Iran’s defense against Israel was supposed to work systematically as a unified front. All across the Middle East, year after year, Iran has sent weapons, funding, advisors, and more to a wide range of non-state actors with one shared enemy. From the Hamas organization in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Yemen’s Houthi rebels and more, all of Iran’s allies were supposed to be so well-armed, so formidable, and so downright unpredictable that if Iran itself were ever attacked, they would leap to the Ayatollah’s defense and devastate Iran’s mortal enemies.
But right now, Iran is coming up on a week of continuous fighting with Israel, and Iran is decisively on the losing side. The nation has landed some hits of its own, but its military leadership has been decapitated, its air defenses are nonexistent, and its people are at Israel’s mercy. And all the while, Iran’s friends across the Middle East have done practically nothing, watching silently as their longtime benefactor has been brought to the brink of collapse.
This raises the question of why Iran’s allies have chosen this moment to stand down, and why Iran’s decades-long effort to undermine Israel now appears to have been a catastrophic strategic failure.
Key Takeaways
- On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched its assault on Israel independently, sparking a war that ultimately isolated Iran.
- Israel systematically neutralized Hezbollah’s leadership and arsenal in Lebanon following nearly a year of border skirmishes.
- The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria severely disrupted Iranian smuggling routes and removed a critical buffer.
- A massive Israeli air barrage in October 2024 devastated Iran’s air defenses and missile production capabilities.
- Coordinated Israeli and US airstrikes effectively neutralized Houthi attack capabilities in Yemen by mid-June 2025.
- The destruction of the Axis of Resistance represents a historic strategic failure for Tehran’s long-term regional ambitions.
The October 7 Catalyst and the Axis of Resistance
Every end has a start, and for Iran, the cascading series of misfires and missteps that led to today can be traced back to one of the most pivotal days in modern Middle Eastern history: October 7, 2023. That is the day of the Hamas organization’s massive assault on Israel, slaughtering about 1,200 Israelis, taking over 250 more captive, and kicking off the crisis that is now known as the Israel-Hamas War. Hamas had long been reliant on the direct support of Iran, but just like every other group within this network, the relationship between Iran and its proxy force in Gaza was complicated.
Iran certainly held a powerful sway over Hamas and could direct it to do one thing or another as Iran saw fit. However, at the end of the day, Hamas was its own organization, with priorities that could come into conflict with those of its main backer. By all accounts, Iran certainly did not mind the idea of an October 7-style attack against Israel, but the way that the attack went down was far from what Iran would have drawn up.
Hamas perceived itself as being under threat from all directions, including from Iran. At that time, Israel was in the process of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, as Saudi Arabia was simultaneously normalizing relations with Iran. In an Arab world where those three nations could start working together, Hamas knew full well that its mandate to exist could be under threat.
In a world where Iran and Israel eventually learned to tolerate each other or even collaborate, it would be Hamas left holding the bag after decades of death and destruction. In retrospect, the collapse of Iran’s Middle Eastern proxy network started when Iran seemingly failed to anticipate that Hamas would attack Israel on its own terms without direct Iranian support, having its own strategic reasons for doing so. Before October 7, Hamas was a critical part of Iran’s plans to keep Israel in check.
Hamas was thought to have well over ten thousand rockets and mortars at its disposal, plus several tens of thousands of fighters, long-range missiles, and kamikaze drones. Hamas could use those assets to launch terror attacks, but they also served a dual purpose. If Israel ever considered taking military action against Iran directly, it would have to plan for a major attack coming from Gaza at its rear.
Even more dangerous was the Hezbollah organization, based in southern Lebanon. In 2024, they were estimated to have anywhere from fifty thousand to two hundred thousand fighters, up to 150,000 rockets, missiles, and drones, alongside other military hardware that led to Hezbollah being widely regarded as the most dangerous non-state actor on the planet. Also on Israel’s border, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria had grown increasingly close to Iran, allowing Tehran to freely traffic weapons and fighters into Lebanon, and quite possibly contributing its own military assets in the event of a regional war.
