Iranian Nexus: How Sectarianism furthers Tehran’s Grand Strategy

Tehran has spent decades building relationships that could turn the entire Middle East into a battleground.

The Singapore-flagged Norman Atlantic in the Strait of Hormuz after an Iranian attack in the 1987 Tanker War. Just one of many scenarios that could occur in the event of a broader escalation today. Source

At any hour of any day, on land or at sea, and in practically any location across the Middle East, the interests of the United States and its allies are under threat like never before. A destroyed oil field, troops killed while sleeping in their barracks, or even a whole aircraft carrier sunk – these are just some of the nightmare scenarios faced by the United States and its allies as a result of Iran’s grand strategy of regional anti-access area denial (A2AD) should an all-out war ensue. This strategy has been developed over decades and relies heavily on proxies formed out of the rubble of shattered states across the region and sectarian divisions underpinning the societies within them for centuries.

In this article, we explore how Iran and its proxies exert an outsized influence across the Middle East and the implications of what this means as tensions between these groups and US forces continue to mount throughout the region.

Tehran harnesses Shia groups to extend influence far beyond its borders

Although Shia communities are a minority in the Arab world, Iranian-backed Shia militias exert outsized influence across the Middle East.

In Lebanon, Iran-backed Hezbollah reportedly has more firepower at its disposal than 95% of the world’s conventional militaries. Borne out of southern Lebanon’s Shia community during the country’s brutal civil war of the 1980s and aided extensively by Iranian patronage ever since the group now possesses the means to inflict severe damage to critical infrastructure across Israel and beyond. With the conflict between Hezbollah and the Jewish state intensifying in recent months, Hezbollah is the crucial factor as to whether the current regional war will escalate moving forward. Moreover, Hezbollah operatives can be found throughout the region, helping other Iran-aligned groups militarily and logistically. These activities have been fueled in part by the group’s global crime network, which generates vast sums of cash each year used to solidify its control over much of Lebanon and shield it from the sweeping sanctions placed upon it by Washington. Some estimates put Hezbollah’s total fighting force at over 100,000 individuals.