The geopolitical shorthand for Iranian power used to be the “Land Bridge”—a 1,000-mile artery of influence stretching from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean. In December 2024, that bridge collapsed into the rubble of the Assad regime. With rebels pouring into the capital of Damascus, Washington-Tel Aviv orthodoxy held that Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” had finally been beheaded. This was a moment of rash exuberance.

However, it became evident in January 2026 that this festive assessment was also hasty. The bridge, far from disappearing, has been replaced by something much more intense and turbulent: The Trilateral Fortress.

Without the Syrian buffer zone, the clerical regime in Tehran, the Shiite-dominated security apparatus in Baghdad, and the battle-hardened Hezbollah have merged into a survivalist bloc. This is no longer an ambitious empire trying to export the revolution. Those days are finished. This is now a transnational paramilitary operation aimed at averting the meltdown of the three remaining poles. The ‘Syrian Void’ has not removed the threat to the US and Israel—it has simply shifted the battle line to the doorsteps of Baghdad and Tehran.

The domestic mercenary shift

However, the most terrifying expression of this new reality is now taking place on Iranian streets. As the “Economic Uprising” of 2026 enters its second month, following the “12-Day War” in June 2025 and the subsequent hyperinflation, the Islamic Republic has launched a desperate strategic response. With its security factions either exhausted and potentially switching sides, the IRGC has called on its trusted allies for help in saving the regime.

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Reports coming in from the entry points in Mehran and Shalamcheh point to the importation of some 850 fighters from the ranks of........

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