When people say “Middle East and Iran”, what picture are they describing?
For years, the phrase Middle East and Iran suggested a region slowly tilting toward Tehran: an “Axis of Resistance” linking Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and other armed groups around Israel, Shia militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Assad regime in Syria. (source Chatham House)
By late 2025, that picture looks very different. Independent think tanks, NATO parliamentarians,< and Western intelligence assessments all describe a network that has taken serious losses since 2024 and is less able to project force than before. (source AEI)
Key proxies have lost commanders and infrastructure, Arab public opinion is ambivalent or negative about Iran, and Gulf states are hedging between Tehran, Washington and Beijing instead of lining up behind one side. (source Middle East Policy Council)
The short answer to the question is: Iran is still inside the Middle East’s power game – but more isolated, more constrained and more resented than a decade ago.
When did Iran’s influence in the Middle East look strongest?
Iran’s influence in the Middle East looked strongest in the years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq (2003) and during the Syrian war, when Tehran successfully positioned itself as the decisive external backer of Damascus and a central player in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. (source Nato PA)
Several trends came together:
- The fall of Saddam Hussein removed a major rival and opened space for Iran-aligned actors in Iraq’s new political and security structures.
- The Syrian civil war gave Iran an opportunity to keep a key ally in power by deploying IRGC forces and mobilising Hezbollah and other militias in support of Assad.
- The nuclear deal of 2015 (JCPOA) briefly reduced sanctions pressure and strengthened perceptions that Iran could not be fully isolated.
By the late 2010s, analysts saw Iran’s “strategic depth” running from Tehran through Baghdad and Damascus to Beirut, with added leverage in Yemen via the Houthis and in Gaza via Hamas and others.
That is the baseline for measuring today’s losses.
How did Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” bind parts of the Middle East to Tehran?
Iran’s Axis of Resistance was never a formal alliance like NATO. It was a loose coalition built through money, weapons, ideology and shared enemies.
Analyses from Chatham House, NATO and academic studies highlight at least four mechanisms:
- Instead of conventional war, Iran armed, trained and funded non-state actors – Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militias and the Houthis – to pressure Israel, the U.S. and rival Arab governments without deploying its own army.
- Tehran cast these ties as a shared struggle against Western hegemony and Israeli occupation: the “Axis of Resistance” turned alignment with Iran into a moral-religious stance of defending the oppressed, not just serving another state.
- Groups like Hezbollah ran schools, clinics and welfare where the state was weak, creating dependence and loyalty in those communities.
- Over time, proxy groups became economic players, controlling smuggling routes, businesses and parts of state budgets, which entrenched them and widened Iran’s influence.
For a long period, this model made it look as though the Middle East and Iran were locked together in a long-term project, with Tehran slowly expanding its reach.
What has changed since 2024: is the Axis of Resistance now weaker?
Several independent reports argue that since early 2024, Iran’s Axis of Resistance has suffered setbacks serious enough to count as a strategic weakening.
- A March 2025 analysis from Chatham House notes that the axis “suffered significant setbacks in 2024”, with some observers seeing its members as “seriously weakened or even on the verge of defeat”.
- A Spanish Ministry of Defence study on the Middle East in 2025 states that the weakening of the Axis of Resistance in 2024 has left Iran more fragile and vulnerable.
- A detailed 2025 American Enterprise Institute report concludes that Iran and its axis “have suffered successive defeats since the beginning of 2024”, reducing their ability to project force regionally.
- A NATO Parliamentary Assembly report likewise describes Iranian-backed groups as central to regional security threats but notes that Israeli and U.S. actions have repeatedly degraded their capabilities.
Specific recent events underline this:
- In June 2025, Israel’s 12-day war with Iran and its subsequent strikes against Iranian targets left Iran’s air defences and nuclear facilities seriously damaged, according to multiple media and expert accounts.
- In Yemen, Israeli airstrikes recently killed the Houthis’ military chief of staff, described by analysts as the most serious blow to the Iran-aligned group in a decade.
