How Iran Built Its Proxy Network: The Evolution of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iraq's Militias

For more than four decades, Iran has transformed local militant groups into one of the world's most sophisticated networks of proxy forces. Here's how that strategy reshaped the Middle East—and why it may be approaching its limits.

By Dan Feferman

AI-generated illustration of Iran's regional proxy network.

In early July 2026, Houthi fighters sank two commercial bulk carriers in the Red Sea, once again disrupting one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes. Hezbollah continues confronting Israel despite suffering devastating battlefield losses over the past two years. Hamas remains entrenched in Gaza, refusing to surrender its weapons despite mounting international pressure and more than a year of war.

At first glance, these appear to be separate conflicts unfolding hundreds of miles apart. In reality, they are chapters of the same story. For more than four decades, Iran has systematically built a network of allied militant organizations capable of projecting its influence far beyond its borders. From Lebanon and Gaza to Iraq and Yemen, these groups have allowed Tehran to challenge stronger adversaries, pressure regional rivals, and expand its strategic reach while avoiding direct conventional war.

Today, that network—often referred to as the Axis of Resistance—represents one of the most sophisticated systems of proxy warfare ever assembled. What began in the early 1980s as support for isolated militant groups has evolved into a coordinated regional architecture capable of combining military force, political influence, information operations, terrorism, drones, missiles, and economic disruption across multiple theaters simultaneously.

Understanding how Iran built this proxy network—and why it has become both one of Tehran's greatest strategic assets and one of its growing vulnerabilities—is essential to understanding today's Middle East.

The Origins of Iran's Proxy Strategy (1979–1990)

Iran's proxy strategy emerged directly from the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Facing international isolation, a devastating war with Iraq, and militarily superior adversaries, Tehran needed a way to project power beyond its borders without engaging in costly conventional conflicts.

The task fell largely to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), particularly its elite Quds Force. Rather than relying solely on Iran's own military, the IRGC developed a model centered on cultivating, training, financing, and arming ideologically aligned non-state actors. These groups could advance Iran's strategic objectives while giving Tehran varying degrees of plausible deniability.

Lebanon became the first—and ultimately the most successful—testing ground. Amid Lebanon's civil war and Israel's 1982 invasion, Iran dispatched advisers, weapons, and funding to consolidate several Shiite militant factions into what became Hezbollah. What began as a relatively small insurgent movement rapidly evolved into a disciplined military organization built around Iranian doctrine, long-term financing, and strategic guidance.

The model quickly proved its value. Hezbollah's 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 American servicemen, together with the nearly simultaneous attack on French peacekeepers, demonstrated how a relatively small proxy organization could impose enormous strategic costs on major powers while exposing Iran itself to little direct retaliation.

Hezbollah soon became Tehran's most successful foreign investment. Over the following decades, it evolved into Iran's premier proxy—simultaneously a military force, political party, intelligence partner, and strategic deterrent against Israel. More importantly, Hezbollah became the blueprint for Iran's regional strategy, demonstrating that well-funded proxy organizations could achieve objectives that conventional armies often could not.

During the same period, Iran also began cultivating ties with Palestinian Islamist movements. Hamas, founded during the First Intifada in 1987, differed from Iran ideologically and religiously. Hamas was Sunni Islamist, while Iran's revolutionary leadership was Shiite. Yet shared hostility toward Israel and common strategic interests gradually outweighed sectarian divisions, laying the foundation for what would become one of the region's most consequential partnerships.

Throughout the 1980s, Iran's proxy model relied primarily on terrorism, guerrilla warfare, suicide bombings, kidnappings, and limited rocket attacks. These tactics allowed Tehran to challenge stronger adversaries indirectly while extending its influence across the region without risking direct state-to-state confrontation.

Over time, this growing constellation of armed partners came to be known as the Axis of Resistance. Although its members retained their own local agendas, they increasingly operated as parts of a broader Iranian strategy aimed at challenging U.S. influence, confronting Israel, and undermining the regional order supported by Washington and its Arab allies.

From Guerrilla Movements to Hybrid Armies (1990s–2010s)

During the 1990s and 2000s, Iran's proxy strategy entered a new phase. What had begun as support for relatively small militant organizations evolved into a network of increasingly sophisticated hybrid actors capable of combining military power, political influence, and social control. Rather than simply sponsoring insurgencies, Tehran was helping build organizations that could simultaneously fight wars, participate in governments, shape public opinion, and dominate the territories they controlled. Hezbollah led that transformation.

Following Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah increasingly portrayed itself not merely as a resistance movement but as Lebanon's most capable military force. While participating in parliamentary elections and successive governments, it continued expanding its independent arsenal with Iranian funding and training. By the time of the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah had evolved into a highly organized paramilitary force equipped with anti-tank guided missiles, anti-ship missiles, extensive tunnel systems, sophisticated communications networks, and thousands of rockets capable of striking deep inside Israel.

