The Setback to Iran’s Resistance Strategy and Its Impact on the Regional Order in the Middle East

The Setback to Iran’s Resistance Strategy and Its Impact on the Regional Order in the Middle East. March 4, 2026. Abstract.伊朗抵抗战略受挫及其对中东地区秩序的影响 2026年03月04日摘要

伊朗抵抗战略以维护国家安全而不是输出革命意识形态为基本任务，以防御而不是进攻为基本姿态，以反美、反以主张为联结纽带，并以导弹威慑为重要手段。2023年新一轮巴以冲突爆发后，伊朗及抵抗阵线遭到以色列和美国的军事打击，抵抗战略遭遇重大挫折，主要表现在阵线网络遭到重创、国内基础遭到严重削弱以及战略空间遭到严重挤压等方面。该战略之所以遭遇挫折，其原因主要有三：伊朗经济实力不足以支撑其庞大的抵抗战略网络；国内政治博弈致使其在抵抗和缓和两大立场之间摇摆，进而导致其未能充分实施威慑战略；美国和以色列长期对伊朗实施制裁等措施严重削弱了伊朗实力，并通过突破道德底线的打击方式使伊朗处于被动地位。伊朗的抵抗战略受挫是新一轮巴以冲突最重要的外溢影响之一，对地区秩序产生诸多深远影响：新一轮地区力量分化组合；地区规则和规范遭到进一步破坏；地区议程结构将出现新的调整。抵抗战略是伊朗国家安全战略的重要组成部分，其受挫也会加剧2025年底至2026年初伊朗极为严重的系统性政治与安全危机。在此背景下，西亚和中亚的地缘政治格局则会随之出现更为复杂的局面。

Iran’s resistance strategy takes as its basic task the safeguarding of national security rather than the export of revolutionary ideology; its basic posture is defensive rather than offensive; its connective bond is opposition to the United States and Israel; and missile deterrence is one of its chief instruments. Since the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2023, Iran and the resistance front have come under Israeli and American military attack, and the resistance strategy has suffered a major setback, manifested chiefly in the severe damage done to the front’s network, the serious weakening of its domestic foundations, and the drastic compression of its strategic space. There are three main reasons for this setback: Iran’s economic strength is insufficient to sustain its vast resistance-strategy network; domestic political contention has caused it to oscillate between resistance and de-escalation, preventing it from fully implementing a deterrence strategy; and the long-term sanctions and other measures imposed by the United States and Israel have gravely weakened Iran, while modes of attack that crossed moral red lines have placed it in a passive position. The frustration of Iran’s resistance strategy is one of the most important spillover effects of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and it has had many profound consequences for the regional order: a new differentiation and recombination of regional forces; further destruction of regional rules and norms; and a new adjustment in the structure of regional agendas. The resistance strategy is an important component of Iran’s national security strategy, and its setback will also aggravate the extremely severe systemic political and security crisis Iran faces from the end of 2025 to the beginning of 2026. Against this background, the geopolitical landscape of West Asia and Central Asia will become still more complex.

新一轮巴以冲突以来，以色列竭力构建伊朗与巴勒斯坦哈马斯所发动的“阿克萨洪水行动”之间的联系，并利用契机全面削弱伊朗。在以色列和美国的联合打压和打击之下，伊朗精心构筑的抵抗阵线遭到严重削弱，本土威慑力量也遭到严重损毁，抵抗战略遭受严重挫折。伊朗的抵抗战略是中东地区地缘政治的重要组成部分，其遭受严重挫折将会对中东地区秩序产生深刻和深远的影响。伊朗抵抗战略的形成并无具体的时间节点，而是中东地区秩序演变以及伊朗与美以长期斗争实践的渐进结果。2002年美国小布什总统罔顾伊朗为美国发动的阿富汗战争提供支持的事实，提出“邪恶轴心”（Axis of evil）概念，并将伊朗列入其中。而伊朗有着反抗强权的民族性格，一些伊朗官员相继针锋相对地提出了“抵抗轴心”（Axis of resistance）的概念，予以反制，但究竟谁先提出了这个概念已无从考证。随着时间的推移和矛盾的发展，“抵抗轴心”的概念又经过官员和学者的不断演绎产生了“抵抗阵线”（resistance front）的概念，并在此基础上形成了一种战略。需要特别强调的是，因抵抗阵线所涉及的不仅是伊朗本土力量，还有国土之外的非国家行为体，故而抵抗战略常常被地区国家视为扩张战略。扩张性固然可能是一种事实，但并不能因此而否定其防御性。2004~2017年，伊朗在历次五年发展计划中均明确强调“进攻性防御”和“前沿防御”的防务理念，也即“在伊朗领土受到袭击之前解除敌人的威胁”。伊朗最高领袖哈梅内伊本人也曾经提醒伊朗高级将领“不要忘记抵抗运动的广阔地域；不要忘记这种跨国视角。我们不应局限于我们自身的区域……这种广阔的跨国视野，这种战略纵深的延伸，有时甚至比最紧迫的国内问题更为重要。”换言之，抵抗战略与国家安全战略高度重合，即使不是国家安全战略本身，也至少是国家安全战略的重要组成部分。

Since the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict began, Israel has worked strenuously to construct a link between Iran and Hamas’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, using the opportunity to weaken Iran comprehensively. Under joint Israeli and American pressure and strikes, the resistance front painstakingly built by Iran has been seriously weakened, and its homeland deterrent forces have also been gravely damaged; the resistance strategy has suffered a serious setback. Iran’s resistance strategy is an important component of Middle Eastern geopolitics, and its grave frustration will have deep and far-reaching effects on the regional order. The formation of Iran’s resistance strategy has no precise point of origin; it is rather the gradual result of the evolution of the Middle Eastern order and of Iran’s long struggle with the United States and Israel. In 2002, President George W. Bush ignored the fact that Iran had supported America’s war in Afghanistan, put forward the concept of an “Axis of evil,” and included Iran within it. Iran, for its part, possesses a national character shaped by resistance to power politics, and some Iranian officials, one after another, advanced the counter-concept of an “Axis of resistance,” though who first proposed it can no longer be verified. With the passage of time and the development of contradictions, the concept of the “Axis of resistance” was further elaborated by officials and scholars into that of a “resistance front,” and on this basis a strategy took shape. It bears particular emphasis that because the resistance front involves not only forces inside Iran but also non-state actors beyond its borders, regional states often regard the resistance strategy as an expansionist one. Expansionism may indeed be a fact, but that does not negate its defensive character. From 2004 to 2017, Iran’s successive five-year development plans explicitly emphasized the defense concepts of “offensive defense” and “forward defense,” namely, “removing the enemy’s threat before Iranian territory is attacked.” Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has also reminded senior Iranian commanders: “Do not forget the vast geography of the resistance movement; do not forget this transnational perspective. We should not confine ourselves to our own region... This broad transnational vision, this extension of strategic depth, is at times even more important than the most urgent domestic issues.” In other words, the resistance strategy overlaps substantially with national security strategy; even if it is not national security strategy itself, it is at least an important component of it.

Analysis of Iran’s resistance strategy is an important subject in Middle East studies, both internationally and in China. The United States, and the broader Western world, regard Iran as a challenger to the international and regional order; their research places greater emphasis on denying the legitimacy of Iran’s resistance strategy and on its “destructive” impact on the regional order, ultimately serving the need to pressure and contain Iran. The first sentence of the summary of a report by the Middle East Institute in Washington states: “Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has cultivated violent, radical, and often sectarian non-state actors across the Middle East as proxies for its military operations to influence regional and international politics.” Among Chinese scholars, there is no lack of work that seeks, on theoretical grounds, to interpret the varying degrees of closeness between different regional non-state actors and Iran, and their relationship to Iran’s regional strategy. Research both at home and abroad has, to differing degrees, revealed the objective existence of the resistance strategy as Iran’s geostrategy. Yet Western scholarship contains too much subjective policy intention, while Chinese scholars have been more or less influenced by Western discourse and narrative, as seen in the extensive use of Western concepts such as “proxy,” and have paid insufficient attention to Iran’s own interpretation and to the rationality of the resistance strategy’s existence. In view of this, this article, while adhering to a Chinese perspective and incorporating Iran’s own explanation of its resistance strategy, attempts to discuss the content of that strategy, the causes of its setback, and its impact on the regional order. The study of this issue has practical significance not only for reflecting on Iran’s political crisis since the end of 2025 and for examining the future trend of its resistance strategy, but also for considering the future direction of the regional order amid great changes.

对伊朗抵抗战略的分析是国际国内学术界关于中东研究的重要内容。美国乃至更广阔的西方世界将伊朗视为国际和地区秩序的挑战者，其研究更侧重于否定伊朗抵抗战略存在的合法性和对地区秩序的“破坏性”影响，并最终服务于其打压和遏制伊朗的需要。美国中东研究所的一份报告摘要的第一句话便指出，“自1979年革命以来，伊朗伊斯兰共和国煽动中东各地暴力、激进且往往带有宗派色彩的非国家行为体，作为其军事行动的代理人，以影响地区和国际政治。”国内学者不乏试图从学理上解读地区不同的非国家行为体与伊朗亲疏及其与伊朗地区战略之间关系的研究。国内外研究均在不同程度上揭示了抵抗战略作为伊朗地缘战略的客观存在，但西方国家学者的研究包含了太多主观政策意图，国内学者或多或少受到了西方话语和叙事的影响，如大量沿用“代理人”这样的西方概念等，而对伊朗自身的解读以及抵抗战略存在的合理性缺乏足够的关注。鉴此，本文将在坚持中国视角的前提下，结合伊朗自身对抵抗战略的解释，尝试对伊朗抵抗战略的内涵、受挫的致因以及对地区秩序的影响进行探讨。本议题研究不仅对于审思2025年底以来的伊朗政治危机、考察伊朗抵抗战略的未来发展趋势，而且对于考察大变局背景下地区秩序的未来走向具有一定的现实意义。

The Characteristics of Iran’s Resistance Strategy伊朗抵抗战略的特点

Iran’s resistance strategy bears some features of the revolutionary-export diplomacy pursued after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but even more it embodies the post-revolutionary practice of preserving the regime and national security. After decades of evolution, Iran’s resistance strategy has formed a complete system whose core is security objectives, whose means is offensive defense, whose bond is anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology, and whose support is missile deterrence. In essence, this strategy reflects the deep logic of Iran’s distinctive Shiite strategic culture of resistance to power; it is both a security framework through which Iran responds to external threats, especially those from the United States and Israel, and a core instrument for shaping regional influence.

伊朗抵抗战略带有1979年伊斯兰革命胜利之后输出革命外交战略的一些特点，但更是后革命时期维护政权和国家安全战略实践的体现。历经数十年演变，伊朗抵抗战略形成了以“安全目标为核心、进攻性防御为手段、反美反以意识形态为纽带、导弹威慑为支撑”的完整体系。本质上，该战略反映了伊朗独特的什叶派反抗强权的深层战略文化逻辑，既是伊朗应对外部威胁（尤其是美国和以色列）的安全框架，也是其塑造地区影响力的核心工具。

1. Its Purpose Is to Safeguard National Security, Not to Export Revolution（一）以维护国家安全而不是输出革命为目的

Former U.S. secretary of state and renowned strategist Henry Kissinger once posed, in World Order, a question that went to the soul of Iran’s nature as a political entity: Iran “must decide whether it is a country or a cause.” The implication was that if Iran defined itself as a nation-state, then U.S.-Iran relations, and Iran’s relations with the world, could be stabilized through exchanges of interest; but if Iran defined itself as the ideology of an Islamic revolution, then relations between Iran and the United States would be impossible to mediate. In fact, Kissinger’s question reflected his own prior assumption about the nature of the Iranian state: that Iran remains a revolutionary country aiming to export ideology. This probably also reflects the real view of Iran held by scholars and policymakers in the United States and the West more broadly.

