The regional war that started on 28 February 2026 with US and Israeli airstrikes against Iran has engulfed Lebanon, Israel and the Gulf states. Meting out destruction, death and disillusion on all sides, 40 days of conflict stopped with US President Trump threatening to wipe out Iranian civilisation — to the horror of many around the world — and a fragile ceasefire was agreed on April 7th, with negotiations to follow.
Conventional wisdom has it that everyone lost, though the Iranian regime remains in place — so it has, in its way, won. But maybe not. The Iranian proxies — sometimes known as the Shia Crescent or else the Axis of Resistance — have been crucial to Iran’s ambition as a regional power and to the justification of the post-1979 revolutionary state. But the Crescent has been severely crippled, and possibly broken, leaving the regime in dire need to fight for its survival — both internally, as with the protests that broke out in January and were brutally repressed, and externally, with the current war.
In a magnificent survey of Iran, its proxies and the states afflicted, Professor Lina Khatib of both the Harvard Belfer Center and Chatham House joins ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El to explain the logic of the proxies to those in power in Iran and the deep need of the Iranian regime to fight for its survival. These are historic shifts: violent, destructive and painful. But they may be necessary to create a new, more peaceful Middle East.
A sharp, insightful and very fascinating conversation.
This episode was recorded on 9 April 2026
Chapters
- Implications of the US-Iran ceasefire
- Debunking Iran’s “dark” ideology and its enemies
- The degradation of Iran’s proxy model (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militia, Houthis)
- The evolution of Iran’s influence on its neighbours (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Israel)
- The end of the status quo in the Middle East
Mentions
- Lina’s article “The degradation of Iran’s Proxy Model” Harvard Kennedy School
- “Israel to open direct talks with Lebanon but not halt attacks on Hezbollah” The Washington Post
- Lina’s article “Syria’s Lessons for Regime Change in Iran” Foreign Policy
Follow
- Lina Khatib LinkedIn & website
- Ilana Bet-El
- Instagram @women_leaders_podcast
- Listen to this episode on our YouTube channel
Credits
- Production: Florence Ferrando
- Music: Let Good Times Roll, RA from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/ra/let-good-times-roll License code: ZXIIIJUU2ISPZIJT
The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.
Image credit: Florence Ferrando