The month-long conflict fundamentally changed regional perceptions of asymmetric warfare. Hezbollah demonstrated that a well-trained proxy organization, backed by advanced weaponry and disciplined command structures, could challenge one of the region's strongest conventional militaries. For Tehran, the war validated decades of investment and reinforced the value of proxy warfare as an alternative to direct military confrontation.

Hamas underwent a similar transformation. After winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and forcibly taking control of Gaza in 2007, Hamas evolved from an insurgent movement into a governing authority while continuing to expand its military capabilities. Iranian financial assistance, technical expertise, and weapons technology helped transform Hamas's arsenal from improvised homemade rockets into increasingly sophisticated systems capable of reaching Israel's largest cities.

The relationship experienced a temporary setback during the Syrian civil war, when Hamas distanced itself from Bashar al-Assad while Iran doubled down in support of the Syrian regime. Yet strategic interests ultimately prevailed over political disagreements. By around 2017, military cooperation had resumed, and Iranian support once again became a central pillar of Hamas's force development.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 unexpectedly handed Iran one of its greatest strategic opportunities. With Saddam Hussein removed from power, Tehran rapidly expanded its influence by cultivating a network of Shiite militias that would eventually become deeply embedded within Iraq's political and security institutions. Organizations such as Kata'ib Hezbollah, Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba received Iranian funding, training, intelligence support, and increasingly sophisticated weaponry.

Initially, these militias focused on insurgent attacks against American and coalition forces, employing roadside bombs, explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), rockets, and guerrilla tactics. Later, following the rise of ISIS in 2014, many joined the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), gaining battlefield legitimacy while simultaneously expanding Iran's political influence inside Iraq.

Rather than remaining purely militant organizations, these groups increasingly became hybrid actors—maintaining armed wings while participating in politics, influencing government ministries, and shaping Iraq's broader security architecture. Tehran had effectively created strategic leverage inside an Arab state without deploying its own conventional military.

Yemen soon became Iran's southern pressure point. While Hezbollah threatened Israel from the north, Hamas challenged it from Gaza, and Iraqi militias complicated American influence in Baghdad, the Houthis gave Tehran leverage over one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Although Iran's relationship with the Houthis began more modestly than its partnerships with Hezbollah or Iraqi militias, support expanded significantly after the Houthis seized Yemen's capital, Sana'a, in 2014. Iranian assistance evolved from political backing and limited military aid to include ballistic missile technology, cruise missiles, drones, intelligence support, and advisory personnel.

Within only a few years, the Houthis had transformed from a largely localized insurgency into a regional military actor capable of striking Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and eventually international shipping passing through the Red Sea. Their attacks demonstrated that even relatively inexpensive drones and missiles could threaten global commerce and force major naval powers into prolonged military operations.

Meanwhile, the Syrian civil war further accelerated the evolution of Iran's proxy model. Hezbollah deployed thousands of fighters to Syria to help preserve Bashar al-Assad's regime, gaining invaluable experience in urban warfare, combined-arms operations, intelligence coordination, logistics, and multinational command structures. At the same time, Iran coordinated Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Afghan Fatemiyoun brigades, Pakistani Zainabiyoun units, and Syrian militias into a multinational expeditionary network operating under the broader guidance of the IRGC's Quds Force.

This marked an important evolution in Iranian strategy. Tehran was no longer simply supporting individual proxy organizations. It was increasingly coordinating an interconnected regional ecosystem capable of operating across multiple countries and conflicts simultaneously.

By the mid-2010s, Iranian officials increasingly referred to this expanding architecture as the Axis of Resistance. While the alliance was never a formal military coalition, it represented a loose but increasingly coordinated network of Iran-backed governments, militias, and political movements united by opposition to Israel, the United States, and the regional status quo.

Over four decades, Iran's proxy strategy had undergone a remarkable transformation.

During the 1980s, Tehran relied primarily on terrorism, kidnappings, and guerrilla warfare. The 1990s and early 2000s saw its partners mature into disciplined insurgent organizations capable of sustained military campaigns. The following decade brought precision-guided rockets, drones, cyber capabilities, intelligence networks, sophisticated tunnel systems, and growing political influence inside fragile states.

By the eve of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Iran's proxies had evolved into hybrid organizations capable of fighting wars, governing territory, participating in elections, conducting information campaigns, disrupting global trade, and coordinating military pressure across multiple fronts simultaneously.

The strategy had become one of the most sophisticated and influential models of proxy warfare in the modern Middle East.

October 7 and the Limits of Iran's Proxy Model

The Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack represented the most ambitious demonstration of Iran's proxy strategy to date. While the extent of Tehran's direct operational involvement remains debated among intelligence analysts, there is little dispute that years of Iranian funding, weapons transfers, training, and technological assistance dramatically enhanced Hamas's military capabilities.

The attack also tested a concept Iranian officials had increasingly promoted in recent years: the "unity of fronts." Rather than confronting Israel or the United States through a single proxy, Tehran envisioned multiple members of the Axis of Resistance applying coordinated military pressure across several theaters simultaneously.

