Iran has suffered setbacks over the past several years. Foremost among them was the loss of the Assad regime in December 2024, when Syrian rebels overthrew the government. Additionally, Israel and the US have attacked the Islamic Republic twice in the last year. Iran has also seen other proxies, such as Hamas, weakened. And it sees how Hezbollah appears to be losing its power in Lebanon.
Iran is trying to rewrite the “rules” of the last few years. In the past year, it has been, in a sense on the back foot. After October 7, it attempted to seize the regional initiative and launch a multifront war on Israel.
Iran's multi-front war losing steam
However, the Iranian multifront war lost steam in September 2024 when Israel began to launch heavy attacks on Hezbollah. Israel also eliminated the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas. Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, was even killed in Iran. Consequently, the regime experienced difficulty in keeping Israel on the defensive.
Iran launched major ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel in 2024. However, it didn’t achieve its goals. Instead, Israel weathered the storm and then waited for a time and place to turn the tables. That came in June 2025, when the Jewish state launched surprise strikes on the Islamic regime in the 12 Day War. The US joined Israel at the end of the conflict, showing Tehran that Israel was not alone.
Iran also saw how many regional countries were assisting Israel. Although the degree of assistance was unclear, Iran assumed that the strikes in 2025 – and other incidents – reflected growing regional coordination via US Central Command (CENTCOM) between Israel and some Gulf states.
Iran was also concerned about Iranian dissidents, including Kurdish opposition groups.
All of this culminated in the regime’s crackdown on protests in January 2026, followed by the US’s Operation Epic Fury and Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion combined strikes on February 28.
Iran's strategic puzzle falling apart
Iran watched as Lebanon began talks with Israel. For Iran, this represented losing many pieces of the regional puzzle it had painstakingly built over the past decades.
As Iran watched the puzzle being re-arranged, via talks in Washington and hints that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq might hand over weapons, Tehran considered what to do.
Its decision, since April, has been to link Lebanon with the ceasefire. Iran has been telling the US that it will only make a deal if the US can also get a ceasefire in Lebanon. This has led to some pressure on Israel not to strike Beirut.
Israel has nevertheless been willing to strike at Hezbollah, and this caused Iran to claim that it was “responding” via the recent ballistic missile attacks. It also got the Houthis to reopen their front. Iran is not responding as much as it is trying to show that it wants to regain its power and influence.
It wants to link Beirut directly to Tehran.
This message has already bolstered morale among Hezbollah. Iran assumes that the US doesn’t want to go back into a large conflict. The regime has also been striking Kuwait and the Gulf in recent weeks. Tehran, therefore, wants to show that it can threaten the entire region along 3,000 miles of frontline from Lebanon to the Gulf and Yemen.
It remains to be seen whether Iran is able to claw back its regional power.