Put simply: Iran’s network is still there, but it is thinner, more damaged and less able to escalate on command than it was five or ten years ago.
How is Iran’s regional isolation visible in current diplomacy and ceasefire politics?
Iran’s isolation shows up clearly in recent diplomacy. After the Gaza war, much of the Middle East rallied around ceasefire and reconstruction, while Iran was left “out in the cold”: weakened by Israeli strikes, stuck in economic crisis, and getting little visible backing from Russia or China. (source AP)
Its 2024–2025 drone and missile attacks on Israel were publicly criticised or quietly rejected by Arab governments worried about escalation, and even states like Qatar and Oman present themselves as mediators, not members of an Iranian camp. (source Gulf Research Center)
Seen through this diplomatic lens, “Middle East and Iran” in 2025 is not a region closing ranks around Tehran, but one trying to contain it.
What do Arab public opinion surveys tell us about attitudes toward Iran?
Public attitudes matter because they limit how far governments and armed actors can safely align themselves with Iran. Recent surveys show a mix of fear, resentment and conditional sympathy rather than straightforward loyalty.
The Arab Opinion Index and related research from the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and other scholars show several consistent patterns:
- Across multiple Arab countries, Iran is seen as a significant security threat, but generally comes after Israel and the United States when people are asked which state most threatens their country or the region.
- In Iraq, almost half of the surveyed respondents say Iran is the main threat to their country’s security – a striking figure for a state that Iran claims as a key partner.
- In other states, such as Lebanon and Kuwait, opinion is sharply divided: some communities see Iran as an ally, others as a major danger.
- Majorities in several Arab countries identify Iran’s political influence and nuclear programme as significant threats to their national security.
The key point is that popular sentiment in the Arab world has not moved decisively toward Iran.
Support for the Palestinian cause is strong, and anger at U.S. and Israeli policies is intense, but this does not translate into broad trust in Tehran. For many, Iran is another power that can be dangerous, not a guardian.
That weak public legitimacy makes it harder for Iran to claim that the “street” in the Middle East stands behind it.
(sources Arab Center DC, DoHaInstitute, JSTOR, Middle East Council on Global Affairs)
How are Gulf states hedging between Iran and their other partners?
If loyalty is measured by what governments do, Gulf politics offer some of the clearest evidence that Iran is losing exclusive ground and being treated as one pole among several.
Analyses from regional research centres and academic journals show that:
- Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations in March 2023 in a deal brokered by China. Commentaries one year on describe the trajectory as “cautiously optimistic”, with both sides maintaining dialogue despite deep mistrust.
- The UAE has re-engaged economically with Iran, hosting a joint economic commission in 2024 for the first time in a decade and becoming Iran’s largest source of imports and a top export market.
- Academic work on “hedging” in the Gulf documents how these states deliberately avoid choosing a single patron, instead balancing security ties with the U.S., economic ties with China and pragmatic engagement with Iran.
From Tehran’s perspective, this is a mixed picture:
- It confirms that Iran has not been fully isolated – regional powers talk to it rather than treating it as untouchable.
- But it also shows that no major Arab state is betting its survival on Iran. They are reducing the risk of open conflict with Tehran, not embracing an Iranian-led regional order.
In other words, the Middle East and Iran are tied together in a set of calibrated, reversible arrangements – hardly the stuff of deep loyalty.
Are Iran’s proxies still loyal allies, or increasingly independent and constrained actors?
Iran still relies on armed partners to project power, but recent conflicts show that even inside the Axis of Resistance, obedience is no longer guaranteed.
