Iran is rolling out a new campaign against normalization. In a speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he claimed any countries that would normalize ties with Israel were “betting on a losing horse.”
At the same time Iran’s closest ally and proxy, Hezbollah is sounding the same tune. Hassan Nasrallah also said in a speech Monday that any countries normalizing with Israel should be condemned.
The speeches come as Iran began a new drone drill this week involving hundreds of drones, according to Iranian media. It also comes in the wake of a controversy involving Iran and Saudi Arabia over a soccer match where Iran included a bust of the late IRGC leader Qassem Soleimani.
Tehran clearly appears concerned about moved toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It cannot ignore the large number of press reports and also references to this trend in various media in the region and the West. For instance, the pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen included a report on Tuesday about the number of Israeli Ministers who have visited Saudi Arabia in the last weeks.
It’s important to understand in this context how Iran thinks and how it will use its message discipline in the region to threaten normalization. Nasrallah has said that the Muslim World must confront normalization from mosques. He noted that instead many people in the region are hearing about the “willingness for normalization.”
Iran and Hezbollah
Nasrallah and the Ayatollah are on the same message because Iran generally is good at controlling the narrative it puts out. It uses media and also its proxies to conduct a full court press when it wants to.
This means that Iran could operationalize other proxies, such as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad or the Houthis in Yemen. These pressure points for Iran, it can heat up various areas, arenas and front lines when it wants.
The current concern in Tehran is that it has not been able to push its agenda as much as it would like. Earlier this year it was able to obtain reconciliation with Riyadh via a China-brokered deal. Then Iran got the Assad regime to come in from the cold via reintegration with the Arab League.
This all seemed like positive news to Tehran. It also felt it might get concessions from Washington. But it has seen many of these pawn-like movements on the chessboard of the region face hurdles. Saudi Arabia has interests in reconciliation with Iran but Riyadh has its own independent foreign policy and Saudi Arabia pursues its own interests on its own time.
This means that Tehran may have miscalculated in terms of what it could get in the region in the last year. Reports about its strategy in Syria, trying to use Hezbollah to help arm Arab tribes to challenge the US-backed SDF; in exchange for also getting something from Russia, may illustrate Iran flailing about for a new policy.
This is the context in which the messaging from Hezbollah in Beirut and the Ayatollah in Iran is being broadcast. Tehran clearly knows it now faces an uphill struggle against the momentum toward normalization. It will attempt to destabilize various arenas in order to try to get the ball back in its court.