Axis of Resistance or Axis of Regret?

Iran's Coalition Learns its Friends Have Better Things to Do!

<TEHRAN> Once hailed as the menacing “Axis of Resistance,” Iran’s once-proud coalition of Middle Eastern chaos merchants appears to be suffering from a serious case of strategic mid-life crisis. While the Islamic Republic envisioned a mighty wall of regional solidarity, stretching from the Bekaa Valley to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, what it got instead was a passive-aggressive group of no-shows, dropouts, and existentially confused militias.

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Let’s start with the basics:

After two decades and billions of rials funneled to everyone with a beard and a Kalashnikov, Tehran found itself fighting a 12-day war against Israel… alone.

Hezbollah? Busy rearranging furniture in its underground bunkers.

The Iraqi PMF? On lunch break.

Hamas? Trapped in Gaza without a delivery route.

Only the Houthis, bless their sand-swept souls, had the decency to show up and lob a few missiles, which, in true Axis fashion, mostly got intercepted.

It turns out that when push comes to shove, the Axis members aren’t so much an extension of Iranian willpower as freelancers with their own agendas. As one Iranian strategist might put it:

“We gave them guns. They gave us silence.”