In the 2024–2025 cycle of violence around Gaza, the Red Sea and direct Israel–Iran clashes, Hezbollah has been under intense pressure on Lebanon’s southern border and must weigh domestic political and economic costs before matching Tehran’s preferred pace of escalation. (source Soufan Center)
Iraqi militias, now partly folded into the state, juggle Iranian expectations with Baghdad’s policies and street protests demanding less foreign interference. (source Gulf International Forum)
In Yemen, the Houthis have taken heavy leadership losses from U.S. and Israeli strikes; the killing of their military chief of staff in 2025 has been described as their most serious setback in a decade. (source The Wallstreet Journal)
Analysts at Chatham House and elsewhere describe the axis as “shape-shifting”: groups adjust tactics, rebrand and often act in ways that reflect local interests more than Iranian preferences. (source Chatham House)
In practice, this means Tehran can no longer assume that a strike on Iran will automatically trigger a coordinated, full-scale response from all its allies. (source House of Commons)
Each actor now has its own domestic red lines—economic collapse, political backlash, rival factions—that can override Iranian pressure. Even where armed ties remain strong, control has loosened: Iran still has allies, but far fewer instruments of unquestioned loyalty. (source European Council on Foreign Relations)
How does Iran’s internal crisis reinforce the sense that it is losing ground?
Iran’s domestic crisis directly erodes Tehran’s strength and legitimacy in the Middle East.
In September 2025, Amnesty International reported that Iran had already executed more than 1,000 people that year—the highest annual total it has recorded—after a sharp rise in executions since 2023. (source Amnesty)
A UN-mandated Fact-Finding Mission also concluded that the crackdown on the 2022–2023 protests after Jina Mahsa Amini’s death involved crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearance. (source United Nations)
Economically, a 2025 Clingendael study notes that annual inflation has stayed above 30% since 2018, wiping out savings and devaluing the rial by more than 60% in a year, while Iran International estimates that over a third of the population—more than 32 million people—now lives below the poverty line. (source Clingendael)
On top of this, analysis warns that Tehran is approaching a possible “Day Zero,” with the Amir Kabir reservoir down to around 8% of capacity after years of drought and mismanagement. (source Aljazeera)
Mass executions, crimes against humanity, entrenched inflation, deepening poverty and a worsening water crisis together undercut Tehran’s claim to moral and political leadership and make it easier for rivals to portray Iran as just another authoritarian state masking internal vulnerability with anti-Western and pro-Palestinian rhetoric.
What does “losing the Middle East” mean for ordinary people, not just states?
If Iran is losing ground, that does not automatically mean freedom or stability for people in the region. Instead, it often means a shift in who has leverage over their lives, while underlying vulnerabilities remain.
Three examples illustrate this:
Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe continues
The UN and humanitarian agencies estimate that more than 18–19 million people in Yemen – over half the population – need humanitarian assistance and protection in 2024–2025, with millions internally displaced. (source UN Refugee Agency)
Whether the Houthis are seen as rising or weakening, families still live with hunger, displacement and insecurity, shaped in part by Iran-Saudi rivalry and now by Israeli and U.S. strikes as well.
Lebanon’s collapse is tied to regional confrontation
Lebanon’s economic implosion and fragile political system are intensified by Hezbollah’s role as both an Iranian-aligned armed group and a domestic power broker.
International actors see Beirut as a front in the contest among Iran, Israel and Western states; Lebanese citizens see failing banks, blackouts and unemployment. (source NATO PA)
Iranians themselves are stuck between sanctions and repression
Inside Iran, ordinary people experience regional strategy and external pressure as fuel price hikes, currency crashes, water cuts and crackdowns.
Recent fuel subsidy reforms and rising costs have revived memories of earlier protests triggered by sudden price increases. (source AAWSAT)
So when we say Iran is “losing ground” in the Middle East, we are not describing a clean victory for anyone else. We are describing a process where a damaged power still has the capacity to hurt people, but less capacity to deliver security or economic opportunity – for itself or its partners.
How does Shadows of Tehran offer a human-scale lens on this shifting map?
Nick Berg’s novel Shadows of Tehran is based on his own life, following a boy named Ricardo from revolutionary Iran through exile and into the ranks of U.S. Special Forces.
Publisher descriptions and reviews describe it as an “astonishing true story of survival”, exploring identity, betrayal, resilience, and the long shadow of state violence.
