Hassan Nasrallah’s death at the hands of an Israeli airstrike has removed one of Iran’s last cards. With Hamas and Hezbollah effectively sidelined, Iran’s 45-year strategy of making itself the pre-eminent Middle East power is in tatters. With a potential return of Donald Trump to the White House, the regime could find itself negotiating for its own survival.

For the past 45 years, the Iranian regime has created and/or armed regional proxies such as Hezbollah; the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria; the Houthis in Yemen; and Hamas, in its attempt to make itself the pre-eminent Middle East power and constrain Israel by surrounding it with a “ring of fire”.