Rising Lion and Iran With the conclusion of Operation Rising Lion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu iterated that Israel has accomplished its strategic operational goals, in particular, rolling back the Iranian threat in terms of both its nuclear weapons program and ballistic missiles. The accuracy of the conduct of the military operation by the Israeli air force, military intelligence, and … Read more The post The Collapse of Iran’s Proxy Strategy Exposes the Limits of Asymmetric Warfare appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.
Rising Lion and Iran
With the conclusion of Operation Rising Lion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu iterated that Israel has accomplished its strategic operational goals, in particular, rolling back the Iranian threat in terms of both its nuclear weapons program and ballistic missiles. The accuracy of the conduct of the military operation by the Israeli air force, military intelligence, and Mossad, and the intense focus in the opening stage of the operation, particularly the decapitation of the Iranian military chain of command, inflicted a strategic and humiliating defeat on Iran. The Israeli air force flew more than 1,000 sorties from a distance of more than 1,500km and struck Iranian nuclear sites Natanz and Isfahan, as well as ballistic missiles sites and launchers in western Iran. In doing so, the Israelis disabled the Iranian air defense systems, thereby establishing complete air superiority including over the capital Tehran, and attacked regime power structures such as the Basij paramilitary, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ministry of Defense, and police. Likewise, the targeted assassinations of Iran’s nuclear scientists, a vital group of people with know-how for the nuclear weapons program, were also a strategic action, eliminating or setting back Iran’s nuclear program. The US’s operation, codenamed Midnight Hammer, dealt the final blow against the nuclear program with strikes on nuclear enrichment sites Natanz, Isfahan, and the Fordow uranium enrichment site buried deep underground. This operation essentially paved the way for a ceasefire after 12 days of confrontation.
Israel and the US’s direct confrontation with Iran marks the total collapse of Tehran’s asymmetric warfare strategy. It is timely, therefore, to analyze the concept of proxy war and the limits of proxy war strategy. More importantly, Operation Rising Lion and Midnight Hammer raise questions about Iran’s proxy war strategy and whether that strategy has been successful or has finally failed. In looking at Iranian strategy, it is thus important to examine the following questions: What is proxy warfare? Why do states use it, and why are proxy groups unreliable? What is Iran’s proxy war strategy, and why has it failed?
Defining Proxy Warfare
In the Middle East’s complex geopolitical landscape, proxy conflicts have emerged alongside the rise of Tehran’s regional importance. As a result, proxy wars have become major security concerns. One of the primary reasons they are concerning is because they tend to blur the line between the mainstream concepts of war and peace, and they exploit those windows of opportunity.
During the Cold War, proxy wars became a central focal point of the rivalry between the two superpowers – the United States and the Soviet Union. The emergence of nuclear weapons pushed the US and the Soviet Union to avoid direct confrontation and the potential of nuclear annihilation. As a result, each superpower turned to third-party countries as their playgrounds for great power competition.
Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov defines a proxy war as an international conflict with the participation of a minimum of two states, where one or several parties to the conflict are forced or asked to go to war on behalf of another state. In other words, state A, the sponsor or benefactor, utilizes a local political movement to target state B in pursuit of its own (i.e., state A) strategic and national interest.
According to Tyrone Groh, a proxy war occurs when a intervening actor (actor A) directs a local political actor (actor B) toward accomplish its own (i.e., A) strategic goals, under the guise of indirectly influencing domestic affairs the target state. Put another way, using a proxy to achieve strategic and geopolitical goals, an intervening state incorporates a pre-existing local political actor as a client to accomplish its strategic interests. In doing, so the intervening state provides the necessary material support in the form of intelligence, weapons, military instructors, financial, ideological and diplomatic aid to a local actor in the target state to increase its capabilities. The indirect intervention does not necessarily mean that the intervening state’s actions are actual combat operations.
Amos Fox describes the complex, intermingled ties between the principal state and its client as a hierarchical relationship, while defining proxy war as a complex process of working against a common adversary with a shared goal. The relationship between the benefactor state and its surrogate proxy is hierarchical, and the primary objective of the proxy is to implement the goal shared with its patron. The intervening state consolidates its influence over its proxy if the latter stays primarily dependent on it, especially on its supply of financial and material aid.
Mumford argues that shaping and influencing a conflict’s strategic outcome is the primary goal of the intervening state or actors in a proxy war, as he defines a proxy war as an indirect engagement by a third party. States pursue a proxy war strategy for several reasons, among them mitigating the high risks of a direct military engagement in a conflict. Proxy wars are considered cheaper than demonstrating a state’s relative power in a direct confrontation. They also avoid the unpredictable outcome of a direct clash, which requires states to win, whereas in a proxy war, conflict management is the primary goal rather than full-scale victory.
