The United States announced new sanctions on Tuesday, March 26, against six firms, two tankers, and a money exchange, all of which are alleged to have engaged in business dealings to the benefit of the Iranian regime and two of its militant proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Separately but on the same day, the US also announced sanctions targeting 11 individuals and entities for helping the Iran-backed Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad to evade preexisting sanctions and raise financing through drug trafficking.
The new measures emerged very soon after 13 Iran-backed militants were killed in Syria, and just days after Iran’s UN ambassador Saied Iravani called for a lifting of all sanctions on the Assad regime, as well as the removal of US forces from Syria, where they have been working to prevent resurgence of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group. Iravani drew an arguably arbitrary distinction between US forces and Iranian forces in Syria, calling the former “uninvited” despite the fact that they work closely with the semi-autonomous government in Syria’s Kurdish region while Iran-backed militias often operate above and separate from the actual Syrian military.
The Iranian regime’s envoy’s comments before the UN reflect a longstanding and far-reaching strategy of trying to supersede Western influence in the Middle East region. This was underscored by remarks delivered around the same time by regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and carried by Fars News Agency. Khamenei either expressed or feigned confidence about the US withdrawing its forces not just from Syria by from across the region, and gave credit in advance to Hamas.
Khamenei’s remarks came just ahead of his meeting in Tehran with Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh, which reinforced the Iranian regime’s embrace of Hamas as a key part of the “Resistance Axis” that also includes Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Syrian militants propping up Assad, and similar Iran-backed militants in Iraq. Khamenei and other leading Iranian regime officials have repeatedly praised the October 7 attack as an “irreparable defeat” for Israel and its Western backers, while also helping to mobilize the Axis to keep pressure on both.
Shortly after war erupted in Gaza, the Houthis have been waging a campaign of attacks upon commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Iranian regime proxies in Iraq and Syria carried out more than 170 attacks on US and US-allied military assets in the region until early February, at which point they shifted focus in the wake of American retaliation for the deaths of three US service members at a border installation in Jordan.
That shift in focus reportedly came in response to appeals from Iran, but has arguably had little real impact on Iraqi and Syrian contributions to regional instability. The regime is by all accounts still providing groups in both countries with a steady supply of arms and logistical support to further carry out attacks in the region.
Iran’s state-run Tasnim News Agency appeared to brag about those threats on Friday via an article that quoted Technology Minister Issa Zarepour as declaring that Iran has become one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of space launch technology, following a recent satellite launch carried out from a Russian launch pad. The report claimed that the Iranian space industry had been “fully indigenized” with help from the policies of President Ebrahim Raisi, who has also empowered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to expand its presence in a number of fields.
While Zarepour’s comments fell short of direct threats of expanded missile development and trafficking, it is widely understood that space launch technology has a dual purpose as components of military rockets, including potentially nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles. The IRGC is already in charge of the largest stockpile of ballistic missiles in the region, and portions of that stockpile have steadily made their way into the hands of regional militant groups, thus featuring prominently in some of the most recent Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
Those attacks remain largely ineffective but still demonstrate notable escalation, with a French warship having shot down at least three ballistic missiles last Thursday alone. Reports of that engagement emphasized that attacks upon commercial vessels and the coalition guarding them have become a near-daily occurrence, even as joint American and British strikes on Houthi arms depots have become commonplace as well.
Before missile attacks became prevalent, the Houthi relied even more heavily upon Iranian-made one-way attack drones, of the sort that have also been delivered to Russia by the thousands since the start of war in Ukraine. Iran’s drone technology is also reported to be evolving and was recently featured at a military arms exhibition in Doha. Specifically, Iran presented to potential buyers a drone that it had named “Gaza,” claiming it capable of carrying up to 13 bombs over a 1,200 mile operational distance.
These specifications were disputed by at least one competing arms manufacturer, and indeed the Islamic Republic has a long history of overstating its own military capabilities. Nonetheless, there is an underlying fact of ongoing development which threatens to increase the capabilities not only of Iranian forces themselves but also of various proxies and allies. What’s more, these military resources open the door for new trade with those same allies, as indicated by the fact that Tehran recently claimed once again to be on the verge of taking delivery of Russian-made Su-35 jet fighters, which would allow the Iranian air force to make its first truly significant upgrade since the 1979 revolution.
But as much as this potential trade represents a challenge to Western interests and global stability, Iran’s own advancements may also pose an indirect threat to its own allies. This is especially likely if Iran proves to have less control over its military proxies than is generally assumed. That assumption was seemingly reflected last week in a public statement from the Houthis promising not to attack Iranian, Russian, or Chinese vessels. But just days later it was reported that an attack had been launched against a Chinese vessel anyway, signaling a possible loosening of the reins on Houthi operations.