The Systematic Dismantling of Iran’s Proxy Network
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But one by one, after Hamas launched its October 7 attacks, the dominos started to fall. First, Israel staged a relentless air campaign over Gaza, followed by a multi-phase ground assault that continues to drastically reshape the territory. The exact number of surviving Hamas members at this stage remains a subject of debate, but it is undeniable that their military strength no longer poses an immediate existential threat to Israel directly.
Following almost a year of low-grade fighting with Hezbollah to the north, Israel rapidly stepped up its operations. This escalation included detonating thousands of explosives-rigged electronic devices, assassinating key figures, and invading southern Lebanon, systematically dismantling much of Hezbollah’s arsenal in the process. Then, in December of 2024, the Assad regime in Syria collapsed in the face of a lightning assault by domestic rebels.
These new rebel factions have since made it their mission to root out Hezbollah operatives and Iranian smuggling lines that operate at cross purposes with the new Syrian government. It is necessary to put into perspective just how important those changes were from both the Israeli and Iranian perspectives. Israel had long maintained that it would simply be too dangerous to launch a coordinated, long-term air campaign against Iran by itself.
Jerusalem declined to do so without American support for multiple decades, despite growing concerns over Iran’s nuclear program. Hamas and Hezbollah would attack, Assad’s airspace would pose problems at a minimum, and critical Israeli aerial refueling tankers would not be able to fly safely unless Israel dominated the air corridor between itself and Iran.
Neutralizing Air Defenses and the Houthi Threat
With Hamas and Hezbollah so badly diminished and Assad gone, Israel did not face nearly as big of a threat in attacking Iran. Its chances were made all the better when Israel took advantage of the collapse of the Assad regime to destroy much of Syria’s military equipment, including aircraft and air-defense systems. With the situation gradually shifting in Israel’s favor, Jerusalem took it upon itself to mete out some proactive devastation.
Some of that came against Iran directly, especially in October of 2024, when a massive Israeli air barrage crippled Iran’s ability to produce new missiles and eviscerated its air defense systems. With those air defenses taken out, Israel put itself in a much better position to launch direct strikes on Iran later, especially because it targeted specific air-defense systems that were meant to protect critical military and economic targets. Just as important as that October attack on Iran was Israel’s decision to step up airstrikes against another Iranian proxy, the Houthi rebels in the nation of Yemen.
By this time, the Houthis had made a name for themselves on a global stage, using Iran-supplied drones and missiles to attack maritime trade vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Those Houthi attacks started just after the October 7 attack in Israel, and since early 2024, the United States had led a coalition air campaign to protect naval shipping and diminish Houthi capabilities. When newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump came into power, America’s air campaign against the Houthis ramped up exponentially, and starting in May of 2025, Israel did the same.
Israeli aircraft devastated much of the Houthis’ infrastructure, its weapons manufacturing facilities, and its launch capabilities in response to repeated Houthi attempts to strike Israel directly over the past year and a half. By mid-June, when the Israeli strikes on Iran began, the Houthis had been largely taken out of commission, at least in the short term. All the while, Israel and its allies kept up the pressure on other Iranian proxy groups.
Israel’s operations in Gaza have only continued, with Jerusalem now openly admitting that it intends for the vast majority of the Gaza Strip to never be resettled by Gazans themselves. In Syria, Israel still launches intermittent airstrikes, sometimes directly related to its occupation of a band of territory in the country’s south, but sometimes against targets alleged to be Hezbollah, or otherwise accused of arming themselves in a way Israel finds dangerous. Israel has also continued to carry out airstrikes across Lebanon, hitting the suburbs of Beirut as recently as just one week before the new undeclared war against Iran kicked off in mid-June.
Israel has alleged that its strikes are intended to prevent Hezbollah from reconstituting, taking out its new senior leadership and destroying its capacity to build kamikaze drones.
