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Iranian pro-government protesters burn an U.S. flag as they attend a demonstration in Tehran, Iran November 25, 2019. (Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency via REUTERS)Faced with the Trump administrations maximum pressure campaign and unexpected protests at home, Irans regime is fighting back from Gaza to Kabul.

Two days before Thanksgiving, as President Donald Trump was preparing his surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif phoned Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah and met with a delegation from the Taliban. The object of both discussions was to pressure U.S. and its allies: Zarif told the Talibanrepresentatives that Iran wants a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and offered al-Nakhalah Irans full support for PIJs valiant resistance against Israel.

Irans decisions to push the Palestinians to fight Israel and to encourage the Taliban are part of a regional policy that seeks to evict the U.S. from the Middle East and stir up trouble for Washington worldwide. This is Tehrans answer to the maximum pressure campaign of economic sanctions that the Trump administration has mounted since pulling the U.S. out ofPresident Obamas Iran nuclear dealin May 2018.

Iran fought its multi-front war against the U.S. in multiple ways. In the Persian Gulf, it twice struck at foreign oil tankers over the summer, shot down a high-tech U.S. drone in late June, and launched drone and cruise-missile attacks on key Saudi oil facilities in September. It is also seeking to use its terrorist proxies in the Gaza Strip to provoke Israel into a wider regional war. In the fall of 2018, Israel accused Iran ofordering PIJ to attackfrom Gaza. The Palestinian terrorist group has thousands of missiles and fighters in Gaza, but is smaller than Hamas. Its leadership lives abroad and keeps in close contact with Iran, which supports it even though its made up of Palestinian Sunni Muslims. (In general, Iran tends to work with Shiite groups such as Hezbollah.) Israel was concerned throughout thesummer of 2019 that PIJmight be trying to push it into a war in Gaza to distract it from Irans efforts to gain a permanent foothold in Syria and supply Hezbollah withprecision-guidedrockets. In response, Israel struck a PIJ commander onNovember 12, prompting the group to fire over 400 missiles over the Gaza border.

Evidence for how important the Palestinian group is to Iran comes from two phone calls that Zarif made after the November 12 battles. Irans Mehr News reported that Zarifcongratulated al-Nakhalahon November 17. Then Zarifcalled againon November 25. Irans message was clear: Keepthe pressureon Israel.

At the same time, Iran was also looking 1,900 miles away from the Gaza Strip, to Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Iran and the Taliban were onopposite sides of the war in Afghanistan, to the point where Iran almost invaded the country in 1998. Once the U.S. invaded to dislodge al-Qaeda after 9/11, Iran began to reconsider its antipathy toward the Taliban. The Islamic Republic now hopes to push the U.S. out of Afghanistan by whatever means are necessary and fill the resulting power vacuum. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has accused Tehran of being behinda May suicide bombing in Kabul. Peace talks withthe Taliban and the U.S. broke down in September, and Trumps Thanksgiving visit notwithstanding, Iran believes the U.S. is leaving Kabuland hopes to hasten the process.

As Iran works with PIJ and the Taliban, it also seeks to pressure the U.S. in the Gulf, in Iraq, in Syria, and in Lebanon. In Iraq, it hopes its allies in parliament and among various Shiite militias will force the U.S. to withdraw; militia mortar and rocket attacks have hit U.S. bases in the countryevery month since May. In Syria, Iran-backed militias allied withBashar al-Assads regimeare facing U.S. forces across the Euphrates, and would like tograb the oil facilitiesthat the U.S. is currently protecting. In Lebanon, Irans proxyHezbollah wantscontrol over the choice of the countrys next prime minister.

The Iranian regime is facing maximum pressure from the U.S. and suddenly finds itself squeezed at home, too, forced to brutally crack down on massive recent protests against a large gas-price hike. Its response has been to challenge the U.S. and American allies across thousands of miles of terrain from Kabul to Gaza. While it is cornered, it should not be underestimated.

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Irans Multi-Front War against America and Its Allies - National Review