On October 6, 2023, the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, could have done a tour d’horizon of the Middle East and been proud. His anti-Israeli/anti-American battle plan was working. An array of Shiite and Palestinian Sunni Islamist militias—the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a smorgasbord of militant groups in Iraq—had effectively given Iran imperial reach at relatively little cost.
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
