Master of Chaos
Iran pre-empts regional isolation 

Western media was rife with speculation over the extent of Iran’s involvement in Hamas’ 7 October surprise attack. Although smoking gun evidence is scarce, the conventional wisdom is that groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the PMFs, and the Houthis are the result of a complex web of local grievances and interests with their own unique history of resistance; and that, as such, they cannot be seen simply as Iran proxies, even if Iran arms, trains, and finances them. This complicates attempts at understanding the timing of, and regional agenda behind, the attack.  

The official Iranian line is that it had no direct hand. The statements and media leaks from  Hamas and Hezbollah members, however, amounted to an unofficial IRGC press conference. In a widely circulated Wall Street Journal report, "senior members" of Hamas and Hezbollah were quoted anonymously confirming Tehran’s role in planning and green-lighting the attack, including at physical meetings attended by Iran's Foreign Minister, a major goal being the torpedoing of US-brokered normalisation talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Presumably, the sources quoted would not have highlighted Iran’s role as puppet master without Tehran’s prior approval. Similarly, Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif explicitly mentioned in an audio message released on 7 October that, “after this, there will be no more attacks in Syria,” an obvious reference to Israel’s not-so-shadowy war against the IRGC there.

Beyond confronting Israel's “mowing the grass” strategy, groups like Hamas help Iran implement its doctrine of strategic depth in defence through carefully calibrated offensive action. As a revisionist power, Iran has to regularly remind the world that it dictates the tempo and agenda of regional dynamics. The drone attacks on critical Saudi oil infrastructure in 2019 were a prime example; and they worked, setting in motion Riyadh’s China-brokered detente. Iran was nevertheless still at risk of being isolated by multiple alliance-building efforts, including the Russia-Turkey and Arab League tracks on Syria, the US-Saudi-UAE-India economic corridor partnership (designed to by-pass the Hormuz strait), the US-Israel-Jordan security pact, growing Israel-Turkey-Azerbaijan cooperation in the Caucasus, and of course, the US-Israel-GCC normalisation track started under Trump and pursued by Biden. All exclude Iran or are implicitly or explicitly directed against Iran. Something had to be done. 

For Tehran, the trend towards normalisation with Israel was deeply worrying. Iran needs Israel as an enemy to project its proclaimed anti-Zionist credentials that serve to justify its expansionist policies in the Arab world. The problem is that Iran’s most powerful proxy, Hezbollah, has become tame over the years. The Lebanese group wreaked havoc in Syria to keep Assad in power – losing an estimated 2,000 fighters in the process – but on the Israel front it prefers to keep its powder dry. In Tehran, however, the battle cry of the “Axis of Resistance” must be maintained at all costs lest anyone forget what Iran is all about. This is where Hamas’ goal of superseding Fatah as the sole legitimate voice of Palestinians by a spectacular display of force against an arrogant Israel intersected perfectly with that of Iran. As rockets slammed into Israeli cities, the chorus of Resistance slogans across the Arab world easily drowned out the peaceniks. The intended message is clear: Iran is still the master of chaos, and you dare not remove it from your calculations. From this perspective, no matter what happens to Gaza, Iran has won. 

Implications for Syria
The Syrian front will likely remain quiet for now. Israel does not want a war on multiple fronts, and Assad will want to keep a low-profile because he knows that enraged Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could easily topple his regime. He will likely bask in the warm glow of the muqawama’s perceived victory from a safe distance, having once again proven that he is on the right side of regional alliances. Sitting this one out makes sense, but it might not be so easy. Beyond the immediate Gaza threat, Israel will turn its attention to its northern border and Iran’s entrenchment in Syria. It will want to hit hard, but given the extent of Iran’s penetration of Syria’s military and social fabric, the means available to it are limited. Air strikes alone cannot dislodge the thousands of IRGC militiamen embedded in Syria’s southern provinces. 

This is where resurrecting the Southern Front model, involving militiamen fighting militiamen,  might be an option. Israel, with the help of Jordan and the US, could sponsor a Syrian rebel force to police a buffer zone that keeps Assad, the IRGC, Islamic State, and drug traffickers well away from the Israeli and Jordanian borders, just as the Southern Front had done in 2014-2018. Given the atrocities committed by Assad and Iran, and the ongoing opposition in southern Syria to the re-establishment of regime power, recruitment of Sunni Arab volunteers in Daraa would not be hard. For Israel to push back against Iran would resonate with the Gulf Arabs too, who would likely bankroll the venture. Russian objections might complicate matters, but Moscow is in no position to stand in the way of a concerted US-Israeli-Arab effort. 

Then there are the Druze. Given their stalled revolt against Assad, they might be the biggest beneficiaries of any proactive Israeli engagement in Syria. There’s no love lost between the Druze and Iran: in September the main religious leader of the sect in Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, called for a jihad against Iranian militias. For Israel, Suwayda might be the most attractive proposition, given the number of Druze soldiers in the Israeli military with ties to relatives in Syria. Assad could have only a limited window of opportunity to quell the revolt there before it morphs into an overt Israeli-Jordanian ‘sphere of influence.’ For Tehran, the Druze were always a lost cause, and their alignment with Israel and its friends would help to sharpen the battle lines for the next major confrontation. As the only actor with a genuinely long-term strategy for Syria, Iran can absorb the pushback and quietly plot another “reshuffling of the cards.”