美国前国务卿、著名战略家基辛格曾经在《世界秩序》中对伊朗作为政治实体的性质发出了灵魂拷问，伊朗“必须决定自己到底是一个国家，还是一项事业”。其言下之意则是，如果伊朗将自己界定为一个民族国家，那么伊美关系乃至伊朗与世界的关系将能够通过利益交换而实现稳定；如果伊朗将自己界定为一种伊斯兰革命的意识形态，那么伊朗与美国的关系将无法调解。基辛格提出这个问题实则反映了其自身对伊朗国家性质的前提假定，也就是伊朗仍然是一个以输出意识形态为目标的革命性国家。这大概也反映了美国乃至西方国家学者和决策者关于伊朗的真实看法。

The facts are otherwise. Although Iran has retained some political discourse from the revolutionary era, such as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” after Khomeini’s death in 1989 the position of revolutionary discourse in the construction of political legitimacy in the Islamic Republic of Iran declined greatly, while economic development and the improvement of people’s livelihood became increasingly important in regime and state building. As revolutionization was gradually replaced by statization, political and national security gradually became more concrete goals of state-building for the Islamic Republic.

事实并非如此。尽管伊朗保留了一些革命时代的政治话语，比如“美国去死”“以色列去死”等，但在霍梅尼1989年去世以后，革命话语在伊朗伊斯兰共和国政治合法性建构中的地位大大下降，经济发展和民生改善在政权和国家建设中的重要性不断上升。随着革命化逐渐被国家化所代替，政治和国家安全逐渐成为伊朗伊斯兰共和国更为具体的国家建设目标。

The establishment of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council itself also shows that Iran is a state that gives priority to regime and national security rather than a revolutionary state. In early August 2025, after the “Twelve-Day War,” Iran reappointed the veteran politician Ali Larijani as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. The mainstream Iranian newspaper Tehran Times published a special article introducing the institution’s functions, noting that its creation and development reflected Iran’s institutional adjustments in order to respond to internal and external challenges while preserving autonomy and stability amid historical regional tensions and international pressure. The explanation given in the article, as well as the founding of the institution in 1989, shows that Iran is a state committed to maintaining national and political security. Iran’s resistance strategy is, in essence, a national security strategy, or at least an important form in which national security strategy is manifested; its goal is to maintain regime stability and national security.

伊朗最高国家安全委员会的设立本身也表明伊朗是一个以政权和国家安全为重而非革命性的国家。2025年8月初，伊朗在“十二日战争”之后重新任命老资格政治家阿里·拉里贾尼（Ali Larijani）出任最高国家安全委员会秘书，伊朗主流媒体《德黑兰时报》特别刊文介绍了该机构的职能，指出它的建立和发展反映了伊朗在历史上地区紧张与国际压力的背景下保持自主、稳定的同时，为应对内外挑战而进行的制度调整。文中所作出的解释以及该机构于1989年成立本身表明伊朗是一个致力于维护国家和政治安全的国家。伊朗抵抗战略本质上是一种国家安全战略，或至少是国家安全战略的重要体现形式，其目标则是维护政权稳定和国家安全。

Moreover, Iran’s support for certain religiously colored non-state actors, and its incorporation of them into an important part of Iran’s regional strategy, is also essentially aimed at safeguarding national security. Precisely for this reason, some Iranian scholars call the “resistance strategy” a “forward defense strategy,” arguing that it moves the resistance front forward so as to spare the homeland from the ravages of war.

此外，伊朗为一些带有宗教色彩的非国家行为体提供支持，并使其成为伊朗地区战略的重要组成部分，本质上也是为了维护国家安全。也正因此，一些伊朗学者将“抵抗战略”称之为“前沿防御战略”，认为该战略是一种将抵抗阵线前移从而使本土免受战火蹂躏的战略。

2. Its Basic Posture Is Defensive, Not Offensive（二）以防御而不是进攻为基本姿态

It is true that Iran’s senior decision-makers and political elites often issue threatening and warning statements. But these remarks are less a threat than an instinctive emergency response to threats. Iran’s diplomacy, too, should not be read as offensive; it “should be regarded as part of Iran’s measures to ensure its geostrategic interests and national security.” In fact, Iran uses an offensive posture to realize strategically defensive goals. As noted above, the emergence of the word “resistance” reflects both the objective reality of the “oppression” Iran faces from the United States and Western countries, and Iran’s Shiite strategic culture of resistance to power, and still more the practice of geopolitical struggle between Iran and the United States in the early twenty-first century.

诚然，伊朗的高层决策者和政治精英时常发表一些威胁性和警告性言论，但这些言论与其说是一种威胁，不如说是一种本能的应对威胁时的应急反应。伊朗的外交也不应作进攻性解读，而“应该被视为伊朗确保其地缘战略利益和国家安全的措施的一部分”。伊朗事实上是以一种进攻的姿态实现其战略上的防御性目标。如前文指出，“抵抗”一词的出现既是伊朗所客观面临的美国和西方国家的“压迫”现实的反映，也是伊朗什叶派反抗强权战略文化的体现，更是20世纪初伊朗与美国地缘政治博弈实践的反映。

Lebanese Hezbollah is the concentrated embodiment and representative of Iran’s “resistance front.” Regarding Hezbollah’s place and function in Iran’s defense, the Iranian scholar Hamidreza Azizi has noted that Hezbollah compensates for two of Iran’s strategic disadvantages in confronting Israel: geographical distance and military-technological backwardness. Iran’s provision of missiles to Hezbollah once had a deterrent effect, preventing Israel from taking direct military action against Iran, while weakening Hezbollah’s military capabilities will intensify Iran’s vulnerability before Israel.

黎巴嫩真主党是伊朗“抵抗阵线”的集中体现和代表，关于真主党在伊朗防卫中的地位和功能，伊朗裔学者哈米德扎·阿齐兹（Hamidreza Azizi）指出，真主党弥补了伊朗对抗以色列的两大战略劣势：地理距离和军事技术落后。伊朗为真主党提供导弹，曾起到威慑作用，阻止了以色列对伊朗采取直接军事行动，而削弱真主党的军事能力将加剧伊朗在以色列面前的脆弱性。

Some of Iran’s strategic practices also show that it pursues a defensive rather than an offensive strategy. After the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict erupted in October 2023, Lebanese Hezbollah did attack targets inside Israel and inflicted certain losses on Israel, but overall Iran did not adopt an offensive posture. In April, July, and October 2024, after Iran’s embassy in Syria, Hamas leaders, and Hezbollah’s secretary-general were attacked and assassinated, Iran carried out several rounds of strikes inside Israel, but all were aimed at proving its strength and expressing deterrence; they did not cause Israel substantive harm or casualties.

伊朗的一些战略实践也表明伊朗奉行的是一种防御性的战略而不是进攻性的战略。2023年10月新一轮巴以冲突爆发以后，尽管黎巴嫩真主党对以色列境内目标进行了袭击，对以色列也造成了一定损失，但总体而言，伊朗并没有采取进攻性姿态。2024年4月、7月和10月，伊朗驻叙利亚使馆、哈马斯领导人以及真主党总书记遭到袭击和暗杀之后，伊朗向以色列境内实施了多轮打击，但均以证明实力、表达威慑为目的，而没有对以色列造成实质性伤害和人员伤亡。

3. Its Main Bond Is a Shared Anti-American and Anti-Israeli Ideology（三）以共同的反美、反以意识形态为主要纽带

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi stated in a speech in December 2024 that the view that “resistance” organizations accept Iranian guidance is mistaken; he emphasized that these organizations and Iran share common goals but are not controlled by Iran. Araqchi’s comments above may be suspected of downplaying the relationship between Iran and numerous resistance organizations, but they did not deny the important place of common goals in maintaining relations between Iran and the various resistance organizations. Those common goals are opposition to the United States and Israel, or, put differently, anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology.

伊朗外长阿巴斯·阿拉格齐（Abbas Araqchi）在2024年12月的一次讲话中指出，关于“抵抗”组织接受伊朗指导的观点是错误的；他强调这些组织和伊朗有共同的目标，但并不受伊朗控制。阿拉格齐的上述评论有淡化伊朗与诸多抵抗组织之间关系的嫌疑，但并没有否认共同的目标在伊朗与各抵抗组织之间保持关系的重要地位。这种共同目标则是反美、反以，或者说反美、反以意识形态。

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has long been subject to American political isolation, economic sanctions, and military threats, and has consistently upheld an anti-American and anti-Israeli political position. Hamas, though it exists as the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, is marked by clear opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and to American support for Israel, and regards the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state as its mission. Lebanese Hezbollah takes as its task opposition to Israeli military occupation and support for the just Palestinian struggle against Israel. Iraqi anti-American militias were born after the United States launched the Iraq War in 2003, and take opposition to the American military presence in Iraq as an important objective. Yemen’s Houthi forces, though they maintain a certain distance from Iran, have accepted and adopted slogans of the Iranian Islamic Revolution such as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and likewise take opposition to the United States and Israel as their mission.

伊朗自1979年的伊斯兰革命以来长期处于美国的政治孤立、经济制裁和军事威胁之下，一直恪守反美、反以政治立场；哈马斯虽然作为穆斯林兄弟会在巴勒斯坦加沙地带的分支机构而存在，但具有鲜明地反对以色列对巴勒斯坦领土的占领及美国对以色列的支持的特点，并以最终实现巴勒斯坦建国为己任；黎巴嫩真主党则以反对以色列的军事占领和支持巴勒斯坦反以正义斗争为任务；伊拉克反美民兵武装诞生于2003年美国发动伊拉克战争之后，以反对美国在伊拉克的军事存在为重要目标；也门的胡塞武装虽与伊朗保持一定的距离，但接受和采纳了伊朗伊斯兰革命“美国去死”“以色列去死”这样的口号，也以反美、反以为己任。

It is true that Iran once took the export of revolution as the guiding program of its regional diplomacy, and that it intended to use religious identity to construct a geostrategy and sphere of influence. But the fundamental reason for the existence of the resistance front is anti-Israeli and anti-American ideology, and the formation of this ideology is a reaction to American and Israeli regional hegemony and territorial occupation. Ali Larijani expressed a similar meaning when he visited Iraq in mid-August 2025. Speaking on related issues, he said that Lebanese Hezbollah and other resistance factions in the region “possess highly developed political thinking and do not need guardianship.”

诚然，伊朗的确曾经以输出革命作为地区外交的指导纲领，也有意图以宗教身份构筑地缘战略和势力范围，但抵抗阵线存在的根本原因则是反以反美意识形态，而这种意识形态的形成是对美以地区霸权和强占领土的反应。阿里·拉里贾尼2025年8月中旬访问伊拉克时便表达了类似的意思，当谈到相关议题时，他称黎巴嫩真主党以及该地区的其他抵抗派别“拥有高度发达的政治思维，不需要监护”。

4. Homeland Missile Deterrence Is an Important Support（四）以本土导弹威慑为重要支撑

The resistance strategy presupposes the existence of a resistance front; therefore the “resistance front” formed by Syria under the Assad regime, Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi anti-American militias, and Yemen’s Houthi forces is an important link in it. Equally worth mentioning, though insufficiently attended to by scholars, is the building of Iran’s domestic military forces, chiefly the construction of missile forces as the basis of deterrence. Although Iran has its own navy and air force, the capability that can play the main role in national defense is its missile capability. In other words, under sanctions, in order to concentrate limited resources on building missile deterrence, Iran in effect abandoned the construction of its air force; Iran’s loss of air superiority in the “Twelve-Day War” was a manifestation of this.

