BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,973, March 22, 2021
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Iran’s hegemony scheme for the Middle East not only includes surrounding Israel with missile bases and heavily armed proxies, but also equipping territories further away, such as Iraq and Yemen, to be future bases of attack. Behind the scenes, and despite its severe economic distress due to US sanctions, Iran is working constantly to infiltrate and consolidate its presence in lands with partial or failed sovereignty, or, in the case of Syria, ruled by an ally.
Iran is taking advantage of regional trouble spots to create new security risks throughout the Middle East while calling on its proxy terrorist assets to pile pressure on the US ahead of nuclear talks.
Hezbollah, Iran’s flagship proxy in Lebanon, which is armed with more surface-to-surface firepower than most NATO armies, is the model that Iran strives to replicate elsewhere. Its efforts to do this in Syria have run into a determined Israeli campaign of disruption.
Iranian plans for other regions like Iraq and Yemen are no less important to the ayatollahs’ regime and to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which have a long-term objective of building a Shiite crescent through the Middle East.
Israel is not the only country in the line of fire. Sunni Arab states are even more exposed.
A major Saudi oil port at Ras Tamura, on the Persian Gulf coast, came under drone attack on March 7, with a missile also hitting a nearby residential area run by the Saudi Aramco oil company in Dhahran, in eastern Saudi Arabia. The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it struck oil and military targets. The Houthis are fighting Yemen’s Saudi-backed government.
Saudi sources have indicated that the attack may in fact have come from an Iranian proxy organization in Iraq, or even from Iran itself. The attack represents a severe threat to global energy supplies and to world economic stability, the sources warned, and is reminiscent of the unprecedented Iranian explosive drone attack on two major Saudi oil processing installations in 2019 at Abqaiq and Khuaris that temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom’s oil production.
In late February, Saudi air defenses in Riyadh intercepted a combined missile and drone attack launched by the Houthi Ansar Allah organization, which receives instructions, as well as advanced weapons, from Iran.
Meanwhile, as part of an effort to ramp up pressure on the Biden administration ahead of talks over a new possible nuclear agreement, Iran’s proxies have been firing rockets at bases with US personnel in Iraq. An example is an attack on March 14 that involved the launching of five rockets at a base north of Baghdad. The latest attacks show that Iran is undeterred by the American retaliation in late February for previous rocket attacks on bases in Iraq, which took the form of air strikes on Iran-backed militias in Syria.
In addition, reports have emerged consistently over the past two years that Iran is moving missiles to Iraq, from which location it can target Israel. In January, the IDF reportedly stationed an Iron Dome air defense battery in the southern Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat amid threats that the Houthis in Yemen could target the city with long-range cruise missiles or drones on Iranian orders.
A January report in Newsweek that appears to have been based on intelligence information stated that Iran has deployed Shahed-136 suicide drones to northern Yemen. These drones can reach up to 1,370 miles, placing Israel within range. The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to attack targets in Israel, and also pose a tangible threat to Israeli shipping in the Red Sea.
The attacks on Saudi Arabia out of Yemen and Iraq are a clear signal of Iran’s intent. It wants to gain the ability to strike the sensitive strategic targets of Sunni states and Israel and to do so from as many areas in the Middle East as possible. These incidents could all be preludes to future destabilizing acts by the Islamic Republic, which is intent on smuggling more ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, and other weapons to the radical forces under its command in Iraq and Yemen, as well as Syria and Lebanon.
These activities should be seen as part of a greater picture. Considerable threats exist inside Iranian territory itself, with the regime’s nuclear program chief among them. Tehran has taken alarming steps to accelerate that program, such as the enrichment of uranium to 20% and the production of uranium metal—both of which are milestones on the path to nuclear breakout. Iran would like one day to extend a nuclear umbrella over its proxies, a development that would forever alter the Middle East and likely set off a nuclear arms race with Sunni powers threatened by Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran’s well-developed domestic weapons industries produce an array of conventional and increasingly reliable ballistic and cruise missiles, which the regime makes sure to show off and saber-rattle on a regular basis. A safe working assumption is that many of the advanced weapons being produced in Iran will be proliferated via Quds Force smuggling networks to proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Iran’s ability to introduce precision strike technology to its projectiles, and to those of its proxy forces, means that sensitive targets in countries in its sights are exposed. However, Israel’s multi-layered air defense system is the most advanced in the world and is constantly undergoing upgrades. It is this system, and the strategic durability it provides, that allows Israel to flourish despite being threatened by some 150,000 Hezbollah projectiles.
Still, Iran’s proxies in the region can complement their smuggled weapons with off-the-shelf technology, buying items like commercial drones and fitting them with rocket-propelled grenades for just tens of thousands of dollars.
While the Saudi-led coalition remains locked in an air strike campaign against the Houthis in Yemen and is beefing up its air defenses, the Saudis and their Gulf allies appear to be highly vulnerable to threats from Iraq and from Iran itself.
Israel, for its part, is engaged in a longstanding shadow war against Iranian weapons smuggling and regime attempts to build military attack bases in the region. There is a special focus on Syria, though the campaign is unlikely to be limited to Syria. In this campaign, Israel must constantly assess the risks of acting and not acting as it monitors intelligence on Iranian aggression. The campaign includes action in multiple arenas, and is part of Israel’s daily effort to defend its vital security interests without crossing the threshold of war.
Israel’s campaign is designed to delay the outbreak of war by boosting deterrence, demonstrating intelligence and strike capabilities to Iran and its proxies, and harming the capabilities of the Iranian axis. Yet the risk of conflict exists at every turn, as Iran or a member of its axis can retaliate and set off an escalation. Should a broader conflict erupt, the current campaign between the wars is also designed to create better conditions for Israel to win.
Israel presumably coordinates such activities with the US on an ongoing basis in order to avoid surprising its most important ally, which still has forces stationed in Iraq. No less importantly, the growing Iranian threat has created a clear set of joint interests among Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Sunni Arab states—a factor that greatly fueled the historic Abraham Accords, especially between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.
Israel’s ability to proactively block and disrupt Iranian activities across multiple areas makes it an attractive partner to Sunni states. The Jewish State and Arab states stand together in one camp facing the same strategic threat from Tehran and its many tentacles.
This is an edited version of an article published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism on March 18, 2021.
Yaakov Lappin is a Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks and is the military correspondent for JNS. His book The Virtual Caliphate explores the online jihadist presence.