Widening Middle East war: Have Iran’s calculations changed?

Another day, another military strike involving Iran, part of the escalating regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

On Thursday, Pakistan fired a rocket and drone barrage at what it called “terrorist hideouts” inside Iran, reportedly killing nine people, in retaliation for an Iranian strike Tuesday against what Tehran called a separatist “terrorist” base inside Pakistan.

All week, Iran’s proxies and allies of its anti-U.S. and anti-Israel “Axis of Resistance” have been kinetically engaged, most notably Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom the U.S. military targeted Wednesday for the fourth time since Jan. 11 in a so-far-unsuccessful bid to deter attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Does the expanded military activity point to a strategic benefit and new boldness for Iran and its allies? And have Tehran’s calculations changed since it gave cautious praise to – yet also distanced itself from – Hamas’ attack Oct. 7, which triggered a massive Israeli onslaught in Gaza?

In other military action this week, Iran struck what it alleged is a headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency in northern Iraq, as well as “terrorist” bases inside Syria. Also, Hamas is still putting up stiff resistance in Gaza, including a volley of at least 25 rockets fired into Israel Tuesday, and Hezbollah has been exchanging fire on Israel’s northern border.

Since October, as the war in Gaza has unfolded and spread across the region, analysts say Iran has amply demonstrated far-reaching capabilities, but has also doubled down on its unwillingness to engage in an all-out war with the United States and Israel.

Tehran and its allies have incurred key losses, with targeted killings by Israel and the U.S. But the lack of an equal counterpunch from Iran is also raising questions about its strategy.

“There is a lot of effort right now to portray Iran as this extraordinary mastermind, that ... through its network of partners and proxies, [it] is 10 feet tall and winning all over,” says Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group. “I don’t see it that way at all.”

Iran’s policy since Oct. 7 has been “improvised and reactive,” he says, and “entirely driven by their reluctance to enter into the fray, or lose any of their key strategic assets for anything less than defense of their homeland.”

Significant losses for the “Axis” include Israel’s killing of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in Damascus – a veteran operative so revered that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attended his funeral. Others include the likely Israeli assassination of a senior Hamas leader with a drone in Beirut, the killing of a key Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, and the U.S. killing a senior commander of an Iran-backed militia in Baghdad, who the Pentagon said had mounted multiple attacks on U.S. forces.

“In response to all this, Iranians themselves have not done anything that matches the level of escalation that we have seen from the U.S. and Israel,” says Mr. Vaez.

“Deterrence is not just about capabilities, but also the will to deploy those capabilities, and Iran has clearly proven itself reluctant to use those capabilities,” he adds. “That’s why, overall, the credibility of their deterrence has diminished.”

Some argue that Iran benefited from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, which shocked Israel and exposed a “massive” security and intelligence failure that “broke the myth of invincibility” of the Jewish state, says Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of the London-based news website Amwaj.media, which focuses on Iran, Iraq, and Arabian Peninsula countries.

But the negative side for Iran is an undermining of “core interests,” he says, which include “normalization of Iran as a regional power,” U.S. sanctions relief, and U.S.-Iran talks that last year led to a prisoner exchange, release of frozen Iranian funds, and a mutual de-escalation agreement.

“So, now what? If you look at hard interests, it has not been good for Iran,” says Mr. Shabani. “What the Oct. 7 attacks did was to bury any prospect, for the foreseeable future under [President Joe] Biden, of genuine talks between the U.S. and Iran.”

Events since then have also underscored a credibility crisis for Iran’s leadership that had come into sharp relief in January 2020, when an American drone in Baghdad killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, architect of the “Axis.”

Iran’s strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan and Pakistan are “defensive and reactive,” says Mr. Shabani, but may also be an effort by Mr. Khamenei “to establish a deterrence that, because of his own actions, particularly since January 2020, has been obliterated.”

“Four years after Soleimani, there is no ‘harsh revenge,’” as Iranian leaders vowed to exact, says Mr. Shabani. “Khamenei went out and said, ‘The Houthis don’t fear the U.S.; they have no fear of them.’ I actually believe that. The problem is whether Khamenei himself is projecting that image.”

Indeed, as the Iran ally that has attracted American and British military attack – and a re-designation this week by Washington as a “terrorist” group – the Houthis have seen their targeting of ships, in stated solidarity with Gaza, yield a surge of popularity and a claimed 45,000 new recruits.

“The Houthis are not deterrable,” says Nadwa al-Dawsari, a Yemen expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

“If the actions are limited to airstrikes and a [terrorist] designation without a long-term strategy to weaken the Houthis militarily, then this will all play into the hands of the Houthis,” says Ms. Dawsari.

And in the case of Yemen, even Iran has limited influence over a militia that it helped arm with ballistic missiles, drones, and some 10 types of anti-ship missile systems.

“I would not be surprised if Iran says, ‘Stop, you can’t do that,’ and the Houthis went ahead anyway,” says Ms. Dawsari. “They are strong allies, but the Houthis are extremely ambitious – they want to be a great player in the region.”

And that lack of control may be one thing that keeps Iranian leaders awake at night.

“The Houthis have a long track record of ignoring Iranian advice, so I don’t think there is a way for Iran to rein them in,” says Mr. Vaez.

“It may be just a matter of time before the Houthis manage to target a U.S. or Western warship, and cause the kind of fatalities that would result in tensions spinning out of control,” he says. “This is exactly where the risk lies, that they might take actions that Iran might not even be aware of, but end up paying the price for.”