抵抗战略是以抵抗阵线的存在为前提条件，是故，由阿萨德政权治下的叙利亚、巴勒斯坦哈马斯、黎巴嫩真主党、伊拉克反美民兵武装以及也门胡塞武装等所构成的“抵抗阵线”是其重要环节。同样值得一提但又没有得到学界足够重视的则是伊朗国内军事力量建设，主要是作为威慑基础的导弹力量建设。尽管伊朗有自己的海军和空军，但能够在其国家防御中发挥作用的主要是导弹能力。换言之，在制裁背景之下，为将有限的资源集中用于构建导弹威慑能力，伊朗事实上放弃了空军的建设，“十二日战争”中伊朗失去制空权便是其体现。

The resistance strategy is also called a “forward defense strategy,” and its existence rests to some extent on Iran’s homeland missile deterrent. The two are mutually reinforcing. For some time, Israel did not carry out destructive strikes against Lebanese Hezbollah or high-value targets inside Iran largely because of the strategic deterrence created by Iranian missiles. After Iran and relevant parties reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, the United States, Israel, and European countries raised the issues of Iranian regional proxies and missiles, which precisely shows that these two capabilities are important components of Iran’s resistance strategy. At the same time, the predicament in which Iranian airspace was completely exposed to the Israeli air force during the “Twelve-Day War” fully reveals the serious defects of a strategy that relies excessively on missile deterrence while neglecting the construction of air-defense systems.

抵抗战略又被称为“前沿防御战略”，其存在一定程度上以伊朗本土的导弹威慑为前提条件，两者是一种相辅相成的关系。一段时间以来，以色列并没有对黎巴嫩真主党以及伊朗本土高价值目标实施摧毁性打击，很大程度上是由于伊朗导弹所形成的战略威慑。2015年，伊朗与有关各方达成《全面联合行动计划》之后，美国、以色列以及欧洲国家提出伊朗地区代理人和导弹议题，也恰恰说明这两大能力是伊朗抵抗战略的重要组成部分。与此同时，“十二日战争”中伊朗领空完全暴露于以色列空军之下的窘境，也充分表明这种过于依赖导弹威慑而忽视防空体系建设战略的严重缺陷。

In sum, although Iran’s resistance strategy carries a revolutionary coloration because of its anti-American and anti-Israeli features, anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology largely functions only as a connective bond. Its essence is a strategy aimed at maintaining political and national security, taking the construction of a forward resistance front abroad as its main form and homeland missile deterrence as its support; the two reinforce each other. The resistance front includes not only Syria under the leadership of the Assad regime, but also such non-state actors as Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi forces, and Iraqi popular anti-American armed forces. Because these more or less violate the principle of sovereignty in today’s nation-state system, they have drawn criticism in the Middle East and around the world. Yet Israel has long used military means in Palestine to seize territory, and has received unconditional American support; the resistance strategy is precisely the inevitable reaction to this. After the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2023, America’s indulgence of Israel’s inhumane and land-grabbing practices further confirmed the justice of Iran’s resistance strategy.

总而言之，伊朗的抵抗战略虽因其反美、反以特点而带有革命色彩，反美、反以意识形态很大程度上只是发挥了联结纽带作用，但其本质是维护政治和国家安全为目标的战略，既以在海外构筑前沿抵抗阵线为主要形式，也以本土导弹威慑力量为支撑，两者相辅相成。抵抗阵线不仅包括阿萨德政权领导下的叙利亚，而且涉及巴勒斯坦哈马斯、黎巴嫩真主党、也门胡塞武装以及伊拉克民间反美武装力量等非国家行为体，因其或多或少违背当今民族国家体系中的主权原则，故而在中东地区以及世界上遭到一些质疑。然而，以色列在巴勒斯坦长期以军事手段攫取领土，并得到美国无条件支持，抵抗战略正是对此的必然反应。2023年新一轮巴以冲突爆发以后，美国纵容以色列所实施的反人道和侵吞领土的做法进一步佐证了伊朗所奉行的抵抗战略的正义性。

The Impact of the Latest Round of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict on Iran’s Resistance Strategy新一轮巴以冲突对伊朗抵抗战略的冲击

On October 7, 2023, marked by “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a new round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out. On the one hand, Israel intensified its strikes against Palestinian Hamas, intending to take full control of the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Israel did its utmost to construct links between Iran and Palestinian Hamas, treating Iran as Hamas’s actual supporter and attempting to use the opportunity of the latest Palestinian-Israeli conflict to weaken Iran’s influence in the Middle East comprehensively, thereby eliminating the “Iranian threat.” Iran and the resistance front have suffered grave setbacks under Israeli attack.

2023年10月7日以“阿克萨洪水行动”为标志，新一轮巴以冲突爆发。一方面，以色列加大了对巴勒斯坦哈马斯打击力度，意图全面控制加沙地带；另一方面，以色列竭力构筑伊朗与巴勒斯坦哈马斯之间的联系，将伊朗视为哈马斯的实际支持者，试图借新一轮巴以冲突之机全面削弱伊朗在中东地区的影响，进而消除“伊朗威胁”。伊朗以及抵抗阵线在以色列的打击之下遭受严重挫折。

1. The Regional Resistance-Front Network Has Been Gravely Damaged（一）地区抵抗阵线网络遭到重创

The relationships between Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, respectively, and Iran differ in closeness, and the two also differ in sectarian and organizational nature. But both are equally firm in resisting American and Israeli hegemony, and both are geographically close to Israel; they therefore became key targets of Israeli strikes. Hamas was directly subjected to devastating Israeli military attack, and Lebanese Hezbollah also endured high-intensity strikes. Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and other forces were nearly wiped out by Israel, and its military infrastructure, such as tunnels and arms and ammunition depots, was destroyed. More than that, the main political leaders and senior generals in key military posts of Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, including Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah, died either in Israeli military operations or in Israeli assassinations. Both organizations suffered serious losses in spiritual and material power, in tangible and intangible strength alike.

巴勒斯坦哈马斯和黎巴嫩真主党与伊朗的关系有一定的亲疏区别，在教派和性质上也有所不同，但在抵抗美、以霸权方面同样坚定，且地理上都邻近以色列，故而成为以色列的重点打击目标。哈马斯直接遭到以色列毁灭性军事打击，黎巴嫩真主党也遭到高强度打击。哈马斯的卡桑旅等几乎被以色列歼灭，其军事基础设施如地道、武器弹药库等被以色列摧毁。不仅如此，巴勒斯坦哈马斯和黎巴嫩真主党的主要政治领导人和主要军事岗位上的高级将领，包括哈尼亚、辛瓦尔、纳斯鲁拉等，或是死于以色列的军事行动，或是死于以色列的暗杀。两大组织精神上和物质上、有形和无形的力量都遭到严重损失。

Syria under Bashar al-Assad was an important link in Iran’s resistance-front strategy, and it had unique importance in particular because it performed a logistical and transport-support function between the Iranian homeland and Lebanese Hezbollah. The collapse of the Assad regime cannot be counted as a direct consequence of Israeli military strikes, but it was undoubtedly one of the spillover consequences of the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. To some extent, precisely because Israel had weakened Lebanese Hezbollah, Hezbollah was unable to provide support and coordination during the Syrian crisis of December 2024, which triggered the fall of the Assad regime. The fall of the Assad regime directly led to the collapse of an important state actor in the resistance front, the severing of the logistical support channel between Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, and severe damage to the resistance-front network.

巴沙尔·阿萨德领导下的叙利亚是伊朗抵抗阵线战略的重要环节，尤其因其在伊朗本土与黎巴嫩真主党之间发挥了后勤运输保障功能而具有独特的重要地位。阿萨德政权的崩溃虽不能算是以色列军事打击的直接后果，但无疑是新一轮巴以冲突外溢的后果之一。一定程度上正是因为以色列对黎巴嫩真主党的削弱，真主党未能在2024年12月叙利亚危机中提供支持策应，引发了阿萨德政权的垮台。阿萨德政权垮台直接导致抵抗阵线重要国家行为体崩溃，伊朗与黎巴嫩真主党之间后勤保障通道中断，抵抗阵线网络遭严重破坏。

In addition, Yemen’s Houthi forces and Iraqi anti-American armed forces were weakened to varying degrees. In particular, on August 28, 2025, Israel launched large-scale airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi forces. Twelve people died, including the heads and senior officials of administrative institutions under Houthi authority in justice, administration, energy and water resources, culture and tourism, foreign affairs, social affairs and labor, information, youth, and sports. The Houthi forces suffered a heavy blow.

此外，也门胡塞武装以及伊拉克反美武装力量也遭到不同程度的削弱。特别是2025年8月28日，以色列对也门胡塞武装发动大规模空袭，胡塞武装主持下的也门司法、行政、能源水利、文旅、外交、社会事务及劳工、新闻、青年和体育等行政机构负责人及高级官员，共12人身亡，胡塞武装的力量遭到沉重打击。

If the resistance front is a network, then under Israeli attack not only have important nodes of force in the network been damaged, but the channels connecting the nodes have also been cut; the network has suffered severe losses. Of course, resistance and oppression are “two sides of the same coin.” Resistance is the inevitable reflection of oppression; so long as oppression exists, resistance will necessarily have room to survive. Therefore, although the forces of resistance have suffered serious setbacks, they will continue to exist for a long time. Both Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah were able quickly to rebuild organizational mechanisms after their backbone forces were eliminated, and to preserve those mechanisms in relatively complete form; that both organizations can still speak outwardly with relative independence is an expression of this.

如果说抵抗阵线是一种网络，那么在以色列的打击之下，不仅网络上的各个重要力量节点遭到了破坏，而且各个节点之间的连接渠道也被切断，其网络遭到严重损失。当然，抵抗力量与压迫力量是“一枚硬币的两面”。抵抗力量是压迫力量的必然反映，只要压迫力量存在，抵抗力量也将必然存在生存空间。是故，尽管抵抗力量遭到严重挫折，但抵抗力量仍将长期存在。无论是巴勒斯坦哈马斯还是黎巴嫩真主党，能够在骨干力量遭到清除之后迅速重建组织机制，并相对保持了组织机制的完整性，两大组织仍然能够相对独立地对外发声便是体现。

2. The Domestic Power Base of the Resistance Strategy Has Been Gravely Damaged（二）抵抗战略的国内力量基础遭到重创

As noted above, after the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Netanyahu’s government in Israel publicly declared, on the one hand, that it would “rescue the hostages,” “eliminate Hamas,” and “rebuild Gaza’s security mechanism,” while on the other hand doing its utmost to exaggerate Iran’s support for Palestinian Hamas and Iran’s role behind “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Its real intention was to weaken comprehensively the influence of Iran and the resistance front it led. After weakening the resistance front’s peripheral forces, Israel “naturally” took direct strikes against Iran’s homeland forces as the main objective of the next stage.

如前文指出，新一轮巴以冲突爆发之后，以色列内塔尼亚胡政府一方面公开宣称要“解救人质”“消灭哈马斯”“重建加沙安全机制”，但另一方面竭力夸大伊朗为巴勒斯坦哈马斯提供的支持，夸大伊朗在“阿克萨洪水行动”背后的作用，其实际意图则是全面削弱伊朗及其领导的抵抗阵线的影响。在削弱抵抗阵线外围势力之后，以色列“顺理成章”地将直接打击伊朗的本土力量作为下一阶段的主要目标。

Although Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel in April and October 2024 were intended to construct deterrence, and therefore did not cause substantive harm to targets inside Israel, on October 26, 2024 Israel nevertheless carried out counter-retaliation against multiple targets inside Iran, damaging several Iranian military facilities. On June 13, 2025, Israel dispatched warplanes and launched a large-scale air military operation against Iran that lasted twelve days. During this period, Israel not only assassinated dozens of senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and nuclear scientists, but also destroyed missile-launch facilities, production bases, radar arrays, various air-defense facilities, and energy infrastructure inside Iran. Although Iran counterattacked Israel’s military operation and caused Israel certain losses, Iran lost air superiority in the war, and its homeland missile-production factories, missile-launch facilities, radar, and other early-warning systems suffered heavy losses.

