Why Iran is the common link in conflicts from Gaza to Pakistan

Israel and Gaza. Yemen and the Red Sea. Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – and now Pakistan.

At every flashpoint in a series of conflicts spanning more than 2,000 miles and involving a mix of unpredictable armed actors and interests, there is a common thread: Iran. Tehran has made its mark with its behind-the-scenes support of fighters in places like Lebanon and Yemen, and with this week's direct rocket attacks on targets in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan.

The Iran connection stems in part from Iran's decades-long efforts to deter threats and undermine enemies by building like-minded militias across the Middle East.

Moreover, Iran itself, like its neighbors, faces armed separatist movements and terrorist groups in conflicts that easily cross borders.

But what does Pakistan have to do with Gaza? Here's how Iran links recent tensions.

What's the backstory here?

Since the 1979 revolution, which turned Iran into a Shiite Muslim theocracy, the country has been isolated and seen itself as under siege.

Iran considers the United States and Israel its greatest enemies – for more than four decades its leaders have vowed to destroy Israel. It also wants to establish itself as the most powerful nation in the Persian Gulf region, where its main rival is Saudi Arabia, a US ally, and has often had hostile relations with the Saudis and some other predominantly Sunni Muslim Arab neighbors.

With few other allies, Iran has long armed, trained, financed, advised, and even led various movements that Iran's enemies share. Although Iranian forces have been directly involved in wars in Syria and Iraq, Tehran has mostly fought its enemies abroad by proxy.

Iran, which calls itself and these militias the “Axis of Resistance” against American and Israeli power, sees it all as “part of a single struggle,” said Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. , a policy analysis group.

Iranian leaders call their approach a forward defense strategy and say that to defend itself the country must take action beyond its borders.

“If they want to avoid fighting the Americans and Israelis on Iran's soil, they will have to do it elsewhere,” Mr. Alhasan said. “And that is in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan.”

How well the strategy works is questionable. Terrorist groups have recently attacked Iranian territory. And for years, Israel has carried out targeted attacks on Iran's nuclear program, killing some of its key figures and destroying facilities.

Why does Iran outsource its conflicts?

As Iran seeks to project its power and influence, it is reluctant to directly attack the United States or its allies and provoke major retaliation or all-out war.

It is unclear how secure the Iranian leaders feel in their grip on power. But they know that decades of sanctions and embargoes have degraded Iran's armed forces and economy, and their repressive government faces intense domestic opposition.

Iran has hoped to offset its vulnerabilities by developing nuclear weapons, which would put the country on par with Pakistan and Israel – and ahead of Saudi Arabia. But so far the nuclear program has not produced a bomb.

By investing in proxy forces – fellow Shiites in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and Sunni Hamas in the Gaza Strip – Iran can cause trouble for its enemies, and raise the prospect of causing even more if attacked.

“Proxy forces have allowed Iran to maintain some level of plausible deniability while asymmetrically providing Tehran with a means to effectively attack or pressure Israel,” the Combating Terrorism Center said in a statement. Point. wrote in a December report.

Iranian officials have publicly denied involvement in or ordering Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people. But they also hailed the attack as a momentous achievement and warned that their regional network would open multiple fronts against Israel if the country continued its retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza.

Some of these proxies have even increased attacks on Israel, but have avoided full-fledged war.

Who are these proxies for Iran?

Lebanon's Hezbollah, widely considered the most powerful and advanced of the Iran-allied forces, was founded in the 1980s with Iranian help, primarily to combat the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The group, which is also a political party in Lebanon, has fought several wars and border skirmishes with Israel.

Hezbollah has exchanged fire across the border with the Israeli army almost daily since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks, but has so far refrained from fully participating in the fighting.

The Houthi movement in Yemen launched an uprising against the government twenty years ago. What was once a ragtag rebel force rose to power at least partly thanks to covert military help from Iran, U.S. and Middle Eastern officials and analysts said.

The Houthis captured much of the country in 2014 and 2015, and a Saudi-led coalition joined the Yemeni government in the civil war. A de facto ceasefire has been in place since 2022, with the Houthis still in control of northwestern Yemen and the capital Sana.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Houthis have waged a so-called campaign of solidarity with the Palestinians under Israeli bombardment. They have launched missiles and drones at Israel and disrupted a significant portion of the world's shipping through attacks dozens of ships sailing to or from the Suez Canal.

That has transformed the Houthis into a fighting force with global impact, prompting the United States and Britain, with the help of allies, to launch missile strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

Hamas has also received weapons and training from Iran in the Palestinian territories, and has waged repeated wars with Israel.

Why did Iran attack directly, and not through allies, in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan?

It has a lot to do with the problems of the government at home.

As tensions rise in the region, Tehran has increasingly become a target.

Last month, a separatist group attacked a police station in southeastern Iran, killing 11 people. Two senior Iranian commanders were assassinated in Syria, and Iran blamed Israel.

This month, suicide bombings in Kerman, Iran, killed nearly 100 people – the deadliest terrorist attacks since the founding of the Islamic Republic. The Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Iranian analysts and Iranians close to the military say the government wanted to make a show of force in the face of the hardliners who are its base of support, and was already outraged by the Israeli attacks. Iran went on the offensive.

It said this week that it had fired missiles at Islamic State in Syria and at what it said was an Israeli intelligence-gathering base in northern Iraq. (The Iraqi government denied that the struck building was linked to Israel.) Shots were also fired into Pakistan.

“Iran has clearly indicated that it does not want to use these capabilities for anything other than the defense of its homeland,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, a policy group.

What does Pakistan have to do with this? It's not even in the Middle East.

The separatist group Jaish al-Adl wants to create a homeland for the Baluch ethnic group from parts of Iran and Pakistan and operates on both sides of the border. It also took responsibility for last month's deadly attack on an Iranian police station.

The two countries accuse each other of not doing enough to prevent militants from crossing the border.

Iran said its attacks in Pakistan targeted bases for Jaish al-Adl, but Pakistan pushed back against Iran's reasoning, saying it cited civilian casualties. On Thursday, Pakistan responded by bombing alleged terrorist hideouts in Iran.

Pakistan and Iran have had mostly cordial relations, and the friction between them has little to do with Iran's other regional conflicts. But Iran's decision to attack inside Pakistan has the potential to damage its relationship with Pakistan. At a time when the region is already on edge, a miscalculation could be particularly dangerous.

Vivian Nereim, Salman Masood and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.