Iran's network of influence in Mid-East 'growing'
Iran's regional rivals have spent billions of dollars on Western weaponry, much of it from the UK.Yet for a fraction of that cost, sanctions-bound Iran has been able to successfully embed itself across the region into a position of strategic advantage.It has a major influence - verging on a controlling influence in some cases - over the affairs of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
The fact that Iran has stealthily built up a network of non-state alliances right across the Middle East, often referred to as "proxy militias", is nothing new.Starting with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Islamic Republic has been seeking to export its revolutionary ideology and expand its influence beyond its borders ever since the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979.