The Times of Israel:

When Israel announced Operation “Rising Lion” in the wee hours of Friday morning, it marked the first time in over 50 years that the country had declared war against a sovereign state, rather than against a terrorist organization operating from foreign soil, the West Bank, or Gaza.

No small number of these organizations Israel has faced off against over the years were and are supported, funded, or even directly controlled by Iran, the country that now finds itself in Israel’s crosshairs.

Since the Iranian Revolution in Iran, the regime in Tehran has invested significant efforts in spreading its ideology among Shiite populations in the Middle East while also building up a network of terrorist organizations across the region, including Sunni groups.

The Quds Force, a special unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has in recent decades focused on supporting those organizations through financial aid, the supply of weapons and ammunition, and even training, sometimes conducted on Iranian soil.

For Iran, the terror network was both a projection of power and a shield: the groups would continually harass the Islamic Republic’s two greatest enemies, the United States and Israel, while it would remain safely siloed off from the reprisals to come. And the existence of a league of minion armies ready to come to its defense in the case of war helped deter any Western thoughts of invasion or regime change.

After October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a devastating assault on Israel, sparking the war in Gaza, the breadth of the Iranian array was put on full display, with Tehran-backed groups from Lebanon to Yemen attacking Israel in what then-defense minister Yoav Gallant called a seven-front war.

But now that Israel’s firepower is being directed against Iran itself, those proxies are suddenly nowhere to be seen. Some, like Hezbollah, have been severely weakened by Israel due to attempts to back Hamas. Others seem to have been convinced by their host countries to stay out of the fight.

Iranian demonstrators hold posters of Hezbollah terror group leader Hassan Nasrallah, right, Hamas terror group chief Yahya Sinwar, center, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iran is now in a highly unusual and even dangerous position, forced to rely primarily on its own military power on its own soil. Thus far, this has largely consisted of successive rounds of ballistic missiles fired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ air force, which have caused plenty of destruction but done little to weaken Israel’s firepower.

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