The assassination of a commander as senior as Haytham Ali Tabatabai-a man considered second only to Hezbollah’s Secretary-General in military command-is not merely a setback for the Lebanese group. It is a profound, perhaps fatal, crisis for Iran’s entire regional doctrine, the celebrated and feared “Axis of Resistance.”
The sustained, effective campaign of targeted strikes across Syria, Iraq, and now Lebanon has exposed the fundamental flaw in this doctrine.
Tehran’s furious but purely rhetorical condemnation of the “cowardly assassination,” followed by the predictable and deafening lack of a direct, symmetrical response, sends a chilling message to its partners: You are expendable.
The Islamic Republic’s strategy has always been a masterpiece of strategic ambiguity and risk management: project power, fight Israel and the United States, and bleed enemies dry, all without risking the homeland. Its proxies were the advanced guards, the ring of fire shielding the core. But the sustained, effective campaign of targeted strikes across Syria, Iraq, and now Lebanon has exposed the fundamental flaw in this doctrine.
The Erosion of the Shield and the Rise of the Sword
Hezbollah has long been the gold standard of the proxy model, the jewel in Iran’s crown. It is highly trained, ideologically aligned, and geographically positioned on Israel’s border. The relentless attrition of its leadership, compounded by Iran’s non-intervention, confirms that, when push comes to a full-scale conflagration, Tehran’s priority is the regime’s survival over the lives of its most loyal allies.
This failure creates a critical, and dangerously volatile, inflection point for the remaining, less-developed tentacles of the Axis, especially the Houthis in Yemen. Paradoxically, this strategic paralysis in Tehran does not necessarily mean abandonment for the Houthis. It means a terrifying promotion.
Tehran cannot afford to lose the Houthis; they are the last viable vehicle for inflicting costs on the US and Israel that matter on a global scale.
Iran has suffered catastrophic strategic losses. With Hezbollah’s military command severely degraded and Iraqi militias often restrained by complex domestic politics, the Houthis in Yemen-who have demonstrated unique capabilities by disrupting global shipping in the vital Red Sea and launching long-range missiles deep into Israel-emerge as Iran’s most potent, intact, and geographically remote asset.
Tehran cannot afford to lose the Houthis; they are the last viable vehicle for inflicting costs on the US and Israel that matter on a global scale. The result is that the Islamic Republic must and will increase its material support-drones, missiles, and expertise-to ensure this one remaining regional success story continues.
The Autonomy Dividend and the Risk of Recklessness
Unlike Hezbollah, the Houthis have always maintained a greater degree of independent decision-making, driven by their own domestic political and religious imperatives in Yemen. They are not merely an expeditionary force; they are a deep-rooted civil war faction with an external agenda.
Iran’s visible restraint in defending its closest proxy, Hezbollah, perversely strengthens the Houthis’ own narrative of autonomy. It allows them to continue their high-risk aggression in the Red Sea and against Israel-actions that often exceed Tehran’s own cautious risk tolerance-while still claiming the moral and material backing of the Islamic Republic.
Iran is not cutting off its proxies; it is simply abandoning them to their fate once the price of defense becomes too high.
The Houthis understand that they are now the primary engine for Iran’s anti-Israel and anti-US posturing. This gives them immense leverage to demand resources while pursuing their own aggressive agenda. They are, in effect, now operating with a carte blanche from Tehran.
If Iran refuses to retaliate for the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, it signals to the Houthis that their own actions, however destabilizing, will likely be supported, as they represent the only remaining active front in the Axis.
Iran is not cutting off its proxies; it is simply abandoning them to their fate once the price of defense becomes too high. The tragedy is that for an autonomous, aggressive group like the Houthis, this abandonment acts less like a deterrent and more like a twisted green light for escalation, transforming them from a strategic shield into an uncontrollable, high-risk weapon for their increasingly isolated and desperate benefactor.
The silence from Tehran is not peace; it is the sound of a regional structure cracking, leaving the most radical components to fill the void.
Published originally on November 26, 2025.