Furthermore, Groh argues that states pursue several goals in an indirect engagement, such as winning a conflict, mounting a holding action, meddling, and feeding chaos. Groh, among many other proxy war scholars, says that different objectives or interests between an intervening state and a proxy complicate this relationship over time, thus proxies are not always reliable. Interests can diverge in the long run for various reasons: the proxy finds an alternative source of supply or its needs change; a shift in the dynamics of the conflict as the proxy loses its combat and political effectiveness; the intervening state has to change its strategy as a matter of urgency due to growing risks posed by the proxy war or common ground being found with the adversary; or the proxy becomes more powerful and self-reliant.
In Iran’s case, their principal-proxy relationships are seemingly strong. The bond between Tehran and its proxies, most of which area Shia, fuels a solid and divine dyad driven by the recognition of the religious authority of the Islamic Republic’s leadership. However, Iran’s case also demonstrates that a proxy strategy primarily intended to shield the intervening state and provide it with plausible deniability backfires when a proxy seeks direct intervention from the intervening state, as is demonstrated by Hezbollah’s request that Iran intervene directly against Israel in 2024.
Iran’s Shattered Proxy Strategy
Iran’s decades-long strategy of deterrence, based on the proxy warfare strategy and capacity building of surrogate groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and the Houthis in Yemen, was intended to create a Ring of Fire around Israel. With the conclusion of Operation Rising Lion the strategy has collapsed. Branded a so-called Axis of Resistance, the regional network of Iranian proxies in the Middle East enabled Tehran to emerge as a significant regional powerhouse. The Islamic Republic’s expansionist vision, chiefly the export of their political-religious-ideological revolution, has been branded as a messianic goal by many Iran-watchers. In 2006, Henry Kissinger famously said: Iran’s leaders have to “decide whether they are representing a cause or a nation”. This statement remains apposite today.
Close examination of Iran’s expansionist activities reveals offensive realist power projection tendencies, with the aim of establishing viable deterrence instruments and protecting the regime in Iran while it develops nuclear capabilities. Despite that strategy, Tehran’s strategic aim of outsourcing war away from Iranian soil and shielding Iran from direct attacks by enabling proxy groups in the region has ended in a strategic defeat for the Islamic Republic.
The October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel, and Hezbollah’s rocket attacks the following day, were examples of Iran’s Ring of Fire strategy in action. In the wake of initiating that strategy, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei declared that “our region was very much in need of this attack”. The October 7 attacks were part of Iran’s multidimensional strategy of preventing the expansion of the Abraham Accords, which are the process of normalization between Israel and the Arab states.
Moreover, on October 8, 2023, Tehran-backed Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel by launching rocket attacks from Lebanon on Israel. The Hezbollah’s actions followed a strategy of controlled escalation against Israel. Hezbollah was the most vital and strongest Iran-backed proxy group, considered the crown jewel in the Iranian network of proxies. It was such a precious asset for Tehran’s leaders that they did not want to sacrifice it in full-scale ground warfare with Israel, so they chose controlled escalation in order to force Israel to divide its resources tackling Hamas and Hezbollah.
Israel gradually changed the balance in the multi-front Iranian war, however, as they weakened Hamas capabilities throughout Gaza. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) intensified its air campaign in Lebanon, targeting and eliminating Hezbollah’s senior commanders. This was followed by the notoriously exploding thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies, and assassinating Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah.
In October 2024, the IDF expanded the scope of Israel’s operations by launching a ground offensive in southern Lebanon. This seriously weakened Iran’s network of proxies, and appears to have had a domino effect in the region with the fall of Iran’s ally, the Al Assad regime in Syria, in December. With Assad’s fall, Tehran indefinitely lost its strategic land bridge to the eastern Mediterranean and its proxy capabilities to threaten Israel from Syrian soil.
Former Israeli minister Naftali Bennett described Iran’s strategy as the “octopus doctrine”. It sent out its tentacles – such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza – to fight while the head of the octopus relaxed in safety at home. As defense minister, Bennett advocated the strategy of directly attacking the IRGC’s Quds force in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq – not just Tehran’s proxies – in order to prevent Iran entrenching itself in close proximity to Israel. Frequent airstrikes on Iranian personnel in Syria over the years prevented Iran from solidifying its strategic gains in the Syrian Civil War. Hamas’ October 7 attack was a strategic miscalculation that led to Operation Rising Lion, targeting Iran’s nuclear, military, and ballistic missile facilities and government institutions, as well as the assassinations of its nuclear scientists and top brass.
In summary, as Iran’s case shows that relying on proxies and asymmetric warfare possesses many limitations. When a proxy calls on its benefactor to intervene directly, the risks to the benefactor’s risk increase significantly. This flies in the face of proxy war logic. In addition, in these situations, if the benefactor does not rush to help its client the benefactor can lose the trust of its proxy and loss of reputation with the proxy. As the recent developments show, proxy groups cannot ensure viable deterrence or shield an intervening state indefinitely.
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