The stakes in the Middle East have rarely been higher. <\/p>\n
Simmering tensions reached new levels on Friday when the US and UK launched strikes on Houthi fighters in Yemen, in an effort to force them to halt their months-long attacks in the Red Sea. A day later, the US unilaterally carried out fresh strikes, targeting a Houthi radar facility. <\/p>\n
The strikes risk further fanning the flames of a wider regionaI conflict that neither the US nor the Houthis\u2019 backers in Iran appear to want. <\/p>\n
Since Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks on Israel and the Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed, Iran\u2019s so-called axis of resistance \u2014 a network of Shia militias\u00a0that span four Middle Eastern countries \u2014\u00a0has been activated from one end of the region to the other. <\/p>\n
Hezbollah entered daily confrontations with Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border. Houthi rebels launched a series of attacks on commercial ships and Western military vessels in the Red Sea,\u00a0a major artery for international trade.\u00a0<\/strong>Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria launched dozens of attacks aimed at US military positions in those countries, leading to a number of close calls. <\/p>\n It has been a relatively low-rumbling tit-for-tat that has stayed just below the threshold of a full-blown regional war. And it has sharpened US President Joe Biden\u2019s foreign policy dilemmas while Iran seeks to balance tactical military gains against the dangers of a larger conflict. <\/p>\n Iran\u2019s network of armed groups have coalesced around a single stated goal: bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza, where the staggering civilian death toll and wide-scale devastation wrought by Israel\u2019s assault has led to allegations of genocide at the United Nations\u2019 top court (claims Israel has strenuously denied). <\/p>\n It has been a risky venture for which each of the armed groups have paid a hefty price. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has lost nearly 200 fighters since October 8. In Iraq, US strikes have dealt major blows to the infrastructure of Iranian-backed fighters. In Yemen, the damage wrought by the deadly strikes on Thursday is not yet clear, but the US and the UK say they have targeted positions used by the Houthis\u00a0to launch attacks on the Red Sea, potentially weakening the group\u2019s stranglehold over the shipping route. <\/p>\n \u201cThese strikes are in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea\u00a0\u2013\u00a0including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history,\u201d Biden said in a statement. \u201cThese attacks have endangered US personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized trade, and threatened freedom of navigation.\u201d <\/p>\n But the escalation in violence has also brought gains to Iran\u2019s proxies, as well as their backers in Tehran. The\u00a0<\/strong>popularity of these groups has soared in the region. They have largely redeemed themselves in a galvanized Arab and Muslim street, after having been mired in internal politics and plagued by allegations of corruption for years. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is clear that the Houthis were grabbing the opportunity of the current war to go through a quite effective rebranding exercise,\u201d said Rym Momtaz, Consultant Research Fellow for European Foreign Policy and Security, transforming them\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cfrom a malign Iran-backed terror group destroying Yemen into an effective military outfit inflicting pain on the US in support of the Palestinians.\u201d <\/p>\n There are other tactical gains beyond their\u00a0boosted\u00a0<\/strong>popularity. In Yemen, a muscular rebel group has more to gain from its ongoing peace talks with Saudi Arabia, which maintains a blockade over Houthi-controlled northern Yemen, and has been visibly nervous about the US and UK attacks jeopardizing its efforts to turn the page on its conflict with Sanaa. <\/p>\n In Lebanon, the border flareup seems to have turned the country\u2019s devastating economic crisis, and the role Hezbollah has played in fuelling it, into a distant memory. With Israel on the backfoot in its border area with Lebanon, from which the vast majority of its residents have fled, Hezbollah has been empowered to push for a negotiated settlement where it aims to retrieve slivers of Israeli-controlled territories claimed by Lebanon. <\/p>\n In Iraq, the revived attacks on US troops \u2013 and the US\u2019 retaliatory strikes on Iranian-backed groups \u2013 have prompted the government to renew a push to end America\u2019s military presence in the country,\u00a0<\/strong>a move that would delight the leaders of the Iranian regime.\u00a0<\/strong> <\/p>\n But stoking tensions only benefits Iran up to a certain point. If these relatively low-level confrontations eventually escalate into all-out war with the US, Tehran\u2019s\u00a0paramilitary partners\u00a0could face decimation.\u00a0<\/strong>That would compromise\u00a0Iran\u2019s growing influence in the region, deal a blow to the lynchpin of its foreign policy, and stir up trouble at home, where the regime is still reeling from protests that engulfed the country one year ago. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Iranians are trying to stay out of a war. Their population absolutely does not want a war,\u201d said Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the DC-based Quincy Institute. \u201cI think they would find themselves in a very similar situation to (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu, which is that if there is a war, there will be a rallying around their country and not their leadership.\u201d <\/p>\n Parsi warns against downplaying the importance of a ceasefire in Gaza bringing about a de-escalation in the region.\u00a0The Biden administration, according to Parsi, is \u201ctrying to walk a fine balance in which they maximize the maneuverability\u00a0of Israel without it leading to a regional war.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cAs long as the war in Gaza goes on, that war is what is fuelling the Houthi attacks, the militia attacks, as well as the tensions between Lebanon and Israel,\u201d said Parsi, adding that the Houthis temporarily stopped their attacks on the Red Sea during a six-day truce between Hamas and Israel in November. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the escalation is likely to persist, even as both the US and Iran-backed actors seek to calibrate their confrontations and pray that it doesn\u2019t spiral.\u00a0The clashes will also continue to give Tehran leverage, argues IISS\u2019s Momtaz, as evidenced by the strikes in Yemen on Thursday. <\/p>\n \u201cThat is a strategic challenge that the US is dealing with now,\u201d said Momtaz. \u201cThey need to restore freedom of navigation and secure international trade in the Red Sea while continuing to make sure that the other fronts don\u2019t escalate into a real war.\u201d <\/p>\n\n The stakes in the Middle East have rarely been higher. Simmering tensions reached new levels on Friday when the US and UK launched strikes on Houthi fighters in Yemen, in an effort to force them to halt their months-long attacks in the Red Sea. A day later, the US unilaterally carried out fresh strikes, targeting <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}