Iran rethinks its role as a regional troublemaker

ON THE FACE of it, the war in Gaza has been good for Iran’s clerical regime. First, its ally, Hamas, proved itself horrifyingly more effective than most observers had assumed in its attack on Israel on October 7th. Since then the other members of the “axis of resistance” have demonstrated Iran’s reach, striking Israeli and American targets from Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. The Houthis, Iran’s proxies in Yemen, have attacked oil tankers in the Red Sea and fired missiles with a range of 800km, allowing Iran to threaten trade through the Suez canal, much as it already dominates passage to the Persian Gulf. “They’re showing the world needs Iran if it wants to keep the Middle East stable,” says a former UN diplomat in Tehran. In Washington, DC Republican politicians present the regional menace posed by Iran as proof of President Joe Biden’s geopolitical incompetence.

Iran’s muscle-flexing comes after a year in which the ayatollahs have regained their grip over the country’s citizens. In late 2022 widespread demonstrations, triggered by the death in custody of a woman who wore her hijab improperly, appeared to be close to toppling the regime. In the end it was the protests, not clerical rule, that died out. Iran’s diplomatic and economic isolation is also easing. It has positioned itself as a crucial supplier of weapons to Russia. Oil exports, especially to China, are booming. In March China brokered a deal to restore diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In August Iran was invited to join BRICS, the bloc of big emerging economies. And in September America agreed to unfreeze $6bn of Iranian assets as part of a prisoner exchange.