June 2025 and the Inaction of Regional Allies
Fast forward to the current conflict between Israel and Iran, starting on June 13, 2025, and at least one reason why Iran’s proxy networks have waited to attack should be obvious: they simply cannot. Hamas has practically zero ability to threaten targets outside of Gaza; Hezbollah has been ripped to shreds; Assad is gone; and the Houthis have been largely neutered in their ability to hit targets past the Red Sea. Iran’s entire plan to deter Israeli military action by building up a network of proxy forces was predicated on the assumption that those proxies would be available to retaliate against Israel if Israel directly attacked Iran.
What Iran either did not account for, or simply could not stop, was that Israel would be able to target and dismantle Iran’s proxies so quickly and in such rapid succession. By itself, the diminished status of Iran’s proxy forces cannot explain the full story. If these groups really are so committed to Iran’s cause, they would theoretically launch what they have, even if they do not have much.
In truth, that has already happened to some extent. Since June 13, the Houthi rebels have targeted Israel with several ballistic missiles, although those missiles were either destroyed by Israel’s air defenses or were allowed to make impact in open areas where nobody was at risk. The Houthis have vowed to intervene more broadly in support of Iran, although, at least for now, it remains unclear that they have any real ability to do so.
Other groups, however, have chosen to simply stand aside. Lebanese leaders have been imploring Hezbollah to stay out of the crisis, and at least until now, Hezbollah has chosen to remain on the sidelines. The group has issued statements condemning Israel’s attacks against Iran, but it has not made any mention of conducting a military response of its own.
Similarly, one of Iran’s largest proxy militias in Iraq, known as Kata’ib Hezbollah, has declined to make any movement against Israel. Both groups, as well as Hamas, have threatened that they could retaliate against the United States if it gets involved, which America has not done at the time of writing. For now, neither they nor Iran’s other proxy militias in Syria or Iraq have stepped up.
Even the new Syrian government, which now does not support Iran but is dealing with Israeli occupation on its own soil, has refused to go so far as even verbally condemning Israel’s actions. Instead, Israel has been using Syria’s airspace freely to launch its strikes, giving a clear indication of just how reticent armed actors have become in opposing Israel when they know that they might end up in the crosshairs.
The Strategic Collapse of Tehran’s Decades-Long Gamble
Right now, the ongoing devastation of Iran’s ruling regime is quite clearly a defeat in progress. Iran might still have some defensive layers remaining, but regardless, the country has now suffered a degree of losses that can never be taken back, and that it appears entirely unlikely to be able to match with its own military strikes against Israel. The collapse of Iran’s proxy networks, known collectively as the Axis of Resistance, represents an even greater strategic failure for Tehran and its Ayatollah.
For decades, every action that Iran has taken to oppose or undermine Israel has rested on a single predicate: that the threat presented by the Axis of Resistance was too great for Israel to launch direct, large-scale military action. For Iran, the question was not whether Israel or Iran would win in a head-to-head contest, but whether Israel would judge the costs of a military offensive—inflicted by both Iran and the Axis of Resistance—to outweigh the potential benefits for Jerusalem. After the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Israel has engaged in a campaign to systematically dismantle each of Iran’s proxies, some of which have been wiped out more thoroughly than others, but none of which currently retain the ability to strike Israel at scale.
The Axis of Resistance is not completely eradicated yet, but it has been taken so far out of fighting form that it no longer poses a coherent regional threat. Month by month, operation by operation, Israel has shown Iran that its grand efforts across the Middle East were a waste of time and resources. In the case of Hamas, the broader twists and turns of Middle Eastern diplomacy were able to force a rushed attack without Iran’s direct support, which was devastating and tragic for Israel, but ultimately something that Jerusalem could endure and counter.
After the initial assault, Israel proved that it was willing to invade Gaza outright, dismantle Hamas, and devastate the Gaza Strip in the process, crossing several lines that Iran seemed to believe it would not. When it was time to deal with Hezbollah, and then with Iran directly, Israel demonstrated the incredible depth of penetration that its foreign intelligence service, Mossad, had achieved. For Hezbollah, that demonstration came by way of explosive pagers and handheld radios.