That matters for understanding the Middle East and Iran for at least three reasons:
Loyalty as personal fracture
The book traces how a child grows up pulled between a mother rooted in Iran, a father tied to U.S. intelligence, and a regime that turns former neighbours into informants and enemies.
The same forces that we see today in proxy wars and repression are already present at the micro-scale in a family, years before most Western readers noticed.
From Tehran’s streets to foreign wars
Ricardo’s path from Iran to homelessness in the United States and finally to Special Forces deployments turns the idea of “strategic depth” inside out: the decisions of governments in Tehran, Washington and elsewhere become scars on a single body.
Resilience under systems that are losing legitimacy
Reviews emphasise that Shadows of Tehran is as much about refusing to break under abuse and abandonment as it is about combat.
That theme lines up with what we see in the current regional picture: regimes and militias cling to narratives of resistance and victory even as their legitimacy erodes, while individuals quietly build strategies to survive them.
In a region where Iran is losing ground but still shaping people’s choices, the novel offers a way to feel what those macro-trends mean in one life.
It sits in the same world as the data and reports cited above, but shows it from the inside.
So, is Iran really losing the Middle East – and what comes after?
How do executions and abuses inside Iran damage its regional image?
Iran’s domestic situation is documented in detail by human rights bodies, and that evidence cuts directly into Tehran’s claim to lead the oppressed in the wider Middle East and Iran region.
Amnesty International reports that Iran carried out more than 1,000 executions in 2025 by late September – the highest annual total it has recorded in at least 15 years, after a sharp rise since 2023. (source Amnesty)
A UN-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission to Iran, reporting to the Human Rights Council in early 2024, concluded that the crackdown on the 2022–2023 Mahsa Amini protests involved crimes against humanity, including murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearance. (source UN)
For regional audiences looking at Middle East and Iran politics through the lens of human rights and rule of law, this is not a side-note; it is part of how they judge the regime’s credibility.
What does Iran’s economic free-fall look like from the inside?
On the economic front, a 2025 Clingendael Institute study on Iran’s sanctions-hit economy notes that official annual inflation has stayed above 30% since 2018, wiping out savings, pushing much of the middle class into poverty and driving a roughly 60% devaluation of the rial on the free market in a single year. (source Clingendael)
IranWire and Iran International, using parliamentary and chamber-of-commerce data, report that around a third or more of Iranians – well over 30 million people – now live below the poverty line or cannot reliably cover basic needs like food and rent. (source ReliefWeb)
Behind abstract terms such as “economic crisis in Iran” or “Iran sanctions pressure” are families cutting meals, selling possessions and delaying medical care – a reality that shapes how people across the Middle East see Iran’s model of resistance and governance.
Why does Iran’s water crisis matter for power in the Middle East and Iran?
At the same time, Iran is sliding into a severe water emergency that exposes years of mismanagement by state and IRGC-linked bodies.
Iranian officials quoted by Al Jazeera warned in November 2025 that the Amir Kabir reservoir, a key drinking-water source for Tehran, had fallen to about 8% of capacity, raising the prospect of a “Day Zero” scenario in the capital; Circle of Blue, Reuters, Le Monde and Iran International link this to prolonged drought compounded by over-extraction, poor planning and underinvestment. (source Circle of Blue)
When a state that claims regional leadership cannot reliably keep taps running in its own capital, it weakens not only its domestic legitimacy but also its standing in Middle East and Iran politics.
How do these internal crises change how people see Tehran?
Put together, mass executions and crimes against humanity, entrenched inflation and rising poverty, and a worsening water crisis are not just “internal issues.”
They make it easier for governments, movements and ordinary people across the region to see Tehran not as a principled defender of the oppressed, but as another authoritarian regime masking deep internal vulnerability with anti-Western and pro-Palestinian rhetoric.
For a taxi driver in Beirut, a nurse in Basra or a student in Tehran itself, the question is no longer only what Iran does in Gaza or Lebanon, but whether the state that speaks so loudly about justice abroad can offer dignity, safety and a livable future at home.
