For centuries, Iran has provided weapons to various armed groups in the Middle East. Now, these militants could be key in the event of a retaliatory attack against Israel.
As Iran threatens to respond to the assassination of the Hamas leader in Tehran, the regional militias that the Islamic Republic has armed for decades could play a role in a retaliatory attack against Israel.
Iran’s arms supply began in earnest in the 1980s, when Shiite forces in Lebanon fought against Israel and They became the Hezbollah militia. The supply of weapons was expanded with the invasion of Iraq led by the United States in 2003, which overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, a long-standing enemy of Tehran.
Iran strongly supported the Syrian president Bachar al-Asad in his country’s long war, and has continued to do so when the opportunity has arisen, even arming Sunni militants while considering himself the global defender of Shia Muslims. Those relationships are managed by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the most powerful armed groups in the Middle East.
The militias of the self-proclaimed “Axis of Resistance” of Iran include the following: the Popular Mobilization Forces of Iraq, which has about 180,000 militants, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Yemen’s Houthis.
What consequences would a major war against Israel have for Hezbollah?
USA has been preparing for retaliatory attacks against Israel. Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute on Middle East Policy is sure there will be retaliation. “Anyone who tells you that he knows exactly what the answer will be, he is lying to them. But there will be an answer,” he adds.
Levitt also says that, for Hezbollaha total war could make the situation worse in Lebanon. “For Hezbollah, the economic crisis, even more than the political crisis, has created a situation in Lebanon in which almost no one wants an all-out war that would bring about the kind of destruction that would make life there even worse than it was. is now,” says Levitt.
An escalation of tensions could have serious consequences
“And people understand, Hezbollah understands, that unlike the 2006 war, this time, many Lebanese will probably They would blame Hezbollah for starting a war that no one in Lebanon, or for that matter, Israel, wanted,” he adds.
Levitt says total war could come to the borders of Iran. “They don’t want it to happen a full-blown war on Iran’s bordersnot just because they understand that Israel has some real capabilities, has real allies in the United States and other countries, but because they are worried that something like this could provoke dissent from within and make people think: wait a minute, maybe this regime can be overthrown“Levitt concludes.