In Iran, it came by way of smuggled explosive drones, targeted assassinations on the ground, and a large-scale sabotage campaign, all while relaying detailed intelligence about the movements of Iran’s leaders. When it came to the Houthis, Israel proved itself willing to go to far greater lengths than a US-led coalition in destroying the group’s attack capabilities. When it came to Syria, Israel bided its time, let the rebel coalition do its work, and then destroyed Syria’s military hardware so thoroughly that Damascus could not stop Israeli flyovers even if it did want to.
For Iran and its proxy network, the result is a practically total defeat. Incredible sums of money have been thrown away to arm groups that could not hold their own, when they could have been spent building up Iran’s home defenses. High volumes of missiles and drones have been shipped all across the region, only for most of them to be destroyed before they could launch.
The work of Iran’s military advisors, its logistical units, and its propagandists have come to nothing, and now, Iran itself is practically helpless to defend against the same Israeli military that has knocked down its allies. Israel’s military victories in this conflict will be studied for a generation, but perhaps just as worthy of study is the resounding failure of Iran’s long-term strategy. While it lasted, it was an unprecedented gamble, using an approach that no other nation has relied on to a level anywhere near what Iran chose to do.
Now that the Axis of Resistance has collapsed, it is entirely clear in hindsight that this strategy was not enough to save Iran, and ultimately, it led to Iran’s undoing.
Simon Whistler
Simon Whistler is one of YouTube's most prolific educational creators. WarFronts is his deep dive into military history and conflict analysis.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Hamas launch its October 7, 2023 attack without Iran’s direct orchestration?
Hamas perceived itself as under existential threat from a rapidly shifting Middle East: Israel was normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia while Saudi Arabia was simultaneously warming to Iran, and Hamas feared that in a world where those three countries collaborated, its decades-long mandate to exist could be placed at risk. Iran did not mind the idea of an attack on Israel but had not drawn up the specific operation, meaning the assault that ultimately triggered the collapse of Iran’s proxy network was launched on Hamas’s own strategic terms.
How formidable was Hezbollah before Israel dismantled it?
In 2024, Hezbollah was estimated to have between 50,000 and 200,000 fighters and up to 150,000 rockets, missiles, and drones, making it widely regarded as the most dangerous non-state actor on the planet. Its size and the threat it posed to Israel’s rear had long been cited as a key reason Jerusalem was unwilling to launch a direct, large-scale strike on Iran without American support.
What role did the fall of Assad’s regime play in enabling direct strikes on Iran?
Assad’s Syria had allowed Iran to freely traffic weapons and fighters into Lebanon and potentially contribute its own military assets in a regional war. Once Assad fell in December 2024, Israel destroyed much of Syria’s remaining military equipment, including aircraft and air-defense systems, eliminating the threat to Israeli aerial refueling tankers flying toward Iran and removing a critical buffer state from Tehran’s defensive posture.
What did Israel’s October 2024 air barrage against Iran accomplish?
The massive Israeli strike crippled Iran’s ability to produce new missiles and eviscerated its air-defense systems, specifically targeting systems meant to protect critical military and economic sites. By destroying those defenses, Israel put itself in a far better position to launch subsequent direct strikes on Iran without fear of an effective response.
Why have Iran’s surviving proxies mostly stood aside while Iran fights Israel?
The core reason is capacity: Hamas no longer poses an immediate existential threat to Israel, Hezbollah has been ripped apart by Israeli operations, Assad is gone, and the Houthis were largely taken out of commission by American and Israeli airstrikes before the current conflict began. Iran’s entire deterrence strategy rested on the assumption that these proxies would be available to retaliate if Israel attacked directly, but Israel dismantled them faster than Iran could compensate, leaving Tehran without the regional shield it had spent decades and enormous resources constructing.
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