By: Andreas Janssen

Edited By: Kripa Sridhar

More than revived autocracy and religious sectarianism, what mar(k)s today’s Middle East is the zestful exchange of retaliatory strikes. Earlier this year, it seemed as if the forty-year proxy war between Iran and Israel were escalating into a direct military conflict. The effectiveness of Israel’s missile defenses, and the Israeli government’s consequent willingness to mitigate its response, prevented outright catastrophe. Then, on September 23, the same government started pummeling South Lebanon with the deadliest assault since the war of 2006. These strikes, and the ground invasion that has followed, have likewise been justified as “retaliation” for Hezbollah’s incursions against Israel since October 7. With Nasrallah dead, Hezbollah’s talionic burden seems to have been partly relieved by its paymaster Iran, which yesterday launched nearly two hundred missiles against Israel. While the prospects of escalation are as of yet uncertain, it is a safe bet that retaliation will remain the watchword of this and following months. 

This retaliatory cycle one can conceive as a perverse twist on a well-known theoretical scenario: the security dilemma. The latter proposes that two states, perceiving the other as a threat, will pursue measures they consider defensive but the other interprets as aggression, resulting paradoxically, in diminished security for both as well as a significantly higher chance of escalation. In a retaliatory cycle, the defensive measure is arguably also an act of aggression, but the key point is that neither side feels that they can plausibly back down. To do so would be to show weakness and therefore , invite further aggression. Crucially, such considerations are not necessary or strategic though they are clothed in the language of strategy. There was little reason to presume, after 2006, that Hezbollah’s leadership was raring for a full-scale conflict with Israel. For the Israeli government, the opening of a second front will be a potentially risky and most definitely bloody venture. Iran’s involvement is inexplicable from the standpoint of its current capabilities. But even as hellfire opens before—or rather, over—them, no party wants to be a torto di viltade tacciato; to see their reputation tarnished before its allies and adversaries. The result is a game of chicken—with the airbags removed and the drivers jacked on the antifreeze. 

As noted by Keren Yarhi-Milo in Foreign Affairs last August, research has shown that a state’s credibility is in the eye of the beholder, which means it matters little how a state assesses its own reputation for resolve. Public dismay at Israel’s ground offensive or Iran’s possibly fateful gamble proves the truth of that preposition, but it is worth remembering the gap between others’ perception and one’s own perception of others’ perception. It took the United States decades of foreign wars to relinquish even part of its own reputational obsessions. The latest rejection of any immediate ceasefire should demonstrate to policymakers that neither shaming nor sanctions will not cut much ground when demands of honor are not being addressed. Pending the opportunity for a dignified exit, gentlemen will prefer bombs.