Proxy Wars: Spreading the Load or Increasing Instability?

Last month the Western-backed government of Lebanon made a bold attempt to reduce the power of Hezbollah, the principal Shia party, backed by Iran. This effort ended in rapid and bloody failure. The Lebanese army stepped in, but not to enforce the government's will. Instead the army brokered a settlement that effectively confirmed Hezbollah's power in Lebanon. The American-backed government had been publicly humiliated by Iran's proxy in Lebanon.

This outcome merely confirmed the situation that has existed since 2006. In that year Israel, America's most powerful proxy, willingly undertook the task of destroying Hezbollah. However, it failed and the bloody stalemate that was the result of the July war could be presented by Hezbollah as a victory for them and, implicitly, for Iran.

Why do the United States and Iran need to fight each other through proxies? Do such proxy wars decrease or increase international instability? And if such conflicts do not yield the desired results, will the principals behind the proxies eventually be drawn into direct military involvement?

Proxy wars are obviously attractive to Iran because it can strike at the interests of the United States yet deny direct involvement. Thus the long-threatened and long-feared American attack on Iran can be avoided. Also, Iran, unlike the United States, can exercise a more direct control of its proxies. Hezbollah, like all Shia militant groups around the world, has only one foreign power it can turn to for support and that is Iran.

If Iran is happy to exploit proxies to avoid direct confrontation with the West, why does the United States, the world's only remaining military superpower, feel the need to do so? The fact is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have tied down most of America's land forces. Any further expansion of their commitments would be difficult to sustain and unpopular with voters.

Thus, to spread the load, the United States is happy to call in proxies to fight its battles. Kurdish support has been invaluable to the Americans in Iraq, while Pakistan has engaged in repeated and often bloody campaigns against Islamist militants in its borderlands with Afghanistan.

However, these proxies are less reliable than those employed by Iran. The current Pakistani government's attempts to achieve a peaceful settlement with its border militants has created considerable alarm in Washington. There have been renewed calls for direct American military intervention in Pakistan, the very action that proxy wars are supposed to avoid.

If 2006 witnessed the failure of Israel, America's proxy, to crush Hezbollah, it did see an apparently more successful use of proxy forces in the Horn of Africa. During the year Islamist forces had taken control of most of central and southern Somalia and the Americans were anxious to remove them. Ethiopia was to act as America's proxy, invading Somalia in December. The invaders quickly drove the Islamists from power and installed a Somali government which enjoyed international support. There were promises that Ethiopian forces would be withdrawn within a few months.

Today, more than eighteen months later, Ethiopian forces are still in Somalia, fighting an apparently endless war against Islamist guerrillas, while the Somali government in Mogadishu is on the verge of collapse. To bolster its proxies, the United States has been ready to carry out a few direct military attacks, mostly airstrikes, in Somalia. Such direct American intervention is still unthinkable in the Lebanese proxy war, but it may become more common in the Horn of Africa.

During 2006 the United States backed military action by its proxies, Israel and Ethiopia, against Islamist parties in Lebanon and Somalia. In both cases the interventions have not had the desired results. The respective Islamist groups continue to exist and fight on. America sent in proxies to avoid having to do the job itself, but if the proxies fail, will the Americans eventually be forced to undertake some form of direct military intervention? At a time when Islamist resistance continues in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be unwise for the United States to be drawn into new theatres of conflict.