This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
AMMAN, Jordan — When the U.S. launched the Iran war nearly six months ago, it was to be the coup de grace in dismantling the “Axis of Resistance,” an Iran-led alliance of armed groups and governments arrayed against the United States and Israel.
The axis included not just the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, but Yemen’s Houthi rebels, militias in Syria and Iraq and the government of Syria’s then-dictator Bashar Assad.
The thinking was that with the axis’ “tentacles” weakened, if not vanquished, all that would remain, as Israeli and U.S. officials often said, would be the “head of the octopus” — Iran.
But it now appears reports of the axis’ unraveling are exaggerated.
The Islamic Republic, far from capitulating under the U.S. and Israel’s withering assault, has compounded its leverage by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Hamas and Hezbollah remain stubbornly in place, with the latter maintaining its lethality, even as Iraqi militias — defying Baghdad’s attempts at defanging them — have launched attacks on America’s Persian Gulf allies.
And though Assad has been ousted from Syria, the Houthis in Yemen now threaten to restart their long-running feud with Saudi Arabia and seal another crucial choke point — the Bab al Mandab strait linking the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Such a move would further roil already skittish energy markets.
A day after Trump hailed the two-week ceasefire, reversing course on his threat to escalate, the only country spared from attack appeared to be Iran itself.
“Never has the Resistance Axis been as strong as it is today,” wrote Ali Khezrian, a hard-liner who is a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, in a post on X on Saturday.
Though Syria was a big loss “that must be compensated,” he said, the rest of the axis’ members were “in the strongest condition they have ever been in the history of their resistance.”
Analysts say statements such as Khezrian’s overstate the case, but they nevertheless acknowledge the axis has proved more resilient than expected.
Although there is little doubt the axis is diminished compared with what it was a few years ago, “there’s now a period of a slow dawning realization that the way it’s built has made it able to match the moment,” said Peter Salisbury, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs who recently published a report on the axis’ evolution for the Century Foundation think tank.
In June, the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding that called for a 60-day end of hostilities to allow time to negotiate an end to the conflict. The memorandum expired Monday and efforts to end the war appear to be at a standstill.
