2024 must rank as one of the worst years for the Iranian regime. Israel has humbled and decapitated Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon, with key assassinations along the way, including Revolutionary Guards commanders and Hamas leaders.
The deaths of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash earlier this year scuppered succession plans for Tehran into the bargain.
Now to top it all off, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is in exile in Moscow following the collapse of his regime. Weakened by protests at home – as well as embarrassed and degraded by Israeli attacks which destroyed the country’s air defence systems – the proxy network of Iran also lies in tatters.
Only perhaps the Yemeni Houthis remain reasonably strong. Now billions of oil money has gone down the tubes, money which could have been spent at home, something likely to exacerbate domestic discontent with the regime.
Assad, for one, helped secure oil for Iranian proxies. Now with its network in near ruins across much of the Middle East what can we expect from the Iranians?
Well, firstly a word of caution: not all the proxies are in ruins. There are the aforementioned Houthis alongside Shiite militants in both Iran and Iraq.
Moreover, Iran has been able to cultivate ties with Sunni militants as well – Hamas is the best example but note links with the Taliban as well.
Tehran would surely not be averse to further cultivating such ties if these augmented its ongoing strategy of weakening Israel and her Western allies.
Iran however faces the prospect of President Donald Trump returning to office in the US. During his first term in office, Trump pulled the US out of a six-nation agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program alongside sanctions.
Although sanctions remain, there has been a lingering perception that President Joe Biden has been softer on Tehran. There is then a widespread expectation that Trump will ratchet up sanctions and turn the thumbscrews on the regime to apply maximum pressure.
This could however be a moment of maximum danger for the region. Cornered, Iran may seek not only to augment its ties with the Sunni world, but to go for broke when it comes to crushing domestic discontent and developing nuclear capabilities.
Even if the Supreme Leader – Ayatollah Khamenei – dies in the near future (and reports of his ill health continue), the regime and its ideology will outlast one man, as they did his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini.
Israel may have weakened Iran’s proxies but nor are they dead, and nor has Israel finished the job. Moreover, Iran remains ideological bedfellows on Israel with militants and groups who may have fought Tehran’s proxies.
Although locked in an ongoing ideological civil war with Saudi Arabia, Iran also retains powerful friends in China and Russia (indeed Beijing brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi not so long ago). India is also on reasonable terms with Tehran.
China is a big buyer of Iranian oil, with clandestine means to increase shipments, something Beijing likely wants to secure in the event of further sanctions or conflict over Taiwan.
This then is an Iranian regime down but not out, humbled but not to be discontented, bowed but not broken. Trump could change all that but it would be reckless to dismiss the resolve and still substantial means of the Iranian regime.
2024 has been a terrible year for Iran. 2025 will be pivotal to see whether the bad times continue or whether Tehran can fight back.
