The war in Gaza began between Israel and IRGC-backed Hamas on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’s attack on Israel. A year later, the Islamic Republic’s regional influence has waned.
A few days after the war began, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praised the attack from a Tehran military training center while denying Iranian involvement.
However, this claim was contradicted six months later when Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a brigadier general in the IRGC and a key planner of the attack according to forces close to Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
“Zero” Control
In the final weeks of his term, when a journalist asked Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s former foreign minister, how much control he had over the Islamic Republic’s regional policies, his answer was brief and precise: “Zero percent.”
The limited influence of the Iranian administration in the region, particularly following the October 7 war between Israel and Hamas, became increasingly apparent.
The death of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, further highlighted the Islamic Republic’s inability to broker a ceasefire in Gaza.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, was killed during a visit to Tehran for the inauguration of Masoud Pezeshkian when his residence in the Iranian capital was targeted. The member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) declined to hold an emergency meeting in Tehran, instead convening in Jeddah to address Iran’s protests regarding the assassination.
The Ineffectiveness of Iran’s “Revenge” Threat on the Ceasefire
Earlier, Ali Khamenei had issued a statement calling for “revenge” for Haniyeh, and the Islamic Republic announced that while it would not participate in the mediation efforts led by Egypt, the U.S., and Qatar, it supported the process. It pledged to refrain from taking any steps towards “revenge” for Haniyeh during ongoing negotiations so as not to disrupt the ceasefire efforts.
Given the Islamic Republic’s non-recognition of Israel, it has no opportunity to participate in political meetings, even to assist Hamas and its proxy groups.
While Qatar also does not recognize Israel, its political influence cannot be compared to that of Iranian officials. This is just one indication of Iran’s limited presence in key political moments in the region.
Two months after Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran, when Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Beirut, Pezeshkian said, “The claims of U.S. and European leaders, who promised a ceasefire in exchange for Iran not responding to Haniyeh’s assassination, were all lies.” During this time, Israel killed all of Hezbollah’s top commanders.
By now, it became evident that the Islamic Republic had failed both in its political and diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and in altering the course of the war through its influence over Hamas. This contradicted previous perceptions of its role in the Middle East, where it was considered “irreplaceable.”
A ‘Moderate’ Administration, Forced to Follow the IRGC
Before Nasrallah’s assassination, Pezeshkian attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, ordered the operation against Nasrallah. During the attack, Abbas Nilforoushan, the IRGC’s deputy commander of operations, was killed alongside Nasrallah.
Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, visited New York before Pezeshkian and returned to Tehran after him. In his speech at the UN Security Council, he reiterated the same policies as his predecessor, promising Israel’s defeat. Following Nasrallah’s death, he made even stronger statements against Israel.
These were the most significant political efforts of the Iranian government during one of the most critical periods of the war. There was no innovation, fresh ideas, or even a new plan, regardless of its feasibility.
The new administration of the Islamic Republic had promised during its visit to New York to “help solve the crisis” in the Middle East and present a “new image” of Iran. However, a day after the president returned to Iran, Nasrallah’s assassination intensified the situation to the extent that the IRGC launched 200 missiles at Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, for the second time in less than six months.
Now, less than a year after the war in Gaza began, Israel has promised a military response to the Islamic Republic’s actions, and the region is bracing for more turmoil.
Over the past 12 months since the Gaza war began, two governments with slightly different approaches have been in power in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Still, the new Iranian government neither speaks of an initiative to resolve the crisis nor can make such a promise. There is also no longer the same enthusiasm in the world as in previous years to hear the positions of the “moderate government” in Iran.
Khamenei’s 35-year effort to demonstrate that he is the most powerful man in the Islamic Republic has long been successful. The leaders of neighboring countries know that the final word does not lie with the administration but with the IRGC and the Quds Force, which are fully under Khamenei’s command.
For over three decades, with the expansion of the Quds Force’s activities, the foreign arm of the IRGC in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, political initiatives have been transferred from the Iranian government and its politicians to the IRGC and its military. The situation is evident in the appointment of ambassadors of the Islamic Republic in these capitals.
