A Cynic’s View: The Permanent Proxy War of Israel and Iran
Israel and Iran have been at odds since Israel’s inception in 1948 for a plethora of cultural and geopolitical reasons. The basis of their inability to resolve conflict after seventy-five years is best explained through a mutual desire to out-compete the other for the position of regional hegemon. The Israeli-Irani conflict may be understood as a realist conflict devoid of significant institutions or clear economic interdependence, despite both of their participation in these practices with other Middle Eastern countries. The main conflict centers around basic means of surviving vis-à-vis nuclear arsenals and the uncertainty of an extreme security dilemma. Both states view their conflict existentially; Israel must be stronger than Iran either alone or with outside support and Iran’s ideological existence centers around anti-Western values.
In acknowledging complementary theories of liberalism and constructivism, Israel and Iran have established institutions and agreements for economic interdependence with other countries in the region. Yet, Israel has had help circumventing the issue of security dilemmas with countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia from outside parties like the United States. However, the United States’ history of attacking Iranian nuclear plants and current nuclear policy sanctions prevents the same facilitation of peace as with other Middle East actors. From a constructivist perspective, the problem lies within norms and reputations of the two nations as cultural norms of a Shiite Iran and a Jewish Israel are at inherent ideological odds. As such, the security dilemma increasing the uncertainty surrounding the security of the two countries continues.
The first step to a security dilemma is anarchy, defined as the lack of a central authority, within a specific region. Due to extensive historical conflicts in the region and shifting power of various state and non-state actors with religious and cultural affiliations, the overall governance of the Middle East constitutes anarchy. The presence of a mitigating or overarching third party to keep these two states in check remains unlikely with the shifting allegiances and involvements of outside actors.
The second step to the security dilemma creation occurs when one state reaches the “self-help” stage, or enhances their power. In this conflict, Israel enhanced their power initially by fighting wars in the 20th century including the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War. More recently, however, enhancements of power relate to nuclear proliferation, such as the estimated 90 nuclear warheads stockpiled by Israel. Along with nuclear weapons, the two countries compete technologically and ideologically.
The third step of this security dilemma concerns uncertainty, particularly regarding motivation. This occurs when the second state, Iran, regards Israel’s power enhancement as a threat and subsequently increases their own power. The first component of uncertainty relates to Israel’s policy on nuclear weaponry, which to this day remains one of opacity. Not only does this increase mistrust from other powers, it does not allow for any direct arms control agreements. In particular, Israel has not signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or signed certain nuclear safeguards, despite global efforts to reduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Applying relative gains, in which one power does not care about a gain if the other side gains the same amount, Iran will never stop vying for nuclear power if Israel maintains its opaque nuclear arsenal. Cooperation, institutions, and norms fail in the face of communication breakdown.
Another component of uncertainty relates to Iranian nuclear power; the indistinguishability of civilian and military nuclear power contributes to deep distrust as evidenced by the joint United States-Israel attack on the Natanz Nuclear Facility. While the Iranian government asserts that the facility produces solely civilian nuclear power, Iran’s lack of transparency and hesitancy in allowing in depth inspections of its facilities has fostered indistinguishability between offensive and defensive technology, leading to a doubly dangerous scenario.
The United States and Iran are also engaged in a security dilemma. Current United States policy backs Israel as the democratic power of the Middle East, therefore contributing to the uncertainty of Israel’s military capabilities and outside support. However, Iran’s lack of transparency and compliance on nuclear weaponry places the United States in a position of uncertainty. Due to the two countries’ lack of direct diplomatic communication and the United States’ subsequent imposition of sanctions upon Iran, the security dilemma and distrust between the two countries has only increased. Furthermore, the United States’ somewhat frequent leadership changes create an unusual inconsistency in Middle East foreign policy. While the United States has attempted to circumvent sanctions and broker nuclear deals with Iran, the inherent ideological differences between the authoritarian Islamic regime and the democratic secular nation pit the two countries on yet another opposing front concerning the Israeli-Iranian ideological war. Israel would like to remain backed by the United States, while Iran has collaborated with Russia and supports decreased American nuclear sanctions.
In the case of Israel and Iran, the ideological war of Western democracy versus anti-Western authoritarianism pits significant blocs against each other. From Israel’s inception, France and Israel have brokered numerous arms deals with varying degrees of secrecy in order to mutually support each other’s interests in countering Egypt, the Soviet bloc, and various former French colonies. Around 1960, reports emerged of French nuclear technology appearing in Israel, although information about their cooperation was scarce. Another complication to this conflict involves non-state actors such as Hezbollah and Hamas, militant groups funded by proxies in Tehran. Hezbollah is materially based in Lebanon despite being financially supported by Iran while Hamas remains the de facto leadership of Gaza territory. Hezbollah focuses on the destruction of Israel as a state, while Hamas has engineered many offensive and defensive attacks on Israel as part of the adjacent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As such, Israel and Iran strongly reject any association or communication with each other. The volatility of these non-state actors increases the security dilemma of the region, as uncertainty increases in total anarchy. Effectually, conflict between Iran and Israel will persist according to realist theory until one power achieves decisive and destructive victory over the other in their quest for regional hegemony. Due to a relentless cycle of the security dilemma encouraged by unequal balances of power spurred on by relative gains in a state of anarchic rule, few options for peace remain.