In the weeks and months that followed, elements of that strategy became visible. Hezbollah opened a sustained front along Israel's northern border. Iraqi Shiite militias launched repeated attacks against American forces stationed in Iraq and Syria. The Houthis targeted commercial shipping in the Red Sea while firing missiles and drones toward Israel. Although each group operated according to its own local calculations, together they created a regional crisis that stretched Israeli, American, and allied military resources across multiple fronts.

At first glance, the strategy appeared remarkably effective. Iran had demonstrated that it could regionalize a conflict without committing its own conventional military forces. The Axis of Resistance had evolved into an interconnected network capable of imposing military, political, and economic costs across much of the Middle East. Yet the conflicts that followed also exposed the model's growing limitations.

Israel's military campaign severely degraded Hamas's military infrastructure and leadership while leaving Gaza devastated. Hezbollah suffered some of the most significant losses in its history, with senior commanders eliminated, critical infrastructure destroyed, and much of its once-formidable missile deterrent diminished. The Houthis continue to demonstrate resilience, but sustained American and allied military operations have complicated their freedom of action and exposed the vulnerabilities of their logistics and supply networks. Meanwhile, several Iraqi militias increasingly face domestic political pressure as many Iraqis question whether serving Iran's regional agenda comes at the expense of Iraq's own sovereignty and stability.

The conflicts also highlighted one of the central contradictions within Iran's proxy strategy. While decentralization gives Tehran flexibility and plausible deniability, it also limits its ability to exercise direct control. Each proxy operates within its own political environment, answers to its own leadership, and often pursues local priorities that do not always align perfectly with Iranian strategic interests. That autonomy can create opportunities—but it can also generate unintended escalations and strategic blowback.

Perhaps the greatest weakness is political rather than military. Iran's proxies have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to disrupt, deter, and wage asymmetric warfare. They have been far less successful at governing. Hamas presided over Gaza's economic collapse and humanitarian devastation. Hezbollah's dominance has coincided with Lebanon's prolonged political paralysis and economic crisis. Iraqi militias have become deeply embedded within state institutions but remain controversial among large segments of the Iraqi public. The Houthis continue to control significant territory in Yemen, yet the country remains trapped in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. In each case, military influence has proven easier to achieve than political legitimacy.

Conclusion: A Strategy at a Crossroads

Four decades after the Islamic Revolution, Iran has built one of the world's most sophisticated networks of non-state armed actors. Few countries have projected influence so effectively without relying primarily on conventional military power. Through Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iraqi Shiite militias, Tehran has extended its strategic reach from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability that has long complicated international responses.

The network has fundamentally reshaped the Middle East's security landscape. It has enabled Iran to deter stronger adversaries, challenge American influence, threaten Israel from multiple directions, disrupt global commerce, and influence the internal politics of several Arab states—all at a fraction of the cost of building a conventional expeditionary military.

Yet recent conflicts suggest the model may be approaching an inflection point. Many of Iran's most capable proxies have suffered unprecedented military setbacks. Years of investment in Hezbollah's leadership and missile arsenal have been significantly degraded. Hamas has lost much of the military infrastructure it spent nearly two decades constructing in Gaza. The Houthis continue to pose a serious threat but face growing military pressure, while Iraqi militias increasingly confront domestic political resistance. At the same time, international intelligence cooperation, precision strike capabilities, financial sanctions, cyber operations, and regional security partnerships have become increasingly effective at disrupting the networks that once operated with relative impunity.

Whether these setbacks represent temporary reverses or the beginning of a longer-term decline remains uncertain. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to adapt, rebuild, and learn from military failures. The evolution of its proxy strategy over the past four decades reflects remarkable institutional patience and strategic flexibility.

Nevertheless, the future of the Axis of Resistance will depend on whether Tehran can solve a challenge that has become increasingly apparent: preserving the autonomy that makes its proxies effective while maintaining enough strategic coherence to ensure they continue advancing Iranian interests rather than simply pursuing their own.

For the United States, Europe, Israel, and moderate Arab partners, understanding how Iran built this network is only the first step. The greater challenge is developing an equally integrated strategy to counter it. Military operations alone are unlikely to succeed. Weakening Iran's proxy architecture will require sustained cooperation across intelligence, financial sanctions, law enforcement, cyber operations, diplomacy, and support for stronger state institutions that can deny Tehran the political vacuums in which its proxies have historically flourished.

The story of Iran's proxy network is therefore more than a history of militant organizations. It is the story of how one regional power fundamentally changed the nature of modern conflict in the Middle East—and of whether that model can continue to shape the region's future in an era of shifting alliances, technological change, and mounting strategic pressure.

Dan Feferman is the co-editor of Middle East 24 and editor-in-chief of MidEastJournal. He is a former IDF Defense Analyst and Intelligence Officer and has written

extensively on military and intelligence affairs.