TEHRAN, July 19 — Iran has built a sprawling network of armed movements and allied governments across the Middle East, a system that allows the Islamic Republic to project military power and retaliate far beyond its own borders without committing its own conventional forces. Known as the Axis of Resistance, this coalition has become the central mechanism for Tehran’s confrontation with the United States and its regional partners.
Three U.S. service members lost their lives in January 2024 when a drone struck Tower 22 in Jordan, one of the deadliest incidents in a widening shadow war. The roots of the Axis of Resistance go back to the early 1980s, when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps helped establish Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Since then, Hezbollah has grown from a militant faction into a major political force, joining the Lebanese government in 2005 and fighting a war with Israel the following year. Its arsenal today is estimated at more than 130,000 rockets, giving it the ability to threaten Israeli cities. On Iran’s southern flank, the Houthi movement seized control of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, in 2014 and has since received weapons including drones and missiles from Tehran.
The Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi oil infrastructure and harassed Red Sea shipping, and in 2025 they specifically targeted Israeli-linked vessels. In Iraq, powerful Shia militias such as Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq have been active in politics since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and remain closely tied to Iran’s direction.
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, locked in a civil war since 2011, has depended heavily on ground support from the IRGC and Hezbollah to survive. Iran also maintains ties with the Palestinian factions Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, further extending its reach toward Israel’s borders.
Escalating Proxy Attacks
The period from 2024 through 2026 has seen a marked rise in attacks by Iran-aligned groups against U.S. forces. American bases in Iraq and Syria have come under repeated drone and rocket fire from Shia militias. The January 2024 drone strike on Tower 22, a small base in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, killed three U.S. service members and wounded dozens.
That attack was one of the most lethal against American troops in the region since the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani. Washington has responded with airstrikes against militia targets in Iraq and Syria, but the attacks have continued, a reflection of the network’s resilience and Iran’s ability to sustain pressure through multiple proxy groups operating from different countries.
What this means in practice is that Iran can fight the United States and its allies on several fronts without ever deploying its own army. A Houthi missile launched from Yemen, a Hezbollah rocket fired from southern Lebanon, or a drone flown by an Iraqi militia all serve the same strategic purpose: to impose costs on Iran’s adversaries while keeping the fighting far from Iran’s own territory.
For the families of the soldiers killed at Tower 22, and for the thousands of U.S. troops stationed across the region, the Axis of Resistance is not an abstract geopolitical concept. It is a daily reality of base security, drone warnings, and the constant threat of indirect fire.
As the militias refine their tactics and receive more advanced weapons, the challenge for the Trump administration will be to deter future attacks without getting drawn into a wider war that could engulf the entire Middle East.
