Confronting Iran's proxy network is not about eliminating Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or militias in Iraq. The goal is to leave them so fragmented and constrained that they cannot project power beyond their own borders, Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov have written in Foreign Affairs. The former Israeli intelligence chief and his co-author lay out a strategy that prioritizes severance from Tehran over outright destruction.
For decades, Iran wielded these groups through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, allowing Tehran to cause massive regional chaos while maintaining plausible deniability, "Hvylya" reports. An intense US-Israeli campaign could drive a wedge between these groups and their patron, the strategists contend in their essay, by demonstrating that when confronted with serious force, Tehran cannot protect them.
The distinction between fragmentation and destruction matters for practical reasons. Proxy groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis have deep local roots that no external military campaign can fully uproot. Yadlin and Golov acknowledge this reality and propose a more achievable objective: strip the groups of their ability to function as instruments of Iranian power projection. The harder question of their domestic role, the strategists suggest, belongs to the countries where they operate.
Yadlin and Golov cite recent battlefield results as proof of concept. Israeli forces dealt what they call a severe blow to Hezbollah - killing its longtime leader and destroying significant portions of its weapons stockpiles. The combined US-Israeli strikes in February 2026 further degraded the command infrastructure that Tehran relied on to coordinate its proxy operations across the region.
Proxy neutralization sits within a broader strategic package that includes sustained economic pressure, blockades, and no-fly zones over Iran. Unless the network is shattered, they argue, Tehran retains the ability to reconstitute its regional influence even after losing direct military capabilities. The proxy question, in their framing, is not secondary to the Iran problem - it is central.
"Hvylya" previously examined the argument that the Middle East's deeper problem is not Iran itself.