尽管2024年4月和10月伊朗对以色列所实施的报复性打击旨在建构威慑，故而并没有对以色列境内目标造成实质性伤害，但2024年10月26日，以色列仍然对伊朗境内多处目标实施了反报复，破坏了伊朗的多处军事设施。2025年6月13日，以色列出动战机发动了对伊朗的大规模空中军事行动，持续12天。期间，以色列不仅暗杀了伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队数十名高级将领和核科学家，而且摧毁了伊朗境内导弹发射设施、生产基地和雷达阵列等在内的各种防空设施，以及能源基础设施。尽管伊朗对以色列的军事行动实施了反击，并对以色列造成了一定的损失，但伊朗在战争中失去了制空权，本土导弹生产工厂和导弹发射设施以及雷达等预警系统损失惨重。

The resistance front has drawn some international criticism because of its overt existence, but for Iran, the resistance strategy includes not only the resistance front but also its domestic power base, within which missile forces in particular play a decisive role. Although Iran still retained a certain deterrent effect after absorbing the strikes, the credibility of its missile deterrence was not fully demonstrated. Its homeland forces were severely hit, and the resistance-front strategy beyond Iranian territory will also face a difficult situation.

抵抗阵线因其显性存在而在国际上受到一些诟病，但于伊朗而言，抵抗战略不仅包括抵抗阵线，还包括其国内力量基础，其中导弹力量尤其在其抵抗战略中具有举足轻重的作用。尽管伊朗在承受打击之后仍然具备一定的威慑效果，但其导弹威慑的信用并未充分体现，本土力量遭到严重打击，伊朗本土之外的抵抗阵线战略也将面临困难局面。

3. The Regional Space of the Resistance Strategy Has Been Severely Compressed（三）抵抗战略的地区空间被严重挤压

The contraction strategy pursued by the United States in the Middle East since the Obama administration provided the backdrop for tense geostrategic struggles among regional powers, and the geostrategic contest between Iran and Israel was an important part of this whole scene. Israel attempted, through the “Abraham process,” to ease relations with Gulf states, and on that basis to strengthen defense cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against Iran, while also strengthening cooperation with Iraqi Kurdistan and Azerbaijan, creating a posture of encircling Iran on three sides. Iran, for its part, provided support to Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Syria under Assad, Iraqi Shiite militia forces, and Yemen’s Houthi forces, thereby forming pressure on Israel, though the scale and effectiveness of Iran’s support for Hamas is open to question.

美国自奥巴马政府以来在中东地区实施的收缩战略为地区大国之间地缘战略紧张博弈提供了背景，而伊朗与以色列的地缘战略博弈则是整个场景的重要组成部分。以色列试图通过“亚伯拉罕进程”缓和与海湾国家关系，并在此基础上与沙特和阿联酋等加强针对伊朗的防务合作，同时加强与伊拉克库尔德地区和阿塞拜疆合作，构建三面围堵伊朗的态势；伊朗则为巴勒斯坦哈马斯、黎巴嫩真主党、阿萨德领导下的叙利亚、伊拉克什叶派民兵力量以及也门胡塞武装等提供支持，对以色列形成压力，尽管伊朗为哈马斯所提供支持的规模和有效性值得怀疑。

Against the background of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israel, while weakening the resistance front, has also continuously eaten away at Iran’s sphere of influence. In Lebanon, Israel directly occupied Hezbollah’s areas of activity in southern Lebanon and, through the United States, pressured the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. In Syria, Israel exploited the unstable footing of the new Syrian government to occupy parts of the area from the Golan Heights to Damascus, and attempted to incite the Druze region to separate from Syria. In Iraq, Israel sought, through the United States, to pressure the Iraqi government to disarm Iraqi Shiite militias. Not only that: Middle Eastern forces such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey also joined the geopolitical contest to divide Iran’s sphere of influence in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Iran’s sphere of influence has been severely compressed.

新一轮巴以冲突背景下，以色列在削弱抵抗阵线的同时，也在不断蚕食伊朗的势力范围。在黎巴嫩，以色列直接占领了黎巴嫩南部真主党的活动区域，并通过美国施压黎巴嫩政府解除真主党武装；在叙利亚，以色列则利用叙利亚新政府立足未稳之机占领从戈兰高地到大马士革的部分区域，并试图煽动德鲁兹地区从叙利亚分裂出去；在伊拉克，以色列则试图通过美国施压伊拉克政府解除伊拉克什叶派民兵武装。不仅如此，沙特和土耳其等中东地区力量也加入了在叙利亚、黎巴嫩和伊拉克瓜分伊朗势力范围的地缘政治博弈之中，伊朗的势力范围受到严重挤压。

The resistance strategy is, in essence, a geostrategy and requires a certain geographical space to support it. As Iran’s sphere of influence in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq is continuously eroded and compressed, Iran will find it difficult to reconstruct and maintain the geographical scope on which the resistance front depends. In sum, the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has gradually evolved into a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran. In this round of struggle, the peripheral forces of Iran’s resistance strategy have suffered devastating strikes, the homeland deterrent forces that support it have also been severely weakened, and the geostrategic space on which the resistance strategy relies has been drastically compressed. Although Iran may restore its homeland deterrent forces, especially missile-strike capabilities, in a relatively short time, and although Iran will remain an important regional force, its capacity to resist American and Israeli hegemony will find it difficult to recover to its previous level.

抵抗战略本质上是一种地缘战略，需要一定的地理空间作为支撑，而随着伊朗在黎巴嫩、叙利亚和伊拉克势力范围不断被蚕食和挤压，伊朗将难以重新构建并维持抵抗阵线所赖以存在的地理范围。总而言之，新一轮巴以冲突逐渐演变为以色列与伊朗之间的正面对抗，在这一轮博弈中，伊朗抵抗战略的外围力量遭到毁灭性打击，本土支撑性的威慑力量也遭到严重削弱，抵抗战略赖以维持的地缘战略空间受到严重挤压。尽管伊朗可望以较短的时间恢复本土威慑力量，特别是导弹打击能力，伊朗仍将是重要的地区力量，但其抵抗美、以霸权的能力将难以恢复到之前的水平。

The Causes of the Setback to Iran’s Resistance Strategy伊朗抵抗战略遭受挫折的致因

The serious setback to Iran’s resistance strategy appears on the surface to have been caused by Israeli military strikes, but the deeper reasons lie in constraints in Iran’s domestic economy, politics, and other areas. After the “Twelve-Day War,” Iran reorganized the personnel structure of its Supreme National Security Council, reappointed Ali Larijani as the council’s secretary, and added a Defense Council. This adjustment also indirectly suggests that the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy had deep domestic structural causes in the distribution of power. Beyond this, three causes are especially worth discussing.

伊朗的抵抗战略遭受严重挫折，表面原因在于以色列的军事打击，但深层原因则在于其国内经济和政治等多个方面的掣肘。“十二日战争”之后，伊朗改组了其最高国家安全委员会的人事结构，重新任命阿里·拉里贾尼为该委员会的秘书，并增设防务委员会。这一调整也间接暗示着，伊朗抵抗战略受挫有着深层的国内权力结构性原因。除此之外，以下三方面的原因尤其值得探讨。

1. The Economic Foundation Is Insufficient to Support Its Resistance Strategy（一）经济基础不足以支撑其抵抗战略

Affected by various internal and external factors, Iran’s economy has long struggled to operate under intense pressure. Heavy fiscal subsidies for necessities such as grain and gasoline, and the military’s control over large quantities of economic resources, have burdened the treasury and reduced efficiency; these have long been two chronic maladies of the Iranian economy. Protracted and constantly escalating external sanctions have made matters worse, particularly after the Trump administration imposed maximum pressure on Iran, causing Iran’s gross domestic product to fall by 6.8 percent in 2019. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, Iran’s GDP grew slowly, at rates of 3.8 percent, 5.0 percent, and 3.8 percent respectively, but in 2025 growth once again fell to 0.5 percent. Iran has long faced the problem of high inflation. Relevant statistics show that Iran’s inflation rate rose sharply from 9.64 percent in 2017 to 30.22 percent in 2018, and in 2022, compounded by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, even reached 45.75 percent; the figures for 2023 and 2024 were 40.69 percent and 32.6 percent respectively.

受各种内外因素影响，伊朗经济一直在高强度压力之下艰难运行。对粮食和汽油等必需品的高额财政补贴以及军队掌握大量经济资源，拖累了财政，降低了效率，一直是伊朗经济的两大痼疾。旷日持久且不断升级的外部制裁更使伊朗经济雪上加霜，特别是由于特朗普政府对伊朗实施极限施压，伊朗国内生产总值2019年一度下降6.8%。2022年、2023年和2024年，伊朗的国内生产总值缓慢增长，增长率分别为3.8%、5.0%和3.8%，但2025年的增长率再次降至0.5%。伊朗长期面临高通胀问题，相关统计数据显示，伊朗通货膨胀率从2017年的9.64%大幅上升至2018年的30.22%，2022年由于叠加新冠疫情蔓延的影响甚至达到45.75%，2023年和2024年的数值分别为40.69%和32.6%。

Israel’s population is about 10 million, only one-ninth that of Iran, yet its 2024 GDP was 1.25 times Iran’s. According to an International Monetary Fund report, Iran’s and Israel’s GDP in 2024 were respectively 416.68 billion and 542.29 billion U.S. dollars. To a large extent, the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy lies in the insufficiency of its economic scale to sustain its strategic needs. In addition, economic limits have led to a decline in the loyalty of some members of the resistance front and, in turn, to weakened coordination among members. Iraqi anti-American militias, for example, generally maintained a relatively low profile after “Al-Aqsa Flood,” which may have made military operations unable to reach a certain scale and deprived them of strategic pinning-down significance. The most serious impact of economic limits is that the resistance front, including Iran, has found it difficult to upgrade equipment and overall military strength in accordance with the needs of modern war.

以色列人口约为1 000万，仅相当于伊朗的1/9，但2024年国内生产总值是伊朗的125倍。根据国际货币基金组织报告，2024年伊朗和以色列国内生产总值分别为4 166.8亿美元和5 422.9亿美元。伊朗抵抗战略受挫很大程度上在于其经济规模不足以支撑其战略需要。此外，经济局限性还导致一些抵抗阵线成员忠诚度下降并进而导致成员之间的协调性减弱，如伊拉克反美民兵武装在“阿克萨洪水行动”之后总体上保持了相对低调的姿态，此举可能导致军事行动难以达到一定规模，并失去战略牵制的意义。经济局限性最为严重的影响则是包括伊朗在内的抵抗阵线难以按照现代战争的需要提升装备水平和整体军事实力。

Lebanese Hezbollah is an important link in Iran’s resistance front, or forward defense, but Hezbollah itself carries out almost no economic production activities and mainly relies on Iranian assistance, the amount of which is extremely limited. As the late Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said in 2016, Lebanese Hezbollah “has no business projects, nor investment institutions cooperating with banks... Hezbollah’s budget, salaries, expenses, food, drink, weapons, and missiles all come from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Although we cannot know the specific amount of support Iran provides, it is certain that as Iran’s own economic development faces increasing challenges, Hezbollah’s difficulties will also grow. In the decade from 2006 to 2025, military technology developed rapidly, and during this period economic difficulties also greatly constrained Hezbollah’s ability to upgrade its weapons. In 2023 and 2024, against the background of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and facing Israeli military pressure, Hezbollah found it difficult to reproduce its 2006 confrontation with Israel.