Hashemi Rafsanjani’s Warning and Its Outcome in Zarif’s Narrative
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of the Islamic Republic, said shortly before his death, “The Quds Force is currently facing a real problem. It has usurped the Foreign Ministry’s authority in the most sensitive areas that concern me. In Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere, this is a serious issue. Without the Quds Force’s approval, no one can appoint an ambassador in these countries.
In his memoirs, Zarif described the dire situation facing the Iranian government in the eyes of its neighbors: “In the 1980s and 1990s, the Foreign Ministry coordinated all foreign policy files. Until the end of the late Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani’s government, even in sensitive disarmament and security areas, coordination was carried out by the Foreign Ministry [on behalf of the government].”
“However, by 2013, when Iran proposed a plan to improve relations with the Persian Gulf states, regional countries, especially Saudi Arabia, believed that Iran’s Foreign Ministry [the government] had no role in regional affairs. They insisted that any talks with Iran involve the security apparatus, not the Foreign Ministry,” Zarif wrote.
“This perception is not entirely unfounded. The Foreign Ministry lacks the authority and influence to deal with neighboring countries. Arab countries surrounding Iran view the Foreign Minister as a spokesperson for eloquent and persuasive talks with foreigners. At the same time, the Quds Force is the behind-the-scenes player in regional relations.”
The situation has persisted under the current Iranian administration, even under Ebrahim Raisi, who was once considered a potential successor of Iran.
Iran’s Proposal Rejected at the OIC Meeting
When Raisi traveled to Saudi Arabia to attend the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) emergency meeting following the war, member states rejected Iran’s proposal for inclusion in the final statement. Iran’s proposal, promoted by Khamenei and subsequently adopted by the government, called for an economic boycott of Israel and the severance of diplomatic ties between Muslim countries and Israel.
After the war began, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the then-foreign minister, made multiple trips to Damascus, Beirut, and Doha, where Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, was residing. He also participated twice in UN Security Council meetings in New York. However, the outcomes of these meetings and trips revealed that the Iranian government was merely exchanging symbolic messages with other governments.
In contrast, the real work was being carried out by the Quds Force, the IRGC, and its commanders, more than twenty of whom have been killed in Israeli attacks on Damascus and Beirut over the past year.
Over the past two decades, the Islamic Republic has sought to strengthen its proxy militant groups in the region and arm Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Khamenei had stated after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, that Soleimani had aimed to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank, just as he had done in Gaza.
The website of the IRGC’s Political Bureau reported that the arming of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza significantly increased during the eight-day war in 2012. During this conflict, which erupted in November of that year, the IRGC officially announced for the first time that the Quds Force, under the leadership of Qassem Soleimani, had supplied advanced “Fajr-5” missiles to the Palestinians.
Soleimani, the 63-year-old IRGC general who survived the eight-year war with Iraq, was killed in a U.S. airstrike near Baghdad, along with nine other leaders of Iran’s proxy groups. One of those killed was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the commander of an Iraqi militia formed by Soleimani.
Neither Military Power Nor Political Clout
At that time, the Islamic Republic and its proxy forces were at the pinnacle of their power. Iranian politicians and state media boasted of Iran’s control over four Arab capitals, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, and Sana’a, attributing this dominance to the strength of the IRGC and its Quds Force. This unrelenting pride, especially concerning Saudi Arabia and Turkey, was rooted in the perceived supremacy of the IRGC.
In his memoir, former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote, “Our attempts to leverage these regional militias for military presence or even national pride, claiming to have saved Iraq from ISIS or controlled four Arab capitals, led to a backlash, gradually declining our strength.”
Now, a year after the onset of the Gaza war, the Iranian government’s limited diplomatic and political maneuvering is apparent. Iran’s proxy forces, often referred to as the “Axis of Resistance,” are at their weakest point since Soleimani’s death.
The Iranian government, already diminished in regional stature due to the Islamic Republic’s declining legitimacy and competition with the IRGC’s Quds Force, finds itself unable to recover.
While Iran’s leadership had long claimed that one of Khamenei’s key achievements was preventing war within Iran’s borders, as the anniversary of the Gaza war approaches, the country is now on the brink of a military confrontation with Israel.
The “moderate” administration has little choice but to support and endorse these escalating tensions.
Source » iranwire