Opinion: Who - And What - Will Fill The Vacuum In Iran's Resistance Axis?

The killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Israeli airstrikes on the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, a predominantly Shia stronghold, was a tectonic event both for the group and the region. Nasrallah had been the leader of Hezbollah for over three decades. The outfit itself was designated as a terror group by the US and others in 1997, two years before even Al Qaeda was labelled as such. In response to his death, Iran has launched a ballistic missile attack against Israel, upping the ante.

Hezbollah's Worst Crisis, Ever

The crisis today for Hezbollah, founded in 1982 from the ashes of the Lebanese Civil War, is more existential in nature than ever before. Along with Nasrallah, a majority of the group's military and political hierarchy has also been eliminated. While Israel's offensives against Hezbollah's leadership are not new, the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, where Israel failed to deliver a thumping defeat, was a focal moment in its strategic thinking. The 2008 assassination in Syria of the group's second in command and founder of the Lebanese Islamic Jihad Organisation, Imad Mughniyeh, was a turning point, one that ultimately culminated in Israeli operations inside Lebanon over the past two months, such as targeting communication lines used via old pagers and walkie-talkies.

Moving forward, reconstructing Hezbollah in a post-Nasrallah era will not be easy. Israel, with these strikes, followed by a real threat of a region-wide escalation, may have found ample time for itself to hope for a political alternative emerging from within Lebanon, a country where Hezbollah was a state within a state and challenged the normal functioning of politics. Lebanon has had no president since 2022. Along with Nasrallah, the killing of senior Hezbollah commanders, such as the southern front chief Ali Karaki and Iranian commander Abbas Nilforoushan, amongst others, also significantly disrupts the chain of command. The Iranian retaliation against Israel in the form of ballistic missiles was explicitly highlighted as a response to these assassinations.

Who Will Lead Hezbollah?

The next leader of the group is widely expected to be Hashem Safieddine, a senior member and cousin of Nasrallah. Safieddine, by some accounts, is more radical and less politically astute than his predecessor. Sporting a black turban, he believes that he is a direct descendant of Prophet Mohammed. Safieddine has very close ties with Iran and is known to be married to the daughter of slain Iranian commander Qasseim Soleimani. 

If he becomes the Hezbollah chief, Safieddine will have to contend with a mammoth reality. The degradation of his group's leadership is sure to have a significant impact. To date, Al Qaeda is reeling from the loss of its leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri; reconstruction efforts seem to be slow, and for the moment, invisible. Hamas, too, since the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran this July (also purportedly by Israel), has seen little activity at the top. Its new chief, Yahya Sinwar, has largely maintained radio silence. Even so, it's important to acknowledge that every such group or movement has unique character traits in terms of both survivability and ideology, and both these traits are interlinked. Al Qaeda was largely based on the cult of personality, Hezbollah isn't.

What The Arab World Would Want

The fate and future of Hezbollah will also depend on regional dynamics. Iran is not only a principal support pillar for the 'Axis of Resistance' built around the Palestine issue, but Hezbollah itself is also much more institutionally attached to Tehran's constructs. While Hamas is a Sunni movement, Hezbollah is a quintessential representation of Shia power and influence in the region, and hence is also much more critical towards Iranian thinking. While powers in the Arab world have tried to maintain a level of neutrality, pitching the ongoing fallout as an 'Iran-vs-Israel' crisis, the dissolution of both Hamas and Hezbollah would in all probability be a welcome step, specifically as much of the dirty work would land on Israeli shoulders. 

Moving forward, the main question is who and what would replace the political vacuum left behind. History is littered with examples of how non-state militant actors, driven by ideology, are easily able to bulldoze their way to power before regional or international consensus-led political alternatives even start materialising.

Can Iran Cross The Nuclear Threshold?

Notably, Israel's kinetic pushback is not just a symptom of the audacity of an existential state. The biggest and yet the least talked about military operations that afforded Israel - especially after 2006 - the space to build capacities to take on Hezbollah, Hamas, and others, were its attempts to make sure that arch-foes in Iran and Syria would be unable to attain nuclear capabilities. The Israeli airstrike in 2007 decommissioned Syria's suspected nuclear programme in the Deir Ez-Zor region. Protracted and clandestine operations against Iran's nuclear programme have also inflicted on Tehran critical setbacks. It is considered a threshold nuclear state now, but if the current trajectory continues, it may even sprint towards weaponisation.

The next few months will continue to be unpredictable for West Asia, bringing it back to the core of international geopolitics, big power competition, nuclear brinkmanship and potential re-drawing of traditional influence architectures. After all, all these factors work in tandem.

(The author is Deputy Director and Fellow, Strategic Studies Programme, Observer Research Foundation)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author