黎巴嫩真主党是伊朗抵抗阵线（或曰前沿防御）的重要环节，但黎巴嫩真主党自己几乎不进行经济生产活动，而是主要依赖伊朗的援助，而伊朗所提供援助的数量是极为有限的。正如黎巴嫩真主党已故总书记哈桑·纳斯鲁拉（Hassan Nasrallah）2016年所言，黎巴嫩真主党“没有商业项目，也没有与银行合作的投资机构……真主党的预算、工资、开支、食物、饮料、武器和导弹都来自伊朗伊斯兰共和国”。尽管我们无法知道伊朗所提供支持的具体数量，但可以肯定的是由于伊朗自身经济发展面临的挑战增多，黎巴嫩真主党所面临的困难也会增加。在2006~2025年的十年间，军事科技发展日新月异，而此期间经济困难也极大地制约了真主党武器更新的能力。2023~2024年，在新一轮巴以冲突爆发的背景下，面对以色列的军事压力，真主党难以再现2006年对抗以色列的局面。

Syria under Assad was also an important link in the resistance strategy, and the rapid fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 was largely due to economic collapse. That the World Bank has no data on Syria’s GDP from 2011 to 2025 itself shows the degree to which Syria’s economy, under sanctions, was cut off from the global economic system. Severe economic conditions directly caused its military spending to remain at an extremely low level, to the point that the army had no will to fight. Iran, as the Assad regime’s main supporter, was likewise unable to provide sufficient support because of its own poor economic condition.

阿萨德领导下的叙利亚也是抵抗战略的重要环节，而阿萨德政权2024年12月迅速倒台，其原因很大程度上也在于其经济崩溃。世界银行没有2011年至2025年关于叙利亚国内生产总值的数据，本身也表明叙利亚经济因为遭受制裁而与全球经济体系脱节的状况。严峻的经济状况直接导致其军费只能保持极低的水平，以至于军队无心恋战。而伊朗作为阿萨德政权的主要支持者因为自身经济状况不佳也未能提供足够的支持。

Not only that: the insufficiency of the economic foundation also directly weakened Iran’s own homeland resistance-force construction. For a long time, precisely because economic resources were inadequate, Iran had no choice but to focus national defense construction on building missile deterrence. Objectively speaking, Iran’s missile-capability construction played an important role in its resistance strategy. The fact that Israel for a time did not engage in direct conflict with Iran, and accepted a ceasefire after the “Twelve-Day War,” was closely related to the real deterrent effect of Iranian missiles. On the other hand, precisely because Iran concentrated its limited economic resources on the construction of missile capability, its other capabilities, including air-defense systems and air-strike forces, suffered serious shortcomings due to insufficient investment; they proved unable to withstand Israeli air-force strikes, so that Iran’s airspace was completely exposed to the Israeli air force. This became an important manifestation of the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy.

不仅如此，经济基础不足也直接削弱了伊朗自身的本土抵抗力量建设。长期以来，正是因为经济资源不足，伊朗不得不将国防建设的重心放在构建导弹威慑能力方面。客观而言，伊朗的导弹能力建设在其抵抗战略方面发挥了重要作用。以色列一度没有与伊朗发生正面冲突，并在“十二日战争”之后接受停火，与伊朗导弹的实际威慑效果密切相关。但另一方面，正是由于伊朗将有限的经济资源集中于导弹能力建设，伊朗其他方面的能力包括防空体系和空中打击力量因为投入不足而存在严重短板，并在以色列空军打击之下不堪一击，以至于伊朗的领空彻底暴露于以色列空军面前，并成为伊朗抵抗战略受挫的重要体现。

2. Domestic Political Strife Constrained Its Strategic Deterrent Effect（二）国内政治纷争制约了其战略威慑效果

Building missile capability and forming deterrence against Israel and even American targets in the Middle East is an important component of Iran’s resistance strategy. Although Iran possesses the capability to implement deterrence, against the background of the spillover from the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, domestic politics prevented Iran from fully displaying the political will to carry out deterrence, which in turn led to the failure of the deterrence strategy. This is another important reason for the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy.

着力打造导弹能力，并对以色列乃至美国在中东地区的目标形成威慑，是伊朗抵抗战略的重要组成部分。尽管伊朗具备实施威慑的能力，但新一轮巴以冲突外溢的背景下，囿于国内政治，伊朗并未充分显示实施威慑的政治意愿，并进而导致威慑战略失灵，是伊朗抵抗战略受挫的另一重要原因。

Deterrence strategy is a tactic habitually used by states or groups of states to maintain security or pursue other strategic objectives. Successful implementation of deterrence strategy requires certain prerequisites. “A threat is most credible when it rests on a military force sufficient to deliver an ‘unacceptable blow’ to the attacker, and when there is also a clear intention and firm political will to carry out such punishment.” It can be seen that the success of deterrence strategy depends on at least two conditions: first, whether the implementer of the strategy truly possesses the strength to punish; second, whether the implementer truly has the resolve and will to use force. At the same time, whether the deterred side can perceive this capability and will is also one of the key links in determining the strategy’s success.

威慑战略是国家或国家集团维护安全或推行其他战略目标而惯于使用的一种战术。威慑战略的成功实施需要具备一定的前提条件。“当威胁的基础是建立在足以给进攻者以‘难以承受的打击’的军事力量之上，同时又有明确的意图和坚定的政治意愿来实施这种惩罚时，威胁才是最可信的”。可见，威慑战略的成功至少取决于两个条件：一是该战略的实施者是否真正具备进行惩罚的实力，二是实施者是否真正具备使用力量的决心和意志。同时，被威慑的一方是否能够感知到上述能力和意志也是该战略是否成功的关键环节之一。

In the “Twelve-Day War,” judging from the fact that Iran, even after suffering Israel’s initial attack, could still rapidly form a missile counterattack capability and hit targets inside Israel including a refinery in Haifa and government buildings, Iran undoubtedly possessed the capability to carry out deterrence. Yet Iran did not fully display the strategic will to cause losses to targets inside Israel. Conservatives, including the military, advocated more resolute retaliatory measures against Israel, while reformists consistently harbored fantasies of de-escalating confrontation and easing relations with the United States and Israel. Against the background of spillover from the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and facing Israel’s aggressive offensive, Iran’s responses were often the product of compromise between these two positions. On the one hand, Iran carried out retaliation; on the other, it did not cause Israel substantive losses, highlighting the strategic defect of insufficient political will to implement deterrence.

在“十二日战争”中，从伊朗即使在遭到以色列初期攻击之后仍能迅速形成导弹反击能力，并击中以色列境内包括海法一处炼油厂以及政府大楼的情况来看，伊朗毫无疑问具备实施威慑的能力。然而，伊朗并没有充分显示其对以色列本土目标造成损失的战略意志。包括军方在内的保守派主张对以色列实施更为坚决的报复措施，而改革派则始终抱持与美、以降级对抗、缓和关系的幻想。新一轮巴以冲突外溢的背景下，面对以色列咄咄逼人的攻势，伊朗所采取的应对措施常常是上述两大立场之间的折中产物。一方面，伊朗实施了报复，但另一方面又没有对以色列造成实质性损失，凸显了其实施威慑的政治意愿不足的战略缺陷。

On April 13, 2024, in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of Iran’s embassy in Syria, Iran launched “Operation True Promise 1,” firing hundreds of missiles and large numbers of drones at Israel proper, but it deliberately avoided high-value targets and did not cause Israel substantive losses. On October 1, 2024, in retaliation for Israel’s July 31 assassination inside Iran of Hamas leader Haniyeh and its September 27 assassination of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, Iran launched “Operation True Promise 2,” using missiles and drones to strike Israeli military and intelligence targets, but likewise did not cause Israel serious losses. Even after the outbreak of the “Twelve-Day War” on June 13, voices still appeared inside Iran both rejecting negotiations with the United States on the 15th and supporting continued talks, and only on the 15th itself did Oman clearly announce that the negotiations had been canceled. Even shortly after the war ended, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian still gave an interview to American media conveying a message of dialogue with the United States. Thus the wavering positions of Iran’s political circles greatly limited the effect of its military actions.

2024年4月13日，为报复以色列轰炸伊朗在叙利亚的大使馆，伊朗发动了“真实承诺1行动”（True Promise 1），向以色列本土发射了数百枚导弹和大量无人机，但特意回避了高价值目标，并没有对以色列造成实质性损失；2024年10月1日，为报复以色列7月31日在伊朗境内暗杀哈马斯领导哈尼亚和9月27日暗杀真主党领导人纳斯鲁拉，伊朗发动了“真实承诺2行动”（True Promise 2），利用导弹和无人机打击了以色列军方和情报部门目标，但同样没有对以色列造成严重损失。即使是6月13日“十二日战争”爆发以后，伊朗国内仍然出现了拒绝15日与美国谈判和继续谈判两种声音，而直至15日当天才有阿曼方面明确宣布谈判取消；甚至是战争结束不久，伊朗总统马苏德·佩泽希齐扬（Masoud Pezeshkian）仍然接受美国媒体采访传递与美对话的信息。故，伊朗政界立场的摇摆极大地限制了其军事行动的效果。

In brief, through the two “True Promise” operations, Iran certainly proved its ability to strike Israel, but because both operations deliberately avoided high-value strategic targets and did not inflict serious losses on Israel, they exposed the defect of insufficient will to carry out threats. In other words, through such means as striking Iran’s embassy in Syria and assassinating Haniyeh and Nasrallah, Israel gradually punctured the credit bubble of Iran’s deterrence strategy. Once the credibility bubble of the deterrence strategy was punctured, the frustrated fate of Iran’s resistance strategy became unavoidable. Had Iran’s “Operation True Promise 1” in April 2024 reached the scale of the retaliatory military operation against Israel launched on June 14, 2025, and fully demonstrated its will, the effect of its strategic deterrence would have had a different outcome.

简言之，通过两次“真实承诺行动”，伊朗固然证明了其打击以色列的能力，但两次行动均因为刻意回避高价值战略目标且没有给以色列造成严重损失，暴露了其实施威胁意志不足的缺陷。换言之，以色列通过打击伊朗驻叙利亚使馆、暗杀哈尼亚以及暗杀纳斯鲁拉等手段，逐渐刺破了伊朗威慑战略的信用泡沫。随着威慑战略的信用泡沫被刺破，伊朗抵抗战略的挫折命运在所难免。而如果伊朗2024年4月的“真实承诺1行动”的规模能够达到2025年6月14日发起的针对以色列的报复性军事行动的水平，充分展现意志，其战略威慑的效果将会出现另外一种结局。

3. Long-Term American and Israeli Pressure and Unscrupulous Strikes Are the Main External Causes（三）美、以长期打压和不择手段的打击是主要外部原因

Apart from internal causes, long-term pressure from the United States and Israel is another important reason for the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy. On the one hand, American and Israeli pressure has directly weakened the forces of resistance as an independent factor; on the other, it has been transmitted into Iran’s interior and produced effects through internal causes.

