Since its founding, the Islamic Republic has wished to export the Islamic Revolution beyond its borders. Early on, Iran established militias and operated cells in countries with a sizable Shia population-Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia-yet failed to overthrow the regimes. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had success only in countries debilitated by conflict, with weak state institutions. During the civil war in Lebanon, after an Israeli invasion in 1982, Iran established the Shia Islamist militant group that came to be named Hezbollah. After assuming the position of supreme leader in 1989, Khamenei oversaw the rapid expansion of the IRGC's external operations, masterminded by the Quds Force led by Qassem Soleimani. Until being assassinated by the United States in 2020, Soleimani oversaw the creation of networks seeking to carry out attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets outside of Israel, to assassinate Iranian dissidents abroad, and to shepherd new militias across the Middle East.
In post-2003 Iraq, with its state institutions dismantled and a sectarian civil war under way, Iran again set up a series of pro-Iranian militias. In Syria, after the outbreak of civil war, Iran significantly increased its influence, as the Assad regime grasped for foreign assistance to remain in power. Assad welcomed Iran-run militias made up of tens of thousands of foreign Shia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. In Yemen, too, instability allowed the Houthi militia to take over large swaths of the country, including the capital, Sanaa. The Houthis have received significant financial and military support from Iran.
From Hezbollah's inception, members have, at Iran's orders, turned their weapons on fellow Lebanese.
From 1988 to 1990, the group engaged in what came to be known as the "War of Brothers" against Amal, a Syrian-backed Shia militia. Hezbollah prevailed in this fratricidal war, which led to the deaths of hundreds of Shia civilians and militants. On May 7, 2008, following the decision of the Lebanese government to dismantle the independent communications network Hezbollah had set up, the militia stormed Beirut and took control of pro-government Sunni neighborhoods in the city, later clashing with Druze communities in the Chouf and Sunnis in the north and killing dozens of people. The Doha Agreement, which ended the conflict, cemented Hezbollah's political dominance of Lebanon, granting Shia ministers a third of the cabinet.
Hezbollah carried out dozens of assassinations: politicians, intellectuals, journalists, and state officials. One of the recent prominent victims was Luqman Slim, a Shia intellectual and activist and critic of Hezbollah who was assassinated in 2021. A friend of Luqman, also a Lebanese intellectual, explained to me the chilling effect these assassinations have had on public discourse in Lebanon: "People are censoring themselves, particularly until the 2024 war," which significantly weakened Hezbollah, he said. In private, individuals would be critical of Hezbollah, but when they were urged to be outspoken in media interviews, he recounted, they told him, "Do you want me to get killed?" That intellectual was granted anonymity, as were others I interviewed for this article, because of the legal prohibition in Iraq and Lebanon on
"normalization" of relations with Israel, which in some court cases has been interpreted as a ban on even engaging with an Israeli citizen like me. The Syrian surgeon asked for his name to be withheld because of the political sensitivity of talking with me after the Israeli invasion of southern Syria that followed Assad's fall.
In Iraq, pro-Iranian militias killed hundreds of American servicepeople, mostly through roadside bombs. But the number of Iraqi civilians they have killed far exceeds this. During the 2006-08 sectarian civil war, these militias murdered, raped, and tortured to death countless numbers of Sunnis. In 2014, during the anti-ISIS war, the militias kidnapped Sunni male teenagers and men and disappeared them into a network of torture sites. The militias also ethnically cleansed entire Sunni towns, such as Jurf al-Sakhr, and established military bases there, preventing the residents from returning to this day. The militias engaged in widespread looting of private property in Sunni areas, and stripped state assets such as the oil refinery in Baiji and multiple factories in Ninewa.
After years of abusing Iraq's Sunnis, the militias turned their guns on the country's Shia in 2019.
Starting in the fall and continuing well into 2020, the militias violently repressed the mostly Shia anti-regime Tishreen ("October") protest movement, spraying activists with bullets, as well as assassinating them or kidnapping them into their black sites. According to testimonies of survivors, in Baghdad the militias used the abandoned houses of Jewish residents as sites to torture and gang-rape female and male protesters they would kidnap from the city's Tahrir Square encampment.
Iran’s war is not only with the West: The Islamic Republic’s expansionist project has led to the immiseration and repression of people beyond its borders. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0... By Elizabeth Tsurkov #Islamism #terrorism #IranianImperialism #IranProxies
!["They've thrown themselves into what they call the
'Last Battle,'" says Mr. Blanford. "They are not going to defeat Israel. They can inflict damage and harm on Israel, but I think this is being led by the Iranians. If the Iranians are able to get something out of this, even at the expense of their Lebanese ally, then so be it."
Political-military divide
Iran appears to have bypassed Hezbollah's political leadership, including Mr. Qassem, and has gone straight to commanders to open the second front, says Mr. Blanford.
"I think the political leadership didn't want to get into this fight, because they could see that it was potentially existential," he says. In the first week of battle, Hezbollah's military leaders delivered an open letter to fighters, extolling the virtues of jihad and martyrdom.
"Hezbollah will definitely be weakened, because they are being degraded every day - even though they are hitting the Israelis - and they are expending ordnance that I don't think they can replenish," says Mr. Blanford. "Then you may come to a crunch moment, where the Hezbollah as we know it may change [and] can no longer play the same deterrence role on behalf of the Iranians as before.... That's why they see this as the last fight."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vn3uvfefltdnpomgnpsjmigw/bafkreiexfctbrjbkm2gcjaxo7q25a2awz2n5hlnpnj5wuibldsnqy75oue)
!["They've thrown themselves into what they call the
'Last Battle,'" says Mr. Blanford. "They are not going to defeat Israel. They can inflict damage and harm on Israel, but I think this is being led by the Iranians. If the Iranians are able to get something out of this, even at the expense of their Lebanese ally, then so be it."
Political-military divide
Iran appears to have bypassed Hezbollah's political leadership, including Mr. Qassem, and has gone straight to commanders to open the second front, says Mr. Blanford.
"I think the political leadership didn't want to get into this fight, because they could see that it was potentially existential," he says. In the first week of battle, Hezbollah's military leaders delivered an open letter to fighters, extolling the virtues of jihad and martyrdom.
"Hezbollah will definitely be weakened, because they are being degraded every day - even though they are hitting the Israelis - and they are expending ordnance that I don't think they can replenish," says Mr. Blanford. "Then you may come to a crunch moment, where the Hezbollah as we know it may change [and] can no longer play the same deterrence role on behalf of the Iranians as before.... That's why they see this as the last fight."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vn3uvfefltdnpomgnpsjmigw/bafkreica2sez5q4n3ivih4yvu2ke3xxfm2cgliglcoumgrick2d4k6kpku)
