At the end of his lengthy column in The Times, Amir Taheri concludes that

The mini war that is taking place between Israel and Hezbollah is, in fact, a proxy war in which Iran’s vision for the Middle East clashes with the administration in Washington. What is at stake is not the exchange of kidnapped Israeli soldiers with Arab prisoners in Israel. Such exchanges have happened routinely over five decades. The real issue is who will set the agenda for the Middle East: Iran or America?Elsewhere in his column, Taheri explains why Iran has decided to play its “Lebanon card” now:

Part of the answer lies in Washington’s decision last May to reverse its policy towards Iran by offering large concessions on its nuclear programme. Tehran interpreted that as a sign of weakness. Ahmadinejad believes that his strategy to drive the “infidel” out of the Islamic heartland cannot succeed unless Arabs accept Iran’s leadership.

The problem is that since the Iranian regime is Shi’ite it would not be easy to sell it to most Arabs, who are Sunni. To overcome that hurdle, it is necessary to persuade the Arabs that only Iran is sincere in its desire and capacity to wipe Israel off the map. Once that claim is sold to the Arabs, so Ahmadinejad hopes, they would rally behind his vision of the Middle East instead of the “American vision”.

That strategy pushed Israel to the top of Tehran’s agenda. This is why, in May, Tehran became the first country to grant the Hamas government in the occupied territories an emergency grant of £27m to cope with a freeze imposed by European Union aid and other international donations. As moderate Arab countries have distanced themselves from Hamas, Iran along with Syria has stepped in.

The pincer war launched by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel is also related to domestic politics. In the occupied territories, Hamas needs to marginalise Mahmoud Abbas’s PLO and establish itself as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In Lebanon, Hezbollah wants to prevent the consolidation of power in the hands of a new pro-American coalition government led by Fouad Siniora, the prime minister, and Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader.

(Shi’ites make up about 40% of the population, Christians 39% and Sunnis, Druze and others the remainder.) If the pincer war against Israel is won, Iran would be able to expand its zone of influence, already taking shape in Iraq and assured in Syria, to take in Lebanon and Gaza. This would be the first time since the 7th century that Persian power has extended so far to the west.

The strategy is high risk. If the Israelis manage to crush Hamas and destroy Hezbollah’s military machine, Iran’s influence will diminish massively. Defeat could revive an internal Hezbollah debate between those who continue to support a total and exclusive alliance with Iran until the infidel, led by America, is driven out of the Middle East and those who want Hezbollah to distance itself from Tehran and emphasise its Lebanese identity. One reason why Hezbollah has found such little support among Arabs in Egypt and Saudi Arabia this time is the perception that it is fighting Israel on behalf of Iran, a Persian Shi’ite power that has been regarded by the majority of Arab Sunnis as an ancestral enemy.

Indeed it is, and it’s more than vaguely reminiscent of the defining feature of the Cold War. It was simply too dangerous for Americans and Russians to use military force against each other directly. Arming proxies was the means by which the U.S. and the Soviet Union made war on each other without risking the destruction of their homelands. For the countries—mostly in Asia and Africa—that were the battlefields where the Cold War was fought, the superpower controntation was anything but cold. It’s essential to remember that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Soviets had made substantial inroads into the Mideast and France was the primary arms supplier to Israel. It was after that war that France tilted toward the Arabs and the U.S. took its place as Israel’s protector.

In today’s Mideast crisis, the Iranians have taken the place of the Soviets. Like the former USSR, Iran is an ideological enemy of the U.S. that’s an expansionist power. Neither we nor Iran have attacked the other during the current crisis—so far at least. Hezbollah and, increasingly, Hamas are Iran’s (and Syria’s) proxies. Israel is ours. Lebanon and Gaza are the battlefields.

Of course, there are some important differences between then and now: Iran doesn’t have nuclear arms—yet, and Iran is a regional—not a global—expansionist power. The Cold War template isn’t a perfect fit, but it’s good enough.

No one, including the Lebanese Prime Minister, denies that Hezbollah is Iran’s and Syria’s proxy. On July 19, the New York Times reported that American and Israeli officials had said the successful attack the previous Friday on an Israeli naval vessel was the strongest evidence to date of direct support by Iran to Hezbollah. The attack was carried out with a sophisticated antiship cruise missile, the C-802, an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm.

Sponsors provide proxies with arms and ammunition. That, after all, is what sponsoring proxies means. It has long been known that Iran has armed its proxies.i; that it had done so is accepted as fact and has produced little or no outrage, in America or in Europe.

In some circles, America’s support of its proxy is producing concern and outrage. Last Friday, the New York Times revealed that

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week . . . The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah. [emphasis added]

The Times article implies that it’s not in our interest to assist our proxy in a way that can be “compared” with Iran’s assistance to its proxy. In the blogosphere, this thinly-veiled endorsement of asymmetric proxy warfare is carried one step further.

Glenn Greenwald avers that

Now we are handing Israel the very bombs that they drop in order to flatten more and more of Lebanon, on a bomb-by-bomb basis . . . Whatever else might be true, the bombs that will be blowing up all sorts of things and people (beginning) in Lebanon over the next weeks, likely months and perhaps longer will have come directly from the U.S. And everyone, including the Muslims whose “hearts and minds” were ostensibly the object of our invasion of Iraq, will know that. That doesn’t exactly seem like a sound strategy for diffusing Muslim animosity towards the U.S.—which happens to be the Bush administration’s stated goal.

I will spare you the rest of Greenwald’s long-winded diatribe against the war-loving, hate-filled neocons. Taking his argument to its logical conclusion, the optimal policy for “diffusing Muslim animosity” would be for us to cut-off all aid to the Israelis. That would really be asymmetric proxy warfare. There’s no need for me to list what would be the consequences.

The idea that different standards of behavior should be applied to the sponsors isn’t the only asymmetry. Having been called upon by UN Secretary Kofi-Annan in July 2001 to cease its policy of targeted assassinations, which were in violation of international law; condemned in July 2004 by the International Court of Justice, which found that “the construction by Israel of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its associated régime are contrary to international law;” and, earlier this month, being accused by Annan and others of using “excessive” or “disproportionate” force and violating international law by so doing, Israel can rightly wonder whether there is anything it can do to protect its citizens without being soundly criticized.

While the deeds of our proxy can’t escape a spotlight that’s as strong as, if not stronger than, the one shown upon us, those of Iran’s proxies exist in the shadows. As evidence, consider the absence of publicity surrounding Human Rights Watch’s accusations regarding Hezbollah’s war crimes. The Lebanese government, which harbors Hezbollah’s state-within-a-state, wasn’t brought to the court of public opinion before the current war began and hasn’t since. Hezbollah hides under the skirt of Lebanon’s government; Hamas hides under the PLO’s Abbas. Hamas has the further advantage of operating in a territory—a fact that prevents it from being subject to the scrutiny it would be given if the Palestinians had a recognized state. Perhaps this explains why Hamas’ actions are seemingly intended to prevent Palestinian statehood.

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, for now at least, the deck in this proxy war is stacked in Iran’s favor, and, further, that there are some Americans, conveniently described as residing in the Democratic party’s left-wing, that prefer to have it that way. I can’t say whether theirs is a politics of illusion—failing to understand what’s at stake—or a politics of disillusion—hating Bush and all the lesser neocons. It’s probably both.

NOTES:

  1. For example, in January 2002, Israel intercepted the Karine-A, a Palestinian freighter laden with arms and explosives supplied by Iran↩