Every major Iran-backed armed group in the Middle East grew from pre-existing state failures and social fault lines, not from Tehran's design, Frederic Wehrey, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has argued. Iranian support amplified these groups but did not create the conditions that made them powerful.
Writing in Time, Wehrey - himself a former U.S. intelligence officer who served in Baghdad and tracked Iranian-backed groups - said Tehran "exploited fractures that were already there," "Hvylya" reports.
In Iraq, the 2003 American invasion did not merely topple a dictator. It dismantled state institutions, disbanded the army, and worsened Shia-Sunni tensions through a disastrous approach to post-war governance. The chaos created the opening for Iran, which moved in and backed a spectrum of Shia militias - some rooted in exiled opposition networks Tehran had cultivated for years, others emerging in the post-2003 vacuum.
In Yemen, the Houthis emerged from decades of provincial neglect and sectarian marginalization in a state hollowed out by corruption, Wehrey wrote. Iranian support eventually amplified their military capabilities and extended their regional reach, but it did not create the conditions that made them a formidable political force.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah's strength reflects the chronic weakness of the Lebanese state and the exclusion of the Shia community, many of whom were radicalized by Israel's 1982 invasion. A similar logic applies in Palestine, where decades of Israeli occupation fueled anger that Tehran was quick to harness. The war on Iran will not neutralize these underlying dynamics, Wehrey argued - because they were never Iran's creation.
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