Esmail Qaani Runs Iran's Proxy Network. He Cannot Control It Anymore.

Esmail Qaani inherited the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force in January 2020, hours after an American drone strike killed his predecessor, Qassem Soleimani, outside Baghdad International Airport. Four years later, the regional architecture Soleimani built across Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza is operating with unprecedented autonomy—not because Tehran planned it that way, but because Qaani cannot hold it together.

For Ali Reza Mansouri, a former Quds Force logistics coordinator who defected to Jordan in November 2025, the shift became undeniable in April 2024. "We used to receive detailed instructions every 72 hours—targets, timing, weapons allocation," he told The Editorial from Amman, where he now works with Western intelligence agencies. "After the Israelis hit our commanders in Damascus and Beirut, the messages stopped coming. Local groups started making their own decisions. Qaani was supposed to be the conductor. He became a messenger."

The Network Soleimani Built

Soleimani spent two decades constructing what analysts at the International Crisis Group describe as "the most effective non-state military network in modern Middle Eastern history." Hezbollah in Lebanon received an estimated $700 million annually, transforming from a militia into a parallel state with 150,000 rockets, an intelligence apparatus, and social services for 1.2 million Shia Lebanese. Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces absorbed $340 million per year and 140,000 fighters. The Houthis in Yemen, armed with Iranian anti-ship missiles and drones, have attacked more than 2,000 commercial vessels in the Red Sea since October 2023, according to Lloyd's List Intelligence. Hamas in Gaza received $100 million annually, split between military hardware and governance subsidies.

Soleimani's genius lay not in ideology but in logistics and personal relationships. He met commanders face-to-face in Damascus, Beirut, and Baghdad, often multiple times per month. He controlled the money, the weapons routes through Syria, and the strategic priorities. He was, in the assessment of Ariane Tabatabai, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "irreplaceable—not because of his tactical skill, but because he held personal trust across sectarian and national lines that cannot be institutionalized."

Qaani's Impossible Inheritance

Qaani, 68, spent three decades as Soleimani's deputy, focusing primarily on Afghanistan and Pakistan—not the Arab proxies he now commands. Unlike Soleimani, who spoke fluent Arabic and cultivated personal loyalty among Lebanese, Iraqi, and Palestinian commanders, Qaani relies on translators and maintains a lower profile. His first year was dominated by COVID-19, which prevented in-person meetings. His second year saw the Taliban seize Kabul, pulling his attention eastward. By his third year, Israel had begun systematically killing the commanders who once reported to Soleimani.

The assassinations have been surgical. In January 2024, an Israeli airstrike in Damascus killed Razi Mousavi, Qaani's senior deputy for Syria operations. In July 2024, Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah's military chief and Qaani's primary interlocutor in Beirut, died in a precision strike on his apartment in Dahieh. In February 2025, Mahmoud al-Jamal, who coordinated Iraqi militia financing, was killed by a drone in Baghdad's Karrada district. In September 2025, three Quds Force officers responsible for Houthi weapons transfers died when their convoy was hit near the Syria-Iraq border.

The Money Has Slowed

Iran's economy, battered by sanctions and mismanagement, is no longer generating the revenue to sustain Soleimani's network at its peak capacity. Oil exports, which funded the Quds Force budget, have fallen from 2.5 million barrels per day in 2017 to 1.4 million barrels per day in 2025, according to Kpler, a commodities data firm. The rial has lost 78% of its value against the dollar since 2018. Inflation reached 47% in March 2026, forcing budget cuts across all government ministries, including the IRGC.

Hezbollah's annual subsidy has dropped from $700 million to an estimated $480 million, according to a March 2026 report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Iraqi militias report payment delays of up to four months. Houthi commanders in Yemen told Reuters in February 2026 that Iranian fuel shipments—critical for operating drones and power generation—had been cut by 40% since mid-2025. Hamas, already isolated after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered a devastating war in Gaza, has received minimal Iranian support since late 2024, with Tehran prioritizing Hezbollah and the Houthis, who offer more strategic return on investment.

