{"title":"Iran's Annus Horribilis in 2024: Beaten, but Not Defeated","authors":"Thomas Juneau","doi":"10.1111/mepo.12814","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Iran and the Axis of Resistance—the armed nonstate actors that it supports, plus the Assad regime in Syria—had a horrible 2024. Hamas and Hezbollah suffered heavy blows at the hands of Israel. Bashar al-Assad's Syria, the only state among the Islamic Republic's regional partners, collapsed in December. Tit-for-tat exchanges in April and October humiliatingly illustrated Iran's conventional military inferiority relative to Israel. And while the large-scale street protests in Iran that started in September 2022 had been largely repressed into silence, serious domestic discontent remained, a backdrop to its decaying regional posture. The Islamic Republic is not, however, on the verge of collapse. It retains control over a large, if diminished, pool of assets to pursue its influence throughout the region. Moreover, Yemen's Houthis were the sole Iranian partner to have a strong 2024, continuing their rise as a regional power. Hezbollah and Hamas have been weakened but are not dead, and it is not far-fetched to expect them to rise again, if not to their pre-2024 capacities. Iran, finally, has shown in the past, notably after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Arab uprisings of 2011, that it can adapt and transform threats into opportunities.</p>","PeriodicalId":46060,"journal":{"name":"Middle East Policy","volume":"32 2","pages":"3-17"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/mepo.12814","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Middle East Policy","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mepo.12814","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Iran and the Axis of Resistance—the armed nonstate actors that it supports, plus the Assad regime in Syria—had a horrible 2024. Hamas and Hezbollah suffered heavy blows at the hands of Israel. Bashar al-Assad's Syria, the only state among the Islamic Republic's regional partners, collapsed in December. Tit-for-tat exchanges in April and October humiliatingly illustrated Iran's conventional military inferiority relative to Israel. And while the large-scale street protests in Iran that started in September 2022 had been largely repressed into silence, serious domestic discontent remained, a backdrop to its decaying regional posture. The Islamic Republic is not, however, on the verge of collapse. It retains control over a large, if diminished, pool of assets to pursue its influence throughout the region. Moreover, Yemen's Houthis were the sole Iranian partner to have a strong 2024, continuing their rise as a regional power. Hezbollah and Hamas have been weakened but are not dead, and it is not far-fetched to expect them to rise again, if not to their pre-2024 capacities. Iran, finally, has shown in the past, notably after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Arab uprisings of 2011, that it can adapt and transform threats into opportunities.
期刊介绍:
The most frequently cited journal on the Middle East region in the field of international affairs, Middle East Policy has been engaging thoughtful minds for more than 25 years. Since its inception in 1982, the journal has been recognized as a valuable addition to the Washington-based policy discussion. Middle East Policy provides an influential forum for a wide range of views on U.S. interests in the region and the value of the policies that are supposed to promote them.