Qualitative analysis demonstrates strategic overextension in Iranian regional proxies, highlighting how public commitments can trigger systemic defense collapse.
Using the concept of commitment trap, this article makes the argument that Iran’s indirect war support to the Palestinian Hamas militant group in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war in 2023-2024 should be explained primarily based on the Islamic Republic’s public commitment to Palestinian armed struggle against Israel. This article explains that the need to avoid the costs of abandoning its commitment to support Palestinian armed struggle compelled Iran to provide military support to Palestinian militant forces in Gaza through using its Lebanese proxy group of Hezbollah group to attack Israel from Lebanon despite the Hezbollah’s lack of preparedness to engage in a war with Israel. Thus, the defeat of Hezbollah in the resultant war with Israel weakened the Iran’s own military defense in Syria against Syrian armed opposition. As a result of this power shift, the HTS-led armed opposition succeeded in overthrowing the Iran-backed Assad government in a short war which also ended the Iran’s military-political influence in the country.
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Aso M. Ali (2025) studied this question.
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