Fragmented Operations

The clearest evidence of fracture appears in the Houthis' Red Sea campaign. While Iran supplies the missiles and drones, Yemeni commanders now choose their own targets with minimal coordination from Tehran or other proxy groups. On March 12, 2026, Houthi forces struck a Liberian-flagged tanker carrying Russian oil—a target Soleimani would never have approved, given Iran's alliance with Moscow. Qaani issued no public reprimand. A senior European intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Editorial that "the Houthis are pursuing their own war now. Iran arms them, but it does not direct them."

In Iraq, the Popular Mobilization Forces have splintered into competing factions. Kataib Hezbollah, once the most disciplined pro-Iranian militia, announced in January 2025 that it would suspend attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria—a unilateral decision that contradicted Qaani's standing orders, according to leaked IRGC communications published by the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium. Other factions, including Asaib Ahl al-Haq, continue sporadic rocket attacks on American bases, but without centralized targeting or strategic coherence.

Hezbollah remains the most cohesive element of the network, but even there, signs of drift have emerged. In December 2025, Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets into northern Israel without notifying Qaani in advance, according to two Israeli defense officials interviewed by Haaretz. The strike killed three Israeli civilians and triggered a week of Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon. Hezbollah's deputy secretary-general, Naim Qassem, later described the attack as a "defensive response to Israeli provocations"—language that suggests tactical decision-making, not strategic coordination with Tehran.

Israel's Calculated Disruption

Israel's campaign against the Quds Force has been relentless and methodical. Since October 2023, Israeli intelligence has identified and killed 47 senior commanders across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran itself, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The strikes target not just field operatives but the logistical and financial officers who move money, weapons, and intelligence across borders. In April 2025, Israel killed two Quds Force colonels in Tehran—a brazen attack that demonstrated Iran's inability to protect its own commanders on home soil.

The effect has been cumulative. Each assassination removes institutional knowledge, severs personal relationships, and forces inexperienced replacements into command roles. "You cannot replace a brigadier who spent 20 years working with Hezbollah overnight," said Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. "The new guy does not have the trust, the contacts, or the context. So the proxies start filling the vacuum themselves."

What Tehran Still Controls

Qaani retains significant leverage—primarily through control of weapons supply routes and financial transfers. Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias remain dependent on Iranian missiles, drones, and advanced targeting systems they cannot produce domestically. Syria's land corridor, despite Israeli airstrikes, still functions as the primary artery for moving materiel from Iran to Lebanon. Iranian-backed militias control key border crossings between Iraq and Syria, ensuring continued flow of weapons and personnel.

But control over supply is not the same as control over strategy. The proxies can still act—and increasingly do—without Tehran's blessing. For Iran, this presents a strategic paradox: the network remains potent enough to threaten Israel, destabilize Iraq, and choke Red Sea shipping, but it is no longer responsive enough to serve as a precision instrument of Iranian foreign policy. Soleimani's network was a scalpel. Under Qaani, it is becoming a blunt instrument that occasionally cuts its operator.

What Comes Next

The fragmentation is unlikely to reverse. Qaani, now 68, shows no sign of developing the personal charisma or tactical brilliance that defined Soleimani's command. Iran's economy, absent a major shift in oil prices or sanctions relief, cannot restore funding to pre-2020 levels. Israel's intelligence penetration of the Quds Force appears deeper than at any point in the organization's history, making safe communication and travel nearly impossible for senior commanders.

For U.S. and Israeli policymakers, the question is not whether the network will collapse—it will not—but whether a decentralized proxy force is more or less dangerous than a centrally commanded one. Autonomous militias may lack strategic coordination, but they are also less predictable and harder to deter. A Hezbollah commander operating without Tehran's explicit approval might escalate a border skirmish into a regional war. A Houthi unit might strike a target that triggers a wider maritime conflict. Soleimani's genius was knowing when to pull back. His successors, scattered and besieged, may not have that option.

Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, put it plainly in a March 2026 briefing: "Tehran built a network it could direct. Now it has a network it can only hope to influence. The risk is not that the proxies will abandon Iran—they won't. The risk is that they will drag Iran into conflicts it cannot control and wars it cannot win."