除了内部原因以外，美国和以色列长期打压更是伊朗抵抗战略受挫的另一重要原因。美、以长期打压一方面直接作为独立因素削弱了抵抗力量，另一方面传导到伊朗内部并通过内因而产生影响。

After the end of the Cold War, the United States used the opportunity of the Gulf War to establish its strategic dominance in the Middle East. To consolidate its hegemony there, the United States divided Middle Eastern states and forces into moderate pro-American forces and radical anti-American forces; the latter included Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, Syria under the Assad family, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and various anti-American non-state actors. While actively supporting the former, the United States did everything it could to pressure the latter through economic sanctions, political isolation, military threats, and other means. Apart from its own drive to seek hegemony, Israel was also an important promoter of this strategy. In other words, America’s global strategy was highly consistent with Israel’s strategy of weakening powerful regional enemies out of its own security considerations.

冷战结束以后，美国利用海湾战争的时机确立了其在中东地区的战略主导地位。为了巩固其在中东地区的霸权，美国将中东国家和势力划分为温和亲美和激进反美力量，后者包括萨达姆为总统的伊拉克、卡扎菲为总统的利比亚、阿萨德家族统治的叙利亚、伊朗伊斯兰共和国以及各种反美非国家行为体。美国在积极扶持前者的同时，竭力通过经济制裁、政治孤立和军事威胁等手段打压后者。除了其自身谋求霸权的动力以外，以色列也是上述战略的重要推动者。换言之，美国的全球战略与以色列出于自身安全考虑而削弱地区强敌的战略高度契合。

The successive collapses of the Saddam regime in Iraq, the Gaddafi regime in Libya, and the Assad regime in Syria certainly had their own internal causes, but they were even more the result of long-term, all-round American pressure, with Israel as the main driving force behind it. The renowned American scholar Jeffrey Sachs, in a famous speech at the European Parliament in February 2025, revealed how the United States and Israel set the stage and successively overthrew these regimes. On the 2003 Iraq War, Professor Sachs said: “This was a war for Israel, a war coordinated by Paul Wolfowitz, who served as U.S. deputy secretary of defense from 2001 to 2005, Douglas Feith, who served as under secretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005, and Netanyahu.”

伊拉克萨达姆政权、利比亚卡扎菲政权以及叙利亚阿萨德政权相继垮台，固然有其自身内部原因，但更是美国长期全方位打压的结果，以色列则是其背后的主要推手。美国著名学者杰弗里·萨克斯（Jeffrey Sachs）在2025年2月欧洲议会的著名演讲中揭示了美、以做局并相继推翻上述政权的情况。其中关于2003年的伊拉克战争，萨克斯教授指出，“这是一场为以色列而发动的战争，是由保罗·沃尔福威茨（Paul Wolfowitz，2001~2005年任美国国防部常务副部长）、道格拉斯·费尔斯（Douglas Feith，2001~2005年任美国国防部政策副部长）与内塔尼亚胡共同协调的一场战争。”

After the mid-1990s, Iran was consistently a key target of American and Israeli economic sanctions, political isolation, and military threats. From the Iran sanctions legislation introduced by the United States in the 1990s, the D’Amato Act, to the maximum pressure imposed on Iran by the Trump administration beginning in 2018, the length and depth of the sanctions Iran has faced are extremely rare in the history of contemporary international relations, and behind every sanction imposed on Iran by the U.S. government there has been Israel’s shadow. After the fall of the Saddam and Gaddafi regimes, Iran, in keeping with American and Israeli strategic logic, became still more a key target of pressure. After the collapse of Syria’s Assad regime, the strategic pressure on Iran rose further. Although Iran maintained political security under intense external pressure, as noted above, its economic strength suffered heavy blows, its comprehensive national power was gravely weakened, and this became an important reason for the setback to the resistance strategy. In particular, against the background of spillover from the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israel and the United States became still more unscrupulous in striking Iran and the resistance front, repeatedly crossing the bottom lines of international rules and the morality and ethics of war. This was the direct cause of the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy. First, they made assassination a state strategy, successively assassinating several political leaders and senior commanders of the resistance front, and even scientists. Second, they turned ordinary communications tools into instruments of assassination. Third, they took military action while negotiations were still proceeding normally. Fourth, in defiance of universal condemnation, they bombed nuclear facilities under the inspection and supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran, by contrast, even in carrying out a series of “True Promise” operations, still observed the basic rules of war and sought as far as possible to avoid casualties. The repeated breaching of moral constraints by Israel and the United States gave them the “freedom” to choose the most favorable time and method to strike the resistance front and its targets, while uncertainty deterrence placed the resistance front in a passive position because it could not predict the boundaries of their behavior.

进入20世纪90年代中期后，伊朗一直是美、以经济制裁、政治孤立和军事威胁的重点对象。从20世纪90年代美国出台制裁伊朗的《达马托法》到特朗普政府2018年开始对伊朗实施的极限施压，伊朗所面临制裁历时之长、程度之深在当代国际关系史上极为罕见，而美国政府对伊朗实施的每一项制裁背后都有以色列的影子。萨达姆政权和卡扎菲政权垮台以后，伊朗更是合乎美、以战略逻辑地成为重点打压对象。叙利亚阿萨德政权崩溃之后，伊朗面临的战略压力进一步上升。尽管伊朗在高强度外部压力之下维持了政治安全，但如前文所述，其经济实力遭到沉重打击，综合国力遭到严重削弱，并进而成为抵抗战略受挫的重要原因。特别是新一轮巴以冲突外溢的背景下，以、美在打击伊朗及抵抗阵线方面更是不择手段，屡屡突破国际规则和战争道德及伦理底线，是伊朗抵抗战略受挫的直接原因。一是将暗杀作为国家战略，先后暗杀了抵抗阵线多名政治领导和高级将领，甚至是科学家；二是将普通的通信工具作为暗杀手段；三是在谈判尚在正常进行中采取军事行动；四是冒天下之大不韪轰炸国际原子能机构核查监督下的核设施。而伊朗即使在采取系列“真实承诺行动”的过程中仍然恪守基本的战争规则，尽量避免人员伤亡。以色列和美国屡屡突破道德约束的手段为其选择最有利的时机和方式打击抵抗阵线，目标提供了“自由”，不确定性威慑更让抵抗阵线因无法预测其行为边界而陷入被动。

In sum, the fundamental reason Iran’s resistance strategy suffered a serious setback against the background of spillover from the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is that its economic strength was insufficient to sustain an excessively vast strategy; tactically, the reason lies in its failure to fully display will in its retaliatory strategy, causing the credit bubble of its deterrence strategy to be punctured. At the same time, the setback to the resistance strategy is also the result of long-term American and Israeli planning to weaken the resistance front and of their strikes against it without regard for moral or political-ethical bottom lines.

总而言之，伊朗抵抗战略之所以在新一轮巴以冲突外溢的背景下遭遇严重挫折，根本原因在于其经济实力不足以支撑其过于庞大的战略，战术上则在于其未能在报复战略中充分展现意志导致其威慑战略的信用泡沫被刺破。同时，抵抗战略受挫也是美、以两国长期布局削弱抵抗阵线以及不顾道德和政治伦理底线对抵抗阵线实施打击的结果。

The Impact of Iran’s Geopolitical Changes on the Regional Order伊朗地缘政治变化对地区秩序的影响

Iran, which pursues a resistance strategy, is an influential country in the Middle East, and its rise has been an important manifestation of adjustment in the regional geostrategic pattern against the background of America’s Middle East retrenchment. As Iran’s resistance strategy has suffered a serious setback, the region’s structure of power and agenda will inevitably change. The Middle East has long been a grave zone of power politics; the resistance front is a fragile force in the region that counters hegemony. The setback to Iran’s resistance strategy will make hegemonic forces even more unrestrained, thereby aggravating regional disorder.

奉行抵抗战略的伊朗是中东地区有影响力的国家，伊朗的崛起是美国中东收缩战略背景下地区地缘战略格局调整的重要体现。而随着伊朗的抵抗战略遭受严重挫折，该地区的力量和议程结构也将不可避免地发生变化。长期以来，中东一直是强权政治的重灾区，抵抗阵线是中东地区脆弱的抗衡霸权的力量，伊朗的抵抗战略遭受挫折也将使霸权力量更加有恃无恐，从而加剧地区失序。

1. It Will Lead to a New Round of Differentiation and Recombination of Regional Forces（一）导致地区新一轮力量分化组合

The Middle East contraction strategy begun by the Obama administration in 2009 laid the background for regional powers to compete for spheres of influence. The Middle Eastern geostrategic pattern formed on this basis was marked by the rise of Iranian strength, competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia for spheres of influence, and the “Abraham process” between Israel and Arab states. Using Shiite religious identity, Iran pursued an active and enterprising regional strategy and constructed a “Shiite crescent,” covering a broad area from Lebanon to Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Iran itself calls this sphere of influence the resistance front, while Israel, the West, and Gulf states call the states and non-state actors involved Iran’s proxies. Iran established a strategic presence with obvious advantages, even a kind of regional hegemony.

2009年美国奥巴马政府所开始实行的中东收缩战略为地区大国竞争势力范围铺垫了背景，而在此基础上形成的中东地缘战略格局以伊朗实力上升、伊朗与沙特争夺势力范围以及以色列与阿拉伯国家之间的“亚伯拉罕进程”等为重要特点。伊朗利用什叶派宗教身份奉行积极进取的地区战略，构筑了“什叶派之弧”，涵盖从黎巴嫩到叙利亚、伊拉克和也门的广阔区域。伊朗自己将上述势力范围称之为抵抗阵线，而以色列、西方和海湾国家则将其所涉及的国家和非国家行为体称之为伊朗的代理人。伊朗确立了具有明显优势的战略存在，甚至是一种地区霸权。

The setback to Iran’s resistance strategy will inevitably have far-reaching effects on the regional geostrategic pattern. First, regional powers have opened a new competition to divide up Iran’s sphere of influence. With the disintegration of the resistance front, various regional powers have competed, in a “retaliatory” posture, to seize Iran’s sphere of influence. After the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey competed for influence over the new Syrian regime; Israel not only used the opportunity to destroy nearly all military facilities in Syria, but also attempted to use the Druze issue to split Syria and consolidate its acquired strategic interests in the Golan Heights. Disarming Lebanese Hezbollah has once again been placed on the agenda; in substance, this means weakening Iran’s influence in Lebanon. Some pro-Iranian armed forces in Iraq face a similar fate. As Iran’s sphere of influence is continuously compressed, the country’s regional influence will be greatly reduced. Of course, as a regional power with a population of nearly 90 million, Iran will remain active on the stage of regional strategic competition so long as its political security does not face a fundamental challenge.

伊朗的抵抗战略受挫必然对地区地缘战略格局产生深远的影响。一是地区大国开启了新的分割伊朗势力范围的竞争。随着抵抗阵线的瓦解，各个地区大国以一种“报复性”的姿态竞相争夺伊朗的势力范围。叙利亚阿萨德政权崩溃之后，沙特和土耳其竞相争夺对叙利亚新政权的影响力，以色列不仅利用时机摧毁了叙利亚境内几乎所有军事设施，而且试图利用德鲁兹问题分裂叙利亚，巩固其在戈兰高地的既得战略利益。解除黎巴嫩真主党的武装再度被提上议事日程，实质是削弱伊朗在黎巴嫩的影响。伊拉克一些亲伊朗武装力量也面临类似的命运。而随着伊朗的势力范围不断被挤压，该国的地区影响将被大大压缩。当然，作为一个拥有近9 000万人口的地区大国，只要其政治安全不出现根本性的挑战，伊朗仍将作为一个地区大国活跃在地区战略竞争的舞台上。

Second, regional forces may be expected to form some kind of new coordination or tacit understanding in opposition to Israel. As the resistance strategy suffers setbacks, Iran as a regional threat will also decline, and the regional impetus to form alliances around the Iranian threat will be greatly reduced; its centripetal force will naturally dissipate, and the “Abraham process” will lose its internal momentum. On the other hand, through its strikes against the resistance front, Israel has greatly removed strategic obstacles and established military superiority; the rise of Israel’s military influence will become a prominent new feature of the regional order. Israel is both the direct cause of the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy and its greatest beneficiary. At the same time, Israel’s use of communications tools to carry out state violence and its making of assassination into a state strategy have cast a grave psychological shadow not only over Iran but also over surrounding Arab states. In particular, on September 9, 2025, Israel used the same method to strike targets inside Qatar, causing especially deep unease among the Gulf Arab states.

