How 2024 became the year of the failure of the Iranian regime’s expansionist projects

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The year 2024 will be remembered as a year of significant and consecutive defeats for the Iranian regime. The widespread boycott of parliamentary and presidential elections by the people challenged the regime’s legitimacy. The death of former president Ebrahim Raisi, on whom Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s had invested for the future of the regime, destabilized the power structure. Regionally, the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria blocked the route for arms transfers to Tehran’s terrorist proxies, leading to the collapse of the so-called “Axis of Resistance.” The death of Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy dealt a severe blow to the regime in Lebanon, while its proxies elsewhere were also weakened.

Now, 16 months after the regime’s warmongering in Gaza, many observers, particularly in Arab countries, echo the same explanation for Khamenei’s series of defeats as articulated by Iranian Resistance after October 7, 2023, identifying the main loser.

On December 30, Al-Arab London wrote, “The year 2024 will be remembered as the year of the failure of Iran’s expansionist project in the region. The key question is how the Islamic Republic will cope with this failure, which it seems unable to accept. The root of this failure lies in biting off more than it could chew.”

The game “In Iran itself”

In the past year, all dynamics shifted against the regime. What Khamenei had feared most has now befallen him. He aimed to ignite wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, keeping conflicts burning in regional trenches with the blood of the region’s people. However, the battleground has now shifted elsewhere: inside Iran itself.

“Lebanon is no longer the ‘playing field.’ Syria is no longer the ‘playing field.’ Iran’s game in Lebanon and Syria has ended. Now, the game unfolds elsewhere: within Iran itself, where acknowledging the reality is crucial—that the fall of the Alawite regime in Syria directly impacts the Islamic Republic and jeopardizes its future. How can Iran save itself? This is the question 2025 must answer” (Ibid).

A “dictatorial system” in the name of “revolution”

The recent failures of the Iranian regime have led many commentators to examine its foundations. They have exposed the role of regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini in spreading fundamentalism and questioned core concepts of the regime, such as “exporting the revolution” and the “axis of resistance.”

On December 24, TV channel Al-Hurra reported, “Since the inception of this revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of the regime, introduced the idea of exporting the revolution to neighboring countries and even Western nations. However, this revolution differs from others because it brought neither new ideas nor concepts for the country’s progress in democracy and freedoms. On the contrary, it turned into a despotic dictatorship that restricts freedoms.”

Octopus without arms

Regional experts and researchers are astounded by the fragile state of the clerical regime and believe it resembles.

On December 17, Erem news website wrote, “An octopus that has lost its most vital arms in the Middle East and appears severely weakened under Ali Khamenei’s leadership. This follows wars that resulted in the destruction of key arms in which it had heavily invested in terms of training, arming, and financing. So, what has become of Khamenei’s ’empire of arms’?

“Today, the Iranian regime faces a challenging situation with its people. Perhaps this is why Khamenei—despite his poor health—stepped in to assure that ‘Iran is becoming stronger,’ likely to boost morale among the axes. However, a large segment of the population now understands that this battle was doomed from the start.”

Failed investment

Estimates of the Iranian regime’s expenditures in Syria range between 30 to 100 billion dollars or even more. However, the outcome of this massive investment has been nothing but failure. The collapse of the Assad regime and the changing regional dynamics rendered all these expenditures futile.

On December 29, Middle East Online wrote, “The Islamic Republic is undergoing a deep crisis, one that has led Khamenei to avoid addressing what happened to Iran’s investment in Syria and the billions of dollars spent there. These billions, taken from the Iranian people’s pockets, were spent on sustaining Bashar Assad’s rule in Damascus. These funds were also used to maintain Syrian territory as a corridor for transferring weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, smuggling arms to Jordan, and trafficking drugs through Jordan to the Gulf states. Iran reaped what it sowed. Its investment in Syria is understandable only from one perspective: Iran’s expansionist project, which primarily means exporting its domestic crises abroad under the banner of ‘exporting the revolution.’”

A dream that went to waste

Khamenei wanders in his former dreams. To boost the morale of his forces, Khamenei fantasizes about the resurrection of Assad’s regime and the reactivation of the mercenaries known as “Shabiha” under the guise of Syrian resistance to resume the crimes of Sednaya prison. However, all rational analyses and “all studies agree that Tehran is the biggest loser from the fall of Assad’s regime and the weakening of Hezbollah. Iran had created and gradually strengthened a corridor stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea, passing through Iraq and Syria (on which Iran depended for its regime’s survival) and reaching Lebanon, where Hezbollah—created, financed, and armed by Iran—held sway. According to these analyses, this corridor is now destroyed, and Iran will face great difficulties in arming Hezbollah, which has been weakened in Lebanon. Ultimately, Iran’s dream of creating a Shia axis connecting it to the Mediterranean has been shattered.” (Source: The New Arab, December 30).

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