As War Intensifies, Iran Steels the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas

While the Islamic Republic is under growing American military pressure, Tehran is hoping three of its traditional proxies — the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas — to rejoin the war. Can these Tehran allies regain losses they suffered in the last two years? The Houthis are threatening to deepen a global energy crisis by blocking Saudi oil exports to Asia. Hezbollah, increasingly disliked by the Lebanese people, is facing American progress in forging ties between the Jerusalem and Beirut governments. Hamas increasingly hitches its wagon to Tehran, picking a leader close to Iran. The dominant power at Tehran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, is widening attacks on American bases in Gulf countries and increasingly targeting Jordan. Tehran considers these American allies the equivalent of its own terror proxies. Yet Iran, perhaps of fear, is yet to directly attack Israel. For two years Israel has hit Hamas and Hezbollah, depleting much of the Iran-backed terrorists’ arsenals and killing many of its fighters. The proxy network that was built by the late IRGC Quds force commander, Qassem Soleimani, is a shadow of what it used to be.Tehran is rebuilding Hezbollah to the tune of $1 billion a year. In Yemen, the Houthis mostly remained quiet since the February 28 launch of the American and Israeli strikes in Iran, but the Yemeni terrorists are now revisiting the idea of closing the Red Sea to vital commerce. And Hamas is signaling this week a tightening of relations with the IRGC. As America is hitting the regime, “tactical defeats are necessary but not sufficient to put the death knell in Iran’s regional proxy strategy,” a top Iran watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the New York Sun. “As the war widens in the Middle East, Iran is signaling that it is not forsaking its proxies. If anything it seeks a back-to-basics strategy for all of them.”Yemen: Terrorists Target Saudi ArabiaIn a formal statement on Monday, the Houthi armed forces announced that “a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of ‘an eye for an eye,’ is effective immediately.” The announcement caps a recent tit-for-tat that started when Saudi jets bombed the Sanaa airport last week, after an arms-carrying Iranian cargo plane landed there.For months before that, though, the Houthis “have been ratcheting up anti-Saudi propaganda,” a Yemen watcher at Tel Aviv’s Open University, Inbal Nissim Louvton, tells the Sun. She adds that much of the anti-Riyadh slogans also indirectly targeted America. The Saudis fought an unsuccessful eight-year war against the Houthis in the last decade. Belonging to the Shiite offshoot Zaidi sect, the Houthis control more than half of Yemen. Most importantly, they dominate Bab el Mandeb, a narrow strait between Yemen and Jibouti at the mouth of the Red Sea.After the IRGC started interrupting ship traffic at Hormuz, Saudi Arabia increased the use of the east-west pipeline, transferring crude to the Red Sea from Saudi oil fields at Aqbaiq, on the Persian Gulf coast. While blocking Hormuz restricted Saudi pre-war exports of more than 7 million oil barrels a day, Riyadh’s use of the pipeline to the Red Sea allowed it to export more than four million barrels a day. That export helped maintain global oil supplies at tolerable levels. A Houthi shutdown of Bab el Mandeb is a threat to the Saudi ability to bypass Hormuz. Riyadh can still ship oil to Europe through its pipeline but most of its shipments are to Asia, and for that oil tankers must travel through the Red Sea’s southern chokehold of Bab el Mandeb. Oil watchers estimate that a Houthi closure of that passageway could cut global oil supplies by 7 percent — on top of the 8 percent supply reduction due to the closure of Hormuz. Lebanon: Can Beirut Disarm Hezbollah?On the eve of Tuesday’s Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s meeting with President Trump at the White House, Israel announced it would transfer three villages in southern Lebanon to the Lebanese Armed Forces. The handover is part of a pilot program meant to test the Lebanese army’s ability to assert power over the country.“The biggest problem Lebanon has,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Monday, “is that you have a political movement that also has an armed militia that is not just well armed and trained and equipped and financed by Iran, but they use that to conduct terrorism, particularly against northern Israel — and as long as that problem exists, Lebanon will never fully be at peace.”The first southern Lebanese villages in the pilot program are Froun, Srifa, and Zawtar Al-Gharbiya, which are currently mostly out of the Israel Defense Force’s full control, and are outside of the “yellow line” that Israel maintains on Lebanese territory. For Israel “It’s important to see the Lebanese army succeed in these pilot areas,” the founder of Alma Institute, Sarit Zehavi, tells the Sun. “Success would allow the IDF to eventually withdraw from Lebanon, and Beirut needs to show the Lebanese people that it, rather than Hezbollah, is forcing Israel to leave Lebanon.” At the same time, she adds, “as long as the Lebanese army is unwilling to confront Hezbollah militarily, no progress will be possible.”Gaza: Hamas Veers Toward IranHamas was run by a five-man committee for nearly two years, after the IDF killed the architect of the October 7, 2023 massacre that launched a Mideast-wide war, Yehyeh Sinwar. On Monday, though, the terror organization announced that its long-time leader, Khalil al Hayya would replace Sinwar as the terror group’s top leader. Mr. Hayya overcame competition from another top Hamas operative, Khaled Mashaal.Both men managed to escape Israeli assassination attempts. The difference: Mr. Mashaal’s main backers are Sunni Islamist Turkey and Qatar, while Mr. Hayya is widely seen as a Tehran man who has strong ties to the IRGC. Mr. Hayya was Sinwar’s deputy before Israel killed the arch terrorist during a Gaza firefight in October 2024. Mr. Hayya is considered to be a hardliner, and is widely expected to consolidate Hamas’s political power in Gaza and accelerate the terrorist’s attempts to rearm. Those attempts are difficult, though, as Israel controls nearly 70 percent of the Strip’s territory. While the IDF avoids reigniting full war in Gaza, it has a specialized unit, charged with hunting down all participants in October 7 atrocities. Israeli analysts also say that Mr. Hayya’s days are numbered.

As War Intensifies, Iran Steels the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas

As War Intensifies, Iran Steels the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas

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