There appears to be an implicit international consensus to end the era of transnational groups. Following ISIS and al-Qaeda, the turn has come for Iran's proxies, which - led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - have become a global threat.
Here lies the global turning point that neither the IRGC nor its factions recognized: over the past half-century, the IRGC did not pose a threat to energy or international supply chains. The moment it did, the matter was settled, and its fate became tied to that of other factions. Internally, Iran is no longer treated as a "state," nor does the world deal with it based on its hierarchy and institutions. Instead, engagement is now with the IRGC, meaning with militias that threaten and blackmail the world, just like the groups that preceded them.
The IRGC now stands alone, without a single country or ally by its side. Those providing it with some assistance, China and Russia, for example, do so out of self-interest, specifically to spite the United States and President Donald Trump, and in hopes of weakening and exhausting him, or for their own commercial benefit. However, everyone knows that this will eventually cause harm even to those countries, ultimately confirming that the Iranian regime, or what remains of it, is finished as a state, and the alliances it formed have ended with it.
Where are those alliances in the face of the strikes Iran has suffered, which eliminated its leadership and weaponry? The most Iran has received is merely "mediations" to ease the pressure on it. The blockade currently imposed on it will leave it with no allies. Absolute economic asphyxiation will deepen internal Iranian-Iranian discord, which will inevitably lead to a conflict between two Iranian factions.
One faction wants to surrender and accept the survival of the regime's remnants and what is left of the state's apparatus. This faction will use public pressure to increase its leverage over both the IRGC and the Supreme Leader. If successful, this would mean abandoning the hardline leadership within the IRGC, as well as abandoning those proxies, in exchange for saving Iran.
Despite all of this, Iran's proxies remain hesitant to hand over their weapons to the states in Lebanon and Iraq. This reluctance persists despite all these realities, and despite local and international pressures urging them to do so to avoid threats affecting their security and the safety of their remaining members. The reason is that their wager still rests on the IRGC, which is asking these factions to hold out for two years until Trump's term ends, and not to surrender their weapons, even if it leads to a confrontation with the state's army, which is backed by regional and international parties.
We hope that reason and logic will prevail, or at the very least, that the self-interest of these factions' leaders will triumph. This would spare Lebanon and Iraq from a war and bloodshed in which no one stands to gain.
