A War of Choice and a War of Necessity :: Gatestone Institute

Last week, in one day of an undeclared war, one of the key players suffered more than 500 deaths and more than 1,600 injuries, for a total of more than 2,200 casualties.

The country in question has 5 million inhabitants. Now imagine if that number of victims had occurred in a country with, for example, 90 million inhabitants; the proportional number of victims would amount to as many as 34,000.

Well, as you guessed, the first country mentioned is Lebanon, which is engaged in a war on behalf of the second country, i.e. the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I said: dragged into a war because, as everyone must know, neither the Lebanese people nor what is still considered the Lebanese government have been consulted on the wisdom, let alone the desirability of unleashing such a war .

This tragic episode has created a new category of war: kangaroo proxy war.

In it, the proxy uses the territory of a nation with no interest in or desire for war to protect and promote the real or imaginary of a distant master.

Broadly speaking, we have two types of wars: by choice and by necessity. In a war of choice, a main character enters voluntarily and without any pressure out of necessity. The United States was drawn into the Vietnam War by choice, as was the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and more recently Russia in Ukraine. In none of these cases did the side that entered a civil war, as was the case in Vietnam and Afghanistan, or unleashed an unnecessary war, as is the case in Ukraine, faced any mortal danger or serious threat to its vital interests.

The war of necessity, however, is caused by the feeling that a protagonist’s vital interests, and even his survival, may be in danger.

Back to the current wars in our region. Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel was a war of choice. Hamas did not face any mortal danger from Israel, and Gaza fared relatively better thanks to a fairly long period of calm, growing foreign investment, and a tripling of Israeli work permits for Gaza day laborers. There was no way that Israel would want to retake Gaza and drive out Hamas.

In practical, that is, non-ideological terms, Hamas could have chosen to live

with and benefiting from the status quo, rather than trying to disrupt it in a way that forces the adversary into a necessary war.

Israel’s initial response to the October 7 attack was a necessary war, at least in terms of geopolitical perceptions.

Israel found itself in the same situation as the US after September 11. At the time, the US could have limited its response to a police operation to oust the Taliban and, if possible, capture Osama bin Laden and his top associates, without engaging in a twenty-year, low-intensity war with no discernible geopolitical benefit for America.

What had started as a war of necessity turned into a war of choice when America’s Democrats, after declaring the war in Iraq “the wrong war,” called the fuss in Afghanistan “the right war.”

Is Israel moving in the same direction by turning a war of necessity into a war of free will?

It’s still too early to give a definitive answer to that question. What is clear, however, is that the activities of Tehran’s allies in Yemen, Iraq and especially Lebanon embolden those in Israel who want to turn a war out of necessity into a single choice with the ultimate goal of eliminating Hezbollah and, later, why not, the The Khomeinist regime in Tehran.

Whichever way you look at it, the war of choice that Hezbollah started by breaking the 2006 ceasefire agreement and ignoring UN Security Council Resolution 1701 is bound to lead to disaster for Tehran’s Trojan Horse in Beirut. It will also provide Israel with a powerful “self-defense” argument to justify continuing the war in Gaza, while Hassan Nasrallah claims he is bombing northern Israel in support of his imaginary ally Yahya Sinwar crouched in his tunnel.

Paradoxically, involving Lebanon in the fighting makes it more difficult, if not impossible, for Sinwar to accept a ceasefire agreement, provided he is still alive.

And even if he does, there is no guarantee that Israel would suddenly forgo a golden opportunity to downsize Hezbollah, especially with Iran’s assurances that it will do nothing consistently to protect its Lebanese protégé.

Nasrallah is too intelligent not to realize that Tehran sold him a bundle. He became an instrument in a war that was someone else’s choice, but is now becoming his necessity.

Worse, the media in Tehran are already musing about changes at Hezbollah, paving the way for a cynical blame game that only mullahs in Iran are capable of. While gently lathering the gullible Americans, President Masoud Pezeshkian conjured the dove of peace from his invisible turban in New York. The subtext was: We can call back the dogs of war we have unleashed.

Amir Taheri was editor-in-chief of the Iranian daily Kayhan from 1972 to 1979. He has worked or written for numerous publications, published eleven books and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. the chairman of Gatestone Europe.

This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and has been reprinted with some changes by kind permission of the author.