二是地区力量可望在反以色列方面形成某种新的协调或者默契。随着抵抗战略遭受挫折，伊朗作为一种地区威胁也将式微，围绕伊朗威胁组建联盟的地区动力也将大大衰减，其向心力自然随之涣散，“亚伯拉罕进程”将失去其内在动力。另一方面，以色列通过对抵抗阵线的打击极大地消除了战略上的障碍，并确立了军事上的优势地位，以色列军事影响力上升将成为地区秩序的突出新特点。以色列既是伊朗抵抗战略受挫的直接致因，也是最大受益者。同时，以色列利用通信工具实施国家暴力以及将暗杀作为国家战略的行为，不仅给伊朗而且给周边阿拉伯国家造成了严重心理阴影，特别是2025年9月9日，以色列以同样方式打击卡塔尔境内目标，尤其令海湾阿拉伯国家深感不安。

Arab states, Iran, and Turkey all belong to the Islamic world and are all members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. As a collective, their tendency to oppose Israel will rise. Although Turkey and the Gulf states will still be strategically influenced by the United States, and although they still have intricate contradictions with Iran, the possibility that they will take the opportunity to form an alliance to contain Israel is not great; nonetheless, some form of strategic tacit understanding or coordination will be inevitable. Since the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has held Arab and Islamic summits with much greater frequency, which reflects the tendency described above. Efforts among GCC states to strengthen joint capability-building and coordination mechanisms will regain momentum. The impetus for Saudi-Iranian reconciliation may shift from the internal needs of the two sides to responding to the complex situation caused by the rise of Israel’s military influence, presenting an important opportunity to reconstruct its foundations. Of course, whether this prospect appears will still depend on how the parties and major external powers conduct their strategies.

阿拉伯国家、伊朗以及土耳其等同属伊斯兰国家，都是伊斯兰合作组织的成员，作为集体，反对以色列的倾向将会有所上升。尽管土耳其和海湾国家在战略上仍将受到美国左右，且与伊朗仍然存在错综复杂的矛盾，利用机遇组建遏制以色列联盟的可能性不大，但某种形式的战略默契或者协调将会是必然的。新一轮巴以冲突爆发以后，伊斯兰合作组织举行阿拉伯和伊斯兰国家峰会的频率大大上升，便是上述倾向的体现。海合会国家之间加强联合能力建设和协调机制建设将重新获得动力；沙特和伊朗之间和解的动力可望从双方内在需要转变为应对由于以色列军事影响力上升所引起的复杂局面，面临重构基础的重要机遇。当然，这一前景是否出现仍将取决于当事方以及外部主要力量如何运筹。

2. The Basic Principles and Norms of Interaction Among Regional States Will Be Further Damaged（二）地区国家间互动的基本准则和规范将进一步遭到破坏

Because of its geographical fragmentation, the Middle East may be the region that comes closest to what Hobbes called the “state of nature,” and in contemporary international relations it is still a severe zone for the destruction of international rules and norms. Especially since the second decade of the twenty-first century, regional powers have competed viciously for spheres of influence, all kinds of international rules and norms have been gravely damaged, cross-border military operations have occurred with high frequency, and even the detention of sovereign-state leaders has taken place. Even so, before the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out, the principle of sovereignty in the Middle East was still barely observed. Apart from a few states such as Israel, most state leaders still had misgivings about violating the principle of sovereignty. The weak existence of this principle of sovereignty was of course related to the normative force of contemporary international society, but it was also closely related to Iran’s resistance strategy. Iran and its resistance front pursued a high-profile anti-Israel policy and were the only force in the Middle East with a certain strength and willingness to deter Israel, creating a degree of restraint on Israel’s excessive violations of state sovereignty.

中东因其地理上的破碎也许是最接近霍布斯所称之为“自然状态”的地区，在当代国际关系中更是国际规则和规范的重灾区。特别是在进入21世纪第二个十年以来，地区大国恶性竞争势力范围，各种国际规则和规范惨遭破坏，各种跨境军事行动高频发生，甚至还发生了拘押主权国家领导人的事件。但即使这样，在新一轮巴以冲突爆发以前，中东地区主权原则仍然勉强得到遵守，除了以色列等个别国家以外，大多数国家领导人对违反主权原则的行为仍然心存忌惮。这种主权原则的微弱存在固然与当代国际社会规范性力量的存在有关，也与伊朗的抵抗战略密切相关。伊朗及其抵抗阵线奉行高调反以色列政策，是中东地区唯一一支有一定实力并有意愿威慑以色列的力量，对以色列过度侵害国家主权的行为形成了一定的牵制。

As the resistance front declines, however, the fragile regional strategic balance will be further broken, and Israel will pursue its strategic objectives with still greater impunity. In fact, since the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as the resistance front has gradually weakened, Israel’s violations of international law, rules, and norms have reached a degree almost unsurpassed in the history of contemporary international relations. In September 2025, Israel attacked Hamas’s premises in Qatar, even though Hamas’s presence in Qatar and Qatar’s mediation of negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Hamas had been approved by the United States and by Israel itself.

而随着抵抗阵线的衰微，脆弱的地区战略平衡将被进一步打破，以色列将会更加有恃无恐地推行其战略目标。事实上，新一轮巴以冲突爆发以后，随着抵抗阵线逐步削弱，以色列在违反国际法、国际规则和规范方面达到了当代国际关系史上难以复加的程度。2025年9月，以色列袭击了哈马斯在卡塔尔的驻地，而哈马斯在卡塔尔的存在以及卡塔尔斡旋以色列与巴勒斯坦哈马斯之间的谈判，是得到了美国和以色列自己认可的。

It can be anticipated that the negative impact of the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy on the rules and norms governing interaction among regional states will spread further. The demonstration effect of Israel’s behavior will profoundly influence the evolution of the regional order. In the Middle East, with its intricate contradictions, Israel’s behavior today may well lead some countries to regard their own cross-border actions, and even more radical behavior, as only natural. The regional order may become still more turbulent not only because Israel’s behavior becomes more unbridled, but also because regional states imitate it covertly. Events in 2025, such as Israel’s support for the separation of the Suwayda region from Syria, its public recognition in early 2026 of Somaliland, a local government in Somalia, as an “independent sovereign state,” and the turmoil in Yemen, all furthered the trend toward fragmentation in the Middle East, and were to a great extent manifestations of the disorder described above.

可以预期，伊朗抵抗战略遭受挫折对地区国家间互动规则和规范的消极影响将会进一步扩散。以色列行为的示范效应将会深远地影响地区秩序的演变。在矛盾错综复杂的中东地区，今日以色列的行为很可能会使得一些国家将自己的跨境行动甚至更为激进的行为视为理所当然。地区秩序不仅可能因为以色列的行为更加肆无忌惮而更加动荡，而且可能因为地区国家暗中效仿而更加无序。2025年出现的以色列支持苏韦达地区从叙利亚分离、2026年初又公开承认索马里地方政府索马里兰为“独立主权国家”，以及也门纷乱等事件，均使得中东地区的碎片化趋势进一步发展，很大程度上便是上述失序的体现。

3. It Will Trigger a New Round of Adjustment in the Structure of Regional Agendas and New Regional Turbulence（三）引发新一轮地区议程结构调整和地区动荡

Because of its position as a “crossroads” in the global geostrategic landscape, the Middle East has become a key region of concern for great powers. The complexity of its many contradictions has caused hot-button agendas of conflict and confrontation within the region to emerge one after another. Because states within the region have different concrete interests, the issues they focus on also differ. But the Iran issue has, since the twenty-first century and especially since the 2003 Iraq War, long occupied a central place in global media, and has been the most important hot-button issue in the Middle East. The so-called Iran issue mainly includes the nuclear issue, the missile issue, and the issue of “cultivating proxies,” but at a deeper level it concerns the failure of the United States and Western countries to politically recognize Iran’s Islamic regime.

中东地区因其在全球地缘战略格局中的“十字路口”地位而成为大国关注的重点地区，其地域内各种矛盾错综复杂导致地区内各种冲突和对抗热点议程层出不穷。各个地区内国家因其具体的利益不同，所关注的议题也不相同，但伊朗问题则是21世纪以来特别是2003年伊拉克战争之后长期霸占全球媒体的重要热点议题，更是中东地区最重要的热点问题。所谓伊朗问题，主要包括核问题、导弹问题以及“培植代理人”的问题，但更深层次则是美国和西方国家尚未在政治上承认伊朗伊斯兰政权。

Successive U.S. National Security Strategy reports have named Iran. In discussing the Middle East, the 2025 National Security Strategy report called “Iran a force destabilizing the region” and held that Trump’s June 2025 airstrikes on Iran had “severely damaged Iran’s nuclear program.” Arab states also pay great attention to this issue, while Israel invokes the Iranian threat at every turn. After Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman became defense minister in 2015, Saudi Arabia actively formed alliances to contain Iran; Iran seemed to become the “number one public enemy” of the Gulf, represented by Saudi Arabia, and even of the entire Arab world. Worse still, in a 2018 interview with The Atlantic, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likened Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei to Hitler. He said that compared with Khamenei, Hitler was a good man. The Iran issue became the foremost regional agenda for objective reasons, namely that the rise of Iranian influence objectively caused unease among regional states, but even more as the result of subjective construction by the United States, Israel, and the Western countries as a whole. In any event, the fact that the Iran issue became the primary regional agenda objectively squeezed out other important Middle Eastern agendas, especially the Palestinian issue. The marginalization of the Palestinian issue once became the basic scholarly discourse on the structure of regional agendas.

美国历次《国家安全战略》报告都会点名伊朗，在2025年《国家安全战略》报告论及中东时，称“伊朗是破坏地区稳定的力量”，认为特朗普于2025年6月发起的对伊朗空袭行为“重创了伊朗核计划”。阿拉伯国家也高度关注该议题，以色列则言必称伊朗威胁。2015年萨勒曼王储担任国防部长之后，沙特积极组建遏制伊朗的同盟，伊朗俨然成为以沙特为代表的海湾乃至整个阿拉伯世界的“头号公敌”。更有甚者，2018年萨勒曼王储接受美国《大西洋月刊》采访时将伊朗最高领袖哈梅内伊类比为希特勒。他说，与哈梅内伊相比，希特勒是个好人。伊朗议题成为地区首要议程，既有客观原因，也即伊朗影响力上升客观上引起了地区国家的不安，但更是美国和以色列乃至整个西方国家主观建构的结果。但无论如何，伊朗问题成为首要地区议程客观上挤压了中东地区其他重要议程，特别是巴勒斯坦问题。巴勒斯坦问题被边缘化一度成为地区议程结构的基本学术话语。

As Iran’s resistance strategy suffers a major setback and Iran’s hard power declines, the structure of agendas in the Middle East will also undergo major adjustment. Iran is a regional power and will still remain active to some degree on the regional geopolitical stage, but Iran as a “problem” and a “threat” will no longer be the primary agenda confronting regional states. The existence of “threat” discourse is always closely related to construction, but construction always requires a certain basis in objective facts. The Palestinian issue, once marginalized, will return to the first rank of the regional agenda at least for some time to come. Since the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Israel’s violations of human rights on Palestinian territory and the military hegemonism pursued by Israel give regional states still more reason to place the Israeli threat and the Palestinian issue at the forefront of discussions of the regional agenda.

