The escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran in recent months is commonly explained as one other extension of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. After all, Hamas maintains close relations with Iranand each share the goal of eliminating the Jewish state.
But that is not all.
As a security studies scholar who has conducted research conflicts within the Middle East for over 20 yearsI argue that a decade of American foreign policy within the region has didn’t contain Iranian ambitions and, quite the opposite, has contributed significantly to the present escalation.
As it results from the last events along Israel’s northern borderWashington’s ability to project power and manage American interests within the Middle East has eroded so dramatically since 2010 that Iran has grow to be less concerned about the implications of attacks by its proxies on U.S. forces and direct attacks on U.S. allies similar to Israel.
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Iran’s victories
The government of Iran, a Shiite Muslim state in a Sunni Muslim region, is expanding its regional influence by funding and militarily supporting brutal proxy organizations in neighboring countries. These groups, in turn, attack and destabilize these nations.
Over the past decade, this clever strategy has proven to be Iran is arguably probably the most influential superpower within the Middle East.
Until the early 2010s, Iran’s only real foothold within the region was Hezbollah, a Shiite political and military group raised in Lebanon within the early 80’s.Iran’s current alliances include Houthi rebels in Yemen and loyal network of Shiite militias in IraqIn Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has allowed Iran’s elite fighting force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to construct massive military presence.
Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, triggering the war within the Gaza Strip, these groups have been directly attacking Israel, US Military Bases and US Civilian Assets within the region greater than 170 timesThe political and military sovereignty of Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq has been so worn out that some American officials consider them Iran’s Puppet Regimes.
During the identical period, Iran’s military nuclear program reached its most advanced stage. In July 2024, six years into the Trump administration withdrew from the international nuclear agreement US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Iran is weeks away from a point where it’ll give you the chance to decelerate Iranian weapons development. to equip its vast and ever-growing arsenal of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
Misunderstandings, containment and oversimplification of diplomacy
Despite Iran’s quite a few recent military and political advances over the past decade, the U.S. government has consistently underestimated its ambitions for regional dominance. At the identical time, in my opinion, it has overestimated the effectiveness of long-standing U.S. actions.soft power“policy towards Iran: containment and de-escalation.
To avoid an escalation of the conflict within the Middle East, Washington is prioritizing actions that may avoid, in any respect costs, any military confrontation with Iran. Instead stop Iran’s expanding regional influenceThe United States has banned the sale of weapons and technology to Iran, imposed tough economic sanctions, frozen Iranian financial assets and diplomatically isolated its government.
Yet Iran’s influence continues to grow. In my view, this means that containment and de-escalation cannot stop a regime whose core policy is fundamentalist ideology. Iran’s leaders discuss with religious beliefs to justify their commitment to brutal fighting, regional superiority and the destruction of Israel.
“If Allah allows, in 25 years there will be no Zionist regime,” he said. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneiin 2015, calling the fight to annihilate Israel a matter of “jihad morale.”
I consider that diplomacy, negotiation, and legal and economic punishment are higher solutions to most global conflicts. However, recent history shows that these means cannot force policy change on undemocratic, fundamentalist regimes that disregard the foundations of worldwide diplomacy – think Nazi Germany, North Korea and Afghan Taliban Regime.
How Not to Deal with Proxy Servers
My Scholarship on Terrorist Groups suggests that the U.S. has made a mistake in its handling of Iran’s proxies. Rather than treating them together as a part of a hostile network, the U.S. treats each proxy as an isolated actor operating in a specific location and seeks to discourage or mitigate that specific threat.
In Yemen, for instance, the U.S. has didn’t stop Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from taking up territory and essentially replacing the federal government. The Biden administration in 2021 even pressured U.S. ally Saudi Arabia to stop military support for the country’s legitimate leaders in a bloody struggle to keep up power. After the war in Gaza began, the Houthis, following Iran’s orders, began firing dozens of missiles at Western-flagged ships within the Red Sea.
It was not until early 2024 that the United States confronted the Houthis, which resulted retaliatory military attacks on Houthi bases in Yemen.
In Iraq, the United States has long been willing to disregard the undeniable fact that Iran supports Iraqi Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State, so long as those forces continued to take part in the war against the Islamic StateIgnoring the long-term consequences of their growing power comes at a price: Iraqi militias have attacked multiple American military bases within the region.
In Syria, despite the expansion of Iranian influence after the civil war in that country, the United States has regularly reduced its support for anti-Assad rebels and pro-democracy Kurdish forces.
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The Collapse of American Deterrence
All these failed foreign policies led to the downfall American Deterrence within the Middle East. In short, the United States not has sufficient force there to discourage Iranian military motion.
In April 2024 after Israel killed high-ranking officials on the Iranian embassy complex in SyriaIran launched certainly one of the most important missile attacks in historyfiring over 300 rockets at Israel – for the primary time in history direct attack on Israel. However, this had marginal consequences, mainly economic sanctions and diplomatic outrage.
The United States, which had mobilized Israel’s allies within the Middle East to shoot down a lot of the Iranian missiles, once more preferred to dam a significant response. The Biden administration hailed the undeniable fact that few missiles hit Israel as a “victory” and insisted that the United States wouldn’t join Israel in any retaliation against Iran.
America’s deep reluctance to escalate was further exposed after targeted killings of top Hezbollah and Hamas leadersAt the top of July 2024 Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr killed in Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a bombing at a government guesthouse in Iran. Iran blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s killing; The New York Times reported that “several US officials who asked to remain anonymous also made this assessment.”
Iran immediately He promised revenge.
For months, the United States has been pressuring Israel to just accept more precision-based military operations to avoid further civilian casualties within the Gaza war, which has killed almost 40,000 people in the primary six months. But when Israel apparently finally did so, eliminating specific terrorists chargeable for killing Israelis and Americans, American policymakers feared that such cross-border attacks may lead to regional escalation.
If the United States wants to attain lasting peace within the Middle East, it must first acknowledge the failures of the past decade. The evidence supports my conclusion that Iran is an enemy that can’t simply be deterred, contained, or softened.