The Costs Of Asymmetric Warfare

 Iran was building an 'Axis of Resistance' via Gaza (Hamas), Lebanon (Hezbollah), and Iraq (various factions) .... 

Iran's - Axis of Resistance

 .... this was its own personal form of Asymmetric warfare.

But it comes at a considerable cost to the Iranian people. Now just to explain, asymmetric warfare often involves unconventional tactics and weapons, such as guerrilla warfare and terrorism. It can also involve insurgents, terrorist groups, or resistance militias operating in territory controlled by the stronger force ... but these need weapons and training for the fighters, as well as wages, and medical care, and as the decades roll by, family support and even pensions for widows or retired fighters etc ... all costly.

Iran has built a network of proxies across the Middle East since 1979, from Iraq, Yemen, to Syria and Lebanon and Gaza. As of 2022, Tehran had allies among more than a dozen major militias, some with their own political parties, that challenged local and neighboring governments in the false assumption that they would be a bulwark against Israel. For instance:

• Hamas had between 20,000 and 25,000 fighters before the Israel-HAMAS conflict began in October 2023 ... probably 15 - 18,000 now ... they all need funding.
• Hezbollah had at least 20,000 fighters, and up to 120,000 rockets prior to the recent war with Israel (of which around 5,000 are guided and accurate long range) ... its not clear how many fighters and their armaments have been destroyed recently, but many thousands of missiles and at least a few hundred fighters destroyed, but leaving many of fighters to support.
• In Syria, Iran backed the Assad regime with money and fighters.

So what does this all cost Iran? Well its main income is still oil, and a Reuters report said that Iran has managed, even under international sanctions, to export oil worth $35 billion annually, plus local smuggling adds a billion or so. Additionally U.S. law enforcement officials have identified an illegal multimillion-dollar cigarette-smuggling, fund raising, people smuggling operations, plus drug smuggling operations world-wide operated by Iranian backed terrorist groups to offset its costs supporting militias.

However in a 2016 speech, Nasrallah, Hezbollahs then leader, publicly announced for the first time that all of his organization’s funding comes directly from Iran, “The budget of Hizbullah, its salaries, its expenses, its food, its drink, its weapons, and its missiles come from the Islamic Republic of Iran ... As long as Iran has money, we have money… Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threaten Israel, we are receiving our money". He then added that the funding was directly transferred to the group, and not through banks and other financial institutions because of sanctions.

So an expensive undertaking for Iran. Now, the unwritten rule is that the interceptor missile always costs more than the missile being intercepted. Defense is more expensive than offense, so Iran has saved some money as it doesn't defend itself or proxy territories other than by attack. So when it launched 200 missiles at Israel, in October 2024, it cost the Iranians at least one million dollars to produce each long range missile, so $200m in total cost, but it cost around $1bn for Israel to defend the attack, with the more expensive defence missiles in the Iron Dome.

As to its proxy militias:

• Iran is said by the US to have given $400 million to Hezbollah between 1983 and 1989.
• In February 2010, Hezbollah received $400 million from Iran according to US estimates.
• As of 2018 (and 2020), US officials at the State Department estimated Iran transfers $700 million annually. 
• According to US figures, Tehran has historically given $100 million annually to Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad since the revolution.
• Syria was given $4.6bn credit (for oil, weapons etc).
• Yemen - Iran has pumped millions of dollars into supporting the Houthi rebels missile attacks on shipping.
• According to figures from the Wilson Center the State Department estimated that Iran spent more than $16 billion on support for the Assad regime and its proxies between 2012 and 2020 (this may include Syrian trade Credits inflating it). This amount is considerably higher than all the others quoted on the other sources I saw, so is a real outlier, and I've not used it in the calculation below. In particular if in cash as opposed to credits, it would represent a massive proportion of Iran's income in that time period, and be comparable with US aid to Israel. 
  

So ignoring the Wilson Center figures and Yemen and Syria (that credit won't be being used now), and doing back of cigarette packet maths from 1983 onwards:

• 1983: 41rs x $100m .... so up to $4.1bn to Hamas since 1983.
• Between 1983 and 1989 - $400 million to Hezbollah.
• But from 2010: $400m pa x 7yrs = up to $2.8bn.
• From 2018: $700m pa x 6 yrs = up to $4.2bn

So in all we are looking at up to $11.5bn over 40 plus years. A lot of this will be in the form of arms (uniforms, boots, mortars, bullets, mines and guns etc), then training, and of course the missiles, and so divided over 40 odd years would be up to $287.5m pa out of $35bn oil income. 

In contrast, US aid for Israel since 1946 is about $310 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance. The United States has provisionally agreed via a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to provide Israel with $3.8 billion per year through to 2028 ... Note: Nearly all US Aid to Israel is in the form of credits to purchase US weapons, so it actually helps keep US arms businesses going.

However, the relative cost to the economies of the USA and Iran of supplying this aid to each side is not comparable. As it currently stands the Iranians have wasted a lot of this money, because Hamas will not be free to ever attack Israel again. Hezbollah have not been able to resist Israel on the Lebanese border as it proclaimed, and will likely be forced to withdraw behind the Litani river (permanently this time) in any agreed peace truce.

The fig leaf of the Axis of Resistance is now fluttering in tatters, and with a future Trump presidency likely to be even more antagonistic towards Iran's theocratic regime, they might think that they could have better followed a different diplomatic path over the last 44 odd years.