而随着伊朗抵抗战略遭受重大挫折，以及伊朗硬实力下降，中东地区议程结构也将出现重大调整。伊朗是一个地区大国，仍将在地区地缘政治舞台上保持一定的活跃度，但作为“问题”“威胁”的伊朗将不再是地区国家面临的首要议程。“威胁”话语的存在总是与建构密切相关，但建构又总是需要以一定的客观事实为基础。一度被边缘化的巴勒斯坦问题至少将在未来一段时间内重回地区议程的首要地位。新一轮巴以冲突爆发以来，以色列在巴勒斯坦领土上所实施的侵害人权的行为，以及以色列所推行的军事霸权主义政策更有理由让地区国家将以色列威胁和巴勒斯坦问题置于讨论地区议程的首位。

In addition, the decline of the resistance front will not cool down the many regional hot-button issues; on the contrary, because of greater fragmentation, it may lead once again to a proliferation of flashpoints, and the regional security situation may become more turbulent. Had the 2023 process of reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia deepened further, it could have led, under the impetus of reconciliation, to the cooling of various flashpoints in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere. The spillover from the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the setback to Iran’s resistance strategy have triggered an adjustment in the regional power configuration, but this adjustment does not necessarily mean the “surrender” of one side. Neither Lebanese Hezbollah, nor Iraqi anti-American armed groups, nor the Houthi forces have any intention of disarming, and Palestinian Hamas’s future development will undergo transformation. Many non-state actors will not automatically disappear; under the pressure of survival, they may instead continue to develop, and the regional situation may become still more turbulent.

此外，抵抗阵线式微非但不能导致诸多地区热点问题降温，反而有可能因其更加碎片化而再次出现热点问题丛生的状态，地区安全形势可能更加动荡。2023年的伊朗与沙特和解进程如果进一步深入发展，本可以导致黎巴嫩、叙利亚、伊拉克以及也门等各个热点在和解进程的带动下实现降温。新一轮巴以冲突外溢以及伊朗抵抗战略受挫引发了地区力量格局调整，但这种调整并不必然导致一方的“投降”，无论是黎巴嫩真主党，还是伊拉克反美武装以及胡塞武装都没有解除武装的意愿，巴勒斯坦哈马斯未来发展将出现转型。诸多非国家行为体非但不会自动消失，反而有可能在生存压力下继续发展，地区形势可能会更加动荡。

In sum, Iran and its resistance front were once an important component of the Middle Eastern geopolitical pattern. Although some states and forces regarded them as a negative factor for regional stability, they were still an important regional balancing force. Regional reconciliation processes such as Saudi-Iranian reconciliation once made it possible for the Middle East to experience a period of balance-based stability. However, after the outbreak of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as Iran’s resistance strategy suffered setbacks, the regional balance of power was damaged. The Middle East will enter a new period of turbulence; regional forces may enter a new round of differentiation and recombination; the Palestinian issue and Israeli military hegemony will once again become the foremost regional issues. At the same time, the Middle East may enter a still more disorderly stage of development because norms and rules are not given sufficient weight.

总而言之，伊朗及其抵抗阵线一度是中东地缘政治格局的重要组成部分，虽也曾经被一些国家和势力视为地区稳定的消极因素，但仍是一支重要的地区平衡力量。伊朗与沙特和解等地区和解进程一度使中东地区可能经历一段基于平衡的稳定。然而，新一轮巴以冲突爆发之后，随着伊朗抵抗战略遭受挫折，地区力量平衡遭到破坏，中东将进入新一轮动荡期，地区力量可望进入新一轮分化组合，巴勒斯坦问题和以色列军事霸权将再度成为地区首要议题，同时，中东地区可能因为规范和规则不被足够重视而进入更加失序的发展阶段。

Conclusion结 语

The formation of Iran’s resistance strategy has undergone a long process. It bears traces of the revolutionary era, but it is also a need of the post-revolutionary era to safeguard political and national security, and still more a subjective and objective reaction to the reality of hegemony and power politics in the Middle East. Iran’s resistance strategy overlaps to a great extent with the concepts of national security strategy and forward defense strategy, and even stands in a subordinate relationship to them; it has the attribute of safeguarding the state’s “private interests.” At the same time, because the resistance strategy opposes hegemony and power politics, it possesses a certain legitimacy and is a reaction to the uneven development of international politics and economics. Of course, because the resistance strategy carries expansionary geostrategic ambitions, it is to a certain extent one of the many factors of instability in the Middle East. Against the background of the latest round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, resistance organizations have suffered heavy blows, their network has been severely destroyed, their homeland deterrent forces have been gravely damaged, and the resistance strategy has suffered a serious setback. The fundamental reason is that Iran, under sanctions, does not have sufficient economic strength to sustain its resistance strategy; another reason is that Iran’s domestic political strife prevented it from implementing its deterrence strategy more effectively.

伊朗抵抗战略的形成经历了一个漫长的过程，既带有革命时代的痕迹，也是后革命时代维护政治和国家安全的需要，更是对中东地区所存在的霸权和强权政治现实的主观和客观反应。伊朗的抵抗战略与国家安全战略和前沿防御战略的概念存在很大程度的重叠，甚至是从属关系，具有维护国家“私利”的属性；同时，抵抗战略也因其反对霸权和强权政治故而具有一定正当性，是对国际政治经济不平衡发展的反应。当然，抵抗战略因其带有扩张地缘战略的雄心，故而在一定程度上是中东诸多不稳定因素之一。新一轮巴以冲突背景下，抵抗组织遭到沉重打击，网络遭受严重摧毁，其本土威慑力量遭到严重破坏，抵抗战略遭受严重挫折。之所以如此，根本原因在于处于制裁之下的伊朗没有足够的经济实力支撑其抵抗战略，也在于伊朗国内政治纷争导致其未能更有效地实施威慑战略。

As noted above, resistance is the inevitable reaction to power politics and hegemony; wherever there is power politics, resistance forces will necessarily exist. In this sense, the forces of resistance in the Middle East will not disappear because Iran’s resistance front has suffered setbacks. Instead, they will continue to exist in some form, and may even enter a new period of development after the setback. Vali Nasr, a well-known Iranian-American scholar, expressed a similar view at the Abu Dhabi Strategic Dialogue on October 11, 2025: “‘Resistance,’ as the metanarrative and fundamental worldview of Iran, the Islamic Republic, has not changed in essence... So long as occupation, unjust peace, and the normalization of Israeli military superiority exist in the Middle East, ‘resistance’ as an idea will continue to have a market, and Iran is prepared to use this.” After the “Twelve-Day War,” Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary Larijani and Foreign Minister Araqchi visited Lebanon several times, expressing support for Hezbollah and underscoring Iran’s intention to continue maintaining the resistance front. In the future, the various resistance forces will still exist in isolated fashion on the basis of striving for survival.

如前文指出，抵抗是对强权政治和霸权的必然反应，哪里有强权政治，哪里就必然存在抵抗力量。从这个意义上说，中东地区的抵抗力量非但不会因为伊朗的抵抗阵线遭受挫折而消失，反而仍将以某种形式继续存在，甚至是在挫折之后进入新的发展期。瓦力·纳斯尔（Vali Nasr）是知名的伊朗裔美国学者，他在2025年10月11日阿布扎比战略对话上也表达了类似的观点，“‘抵抗’作为伊朗（伊斯兰共和国）的元叙事和根本世界观，并未发生本质改变……只要中东地区存在占领、不公正的和平以及以色列军事优势的常态化，‘抵抗’作为一种理念就将继续拥有市场，而伊朗也准备利用这一点”。“十二日战争”之后，伊朗最高国家安全委员会秘书拉里贾尼以及外长阿拉格齐多次造访黎巴嫩，表达的是对真主党的支持，也凸显了伊朗继续维持抵抗阵线的意图。未来，各支抵抗力量仍将在争取生存的基础上以孤立的方式存在。

The setback to Iran’s resistance strategy will have far-reaching effects on the Middle Eastern order. As this factor is weakened, the Middle East will enter a new round of differentiation and recombination of forces; Israel and the United States may become still more emboldened; rules and norms in the region may face the risk of further destruction; and regional disorder may develop further. In the medium and long term, the Middle East will once again face the uncertain prospect of whether, through a new round of differentiation and recombination of forces, it can form a relatively balanced geostrategic pattern. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly spoken of building a new Middle Eastern order. In August 2025, Netanyahu said in an interview that he even “felt he bore a historical and spiritual mission,” and that he “very much longed for the vision of the Promised Land and Greater Israel.” Amos Yadlin, a retired major general of the Israel Defense Forces, published an article on the website of Foreign Affairs titled “The Post-Iran Era: America and Israel Can Build a New Regional Order,” in which he wrote that “Israel’s precision strikes, coupled with credible American deterrence, appear to be the right formula,” and that this “opens a historic window for a comprehensive political settlement that will reshape the Middle Eastern order.”

伊朗抵抗战略受挫将对中东地区秩序产生深远影响。随着这一因素被弱化，中东将进入新一轮力量分化组合，以色列和美国可能更加有恃无恐，中东地区规则和规范可能面临被进一步破坏的风险，地区失序的状态可能进一步发展。就中长期而言，中东将再次面临是否能够通过新一轮力量分化组合形成相对平衡的地缘战略格局的不确定前景。以色列总理内塔尼亚胡多次提及构建新的中东地区秩序，2025年8月，内塔尼亚胡在采访时甚至“觉得自己肩负着‘历史和精神使命’”，“非常憧憬应许之地和大以色列的愿景”。以色列国防军退役少将阿莫斯·亚德林（Amos Yadlin）以《后伊朗时代：美国和以色列可以建设新的地区秩序》为题在美国《外交事务》网站上发文指出，“以色列的精确打击，加上美国可靠的威慑，似乎是正确的方案”，它“为全面政治解决打开了一扇历史性的窗口，这将重塑中东秩序”。

Israel may be said to have great ambitions, but in an era of deepening multipolar order, military hegemony will not be the only factor defining the international order, nor can military hegemony define the future order of the Middle East. Although Israel has achieved military results, it may not be able to translate these gains into sustainable political victories. The geostrategic benefits it has obtained by crossing moral bottom lines and by military means will not only fail to gain recognition from regional forces such as the Arabs and Turkey; they are still less likely to receive political recognition from the international community beyond the region. The parties in the Middle East will remain far from reaching an inclusive agreement through negotiations. Moreover, after more than two years of high-intensity expansion, Israel’s various domestic economic and social contradictions have continuously accumulated, and whether its own political security can withstand the test remains an open question.

以色列方面可谓雄心勃勃，但在多极秩序深入发展的时代，军事霸权不会是界定国际秩序的唯一因素，军事霸权也不能界定未来中东地区秩序。尽管以色列在军事上取得了战果，但未必能将这些成果转化为可持续的政治胜利。其通过突破道德底线和军事手段所取得的地缘战略上的收益不仅得不到阿拉伯和土耳其等地区力量的认可，更不可能得到域外国际社会的政治承认。中东地区各方距离谈判达成包容性协议仍将遥遥无期。更何况，在历经两年多时间高强度扩张之后，以色列国内各种经济和社会矛盾不断积累，其自身政治安全是否经得起考验，也仍将是一个疑问。

…the essay continues at the source.