5 min readNew DelhiAug 2, 2026 07:37 PM IST
First published on: Jul 31, 2026 at 06:21 PM IST
Saudi Arabia has announced a mission to form an international alliance to guard the Red Sea from attacks on shipping by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. Last week, the Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea and threatened a broader blockade by closing the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a global chokepoint connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
While Riyadh seeks to deter the Red Sea attacks by forming the new international alliance, the entry of the Houthis in the US-Israel war on Iran has drawn renewed attention to the Axis of Resistance. Although it is believed that the war that began on 28 February 2026 weakened the Iran-backed Axis by targeting its key leaders, the Houthis’ entry has fuelled speculation that members of the Axis have “deepened their ties and ability to inflict damage to US allies in the region”.
What is Axis of Resistance?
The Axis of Resistance (Mihwar al-muqawama) refers to a coalition of forces – armed groups and state actors – led and supported by Iran in the West Asian region. Although the name was adopted in response to President George W Bush’s 2001 speech about the “Axis of Evil”, its evolution is traced to the 1979 Iranian Revolution and even earlier.
The core members of the Axis include Lebanon’s Hizbullah, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthi militia, Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, before its collapse in December 2024, and various other Shia militia groups in Iraq, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Although the Axis members are said to operate independently, a common strategic objective in the region – opposing the US presence and influence, its allies, and Israel – keeps them aligned. Following the 1979 revolution, Iran’s identity, national narratives, and worldview were redefined around resistance to imperialism and occupation, in which Islam and Shiism constituted the core components.
The resistance paradigm that emerged in this context became integral to Iran’s revolutionary identity and informed its domestic and foreign policy practices. The resistance paradigm also formed the core of the “ontological security codes of Iran and played an important role in the national narratives, routines, and anxiety control of the revolutionary Islamic identity,” argue Murat Cingöz et al. in Iran’s axis of resistance through the lens of ontological security (2024).
The Axis in Iran’s forward defence doctrine
Interestingly, the concerns for ontological security (the need of a state for a stable identity, distinct from physical survival) play a crucial role in the formation and maintenance of the Axis of Resistance. These Axis members are a core component of Iran’s forward defence doctrine. Floated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the doctrine sought to expand Iran’s influence across the region not just by fighting or attacking Israeli and American interests but also by exporting the Iranian revolution.
Iranian-American political scientist Vali Nasr, in his book Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (2026), notes: “In 2003, Iran formally embraced the strategic doctrine of forward defense (defa‘ pisehrou or defa‘-e roubejelo): the imperative of defending Iran by being present inside the Arab world, providing it with a minimum of “relative security” (amniyat-e nesbi).”
In Iranian foreign policy debates, the doctrine is seen as a reflection of the country’s “strategic vulnerability: a Persian Shia country in the midst of Arab and Sunni rivals, without any reliable alliances and facing containment imposed by the world’s principal superpower,” he adds.
Thus, the Axis of Resistance attaches an “existential meaning to the resistance paradigm”. For other regional actors, the Axis largely shaped their perception of Iran and security strategies. The Houthis’ recent attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea shipping underscore this strategic logic. It demonstrates how Iran’s network of allied groups continues to function as an instrument of its forward defence strategy and regional influence.
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The Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea and threatened a broader blockade. (File Photo/Reuters) 
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