias across the region.

In a recent panel organized by the Quincy Institute, a speaker with long experience in Iraq and a contact point there for American diplomats, recalled a U.S. official asking her what exactly the “axis of resistance” was resisting? The answer is the United States and all its works, because they share a view of the United States as opposed to them and all their works. Resistance is driven by a mutually reinforcing set of ideological and geostrategic imperatives.

The revolutionary regime in Iran, for example, remembers Washington as Britain’s partner-in-crime in staging the coup that brought the Shah to power in 1953 and, among other things, helping Saddam Hussein try to throttle the revolution in its crib in the 1980s, and imposing severe economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic ever since. The U.S. has also been a steadfast supporter of Israel, which for ideological and more recently strategic reasons, Tehran seeks to weaken, and if possible, destroy. Since 1979, and especially following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran has been the uneasy leader of the axis of resistance, expanding its influence in regional conflicts, including in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen—but its allies are troublesome ones.