Emboldened by the chaos in Iraq and Syria, and the withdrawal of U.S. regional influence, the Islamic Republic aspires to push westward, uninterrupted, to the Mediterranean Sea through a network of clients and allies. This plan, writes Martin Chulov, has become increasingly evident as it nears realization:

The corridor starts at the entry points that Iran has used to send supplies and manpower into Iraq over the past twelve years. They are the same routes that were used by the Quds force [of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] to run a guerrilla war against U.S. forces when they occupied the country—a campaign fought by the same Iraqi militias that have since been immersed in the fight against Islamic State (IS). . . .

The militias are now, . . . in large numbers, . . . readying to move toward the western edge of Mosul, to a point around 50 miles southeast of Sinjar, which—at this point—is the next leg in the corridor. . . .

Of all the points between Tehran and the Syrian coast, Aleppo has concentrated Iran’s energies more than anywhere else. Up to 6,000 militia members, mostly from Iraq, have congregated there ahead of a move to take the rebel-held east of the city, which could begin around the same time as the assault on Mosul. . . .

“If we lose Syria, we lose Tehran,” [the Quds-force commander, Qassem] Suleimani told the late Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi in 2014. “We will turn all this chaos into an opportunity.”

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”