Some military historians have referred to the late Benito Mussolini as a kind of negative military genius, by whose intervention in the Second World War not only secured the defeat of his own country but that of his German allies. The idea is that, in 1941, Hitler having to intervene to save Mussolini in Greece delayed the German Invasion of Russia – Operation Barbarossa – by about six weeks, which meant that German troops would be stopped by the Russian Winter at the gates of Moscow.
Timing can be everything in war. When the military leader of Hamas Yahya Sinwar launched his terrorist invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, he initially achieved complete surprise and startling success. While this was, initially, a brutal and singular success, the plan was not unique. In fact, it was a copy. Hamas launching a massive rocket attack, cutting through Israeli lines, slaughtering everyone they could find and then retreating with hundreds of hostages while supposedly preparing a trap for the pursuing IDF was a copy of Hezbollah's plan for Northern Galilee.
The two groups had since 2021 shared a joint operations center in Beirut and both shared the same patron in Iran. Both were parts of the so-called "Axis of Resistance," that network of terrorist groups, militias, and governments Iran had forged in the region.
The network, on paper, made a lot of sense for Iran and had served it well until that date. It was a force multiplier that served as a substitute for Iranian troops on the ground. It gave Iran a certain amount of plausible deniability so that its proxies could strike Saudi Arabia and the UAE with missiles and drones or in the same way target American bases in Syria and Iraq. Still another member of the Iranian Axis, in Yemen, succeeded in crippling shipping in the Red Sea and Suez Canal. The network enabled Iran to exercise unprecedented influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Iran could hit anyone but in return would – usually – not be hit itself.
The Gaza War begun in October 2023 was many things but it developed into becoming the Proof-of-Concept War for the Axis of Resistance, a test in seeing how successful this powerful tool would be. During the war, Israel would be struck not only from Gaza, but from Lebanon, from Syria, from Iraq, from Yemen, and even from Iran itself. The first ever "Battle in Outer Space" occurred when an Israeli air defense weapon destroyed a Houthi Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) launched from Yemen and downed from outside of the Earth's atmosphere.
But as widespread as the strikes against Israel have been, they have been haphazard and it is clear that Sinwar jumped the gun. Israel would have been hard-pressed indeed if Hamas and Hezbollah had simultaneously launched the same surprise attack on the country's southern and northern borders in October 2023. That did not happen. Perhaps Sinwar had expected to go even further into Israel, link up with the West Bank, and present his allies with a fait accompli in which they would have been compelled to join. But the moment had passed.
In his attack, Sinwar inadvertently revealed a flaw in Axis of Resistance war planning. The concept seemed to have been set up for two types of war with Israel. A short, sharp exchange where both sides are bloodied and then the conflict is stopped by the international community (as has happened many times in the past) or "Armageddon," an all-out final confrontation between Iran, all of its pawns, and Israel. The war that developed was more than the former and (so far) less than the latter. Instead, it became a long, drawn-out conflict where Israel was able to defeat its adversaries in turn, moving from Hamas to Hezbollah to Iran itself.
What had been an advantage became a liability as Iran's pawns were sacrificed in a war not yet of Iran's choosing. Instead of staying above the fray, Iran saw itself drawn in more deeply as it tried to save its proxies without actually committing itself to full and open war. Israel was able to call Iran's bluff by striking not only at the puppets but at the puppet master itself, whether key Iranian assets in the region or inside Iran itself. The battering of Iran's prestige by Israel has trapped Iran in a cycle of action and reaction it was not quite ready for.
In this type of attack, Israel was following a course of action twice pioneered by the Americans, by President Reagan's Operation Praying Mantis in 1988 and President Trump's strike on Qassem Soleimani in 2020. In both cases, the Americans dispensed with striking at proxies and struck Iran directly. In both cases, Iran backed down and was, at least temporarily, cowed.
Israel was fortunate indeed that it had learned hard lessons from past Gaza wars and from the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah. The IDF and Israeli Intelligence had new tactics and deep insight that allowed them to overcome past traps. The Israeli Government was also able to dodge the pressure of those, including the Biden-Harris Administration, which wanted to end the war too soon. There is no doubt that the first round of the Axis of Resistance War was a failure for Iran's proxy network.
But the war is not over and the Iranian regime – assuming it does not fall – will also learn from the conflict. It will likely try to rebuild its Axis and try again with better coordination, although that could take years given the damage to their proxies in Gaza and Lebanon. One priority for them will be to try to expand the Axis, expanding Hamas into the West Bank and into Jordan, making Syria a more active participant, bringing the Yemeni Houthis up to be a much more powerful regional force and ensuring that when the next strike comes, Iran is fully coordinating all of its pawns.
Before then Israel, of course, will face the supreme challenge of translating its astonishing military victories into political and diplomatic ones, trying to get a different set of facts on the ground in both Gaza and in Lebanon, if at all possible while trying to strengthen alliances with anti-Iranian players in the region and beyond.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
