Iran’s selective approach to hybrid war

Date : July 25, 2018

During the cold war, the world witnessed various proxy wars, involving USSR and the USA, and their official and unofficial allies. Moscow and Washington managed to wage proxy wars in Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.

Now there is no Warsaw block, and proxy wars could seemingly become history. However, it did not happen. In today’s world, certain regional players have adopted the Soviet method of waging proxy wars. Speaking of the Middle East, we should emphasize Iran’s activity.

Strategists from Tehran are to be lauded; they improved the Soviet methods and transformed them into a system of a comprehensive hybrid war, including the application of modern technologies. Today, Iran’s permanent hybrid war is mainly directed against three countries – USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, Tehran is selective about the approach to each of these countries.

Iran has a separate strategy for each of these countries. However, in each case Iran tries to avoid a straightforward confrontation. For example, the situation with US is much more nuanced than with Israel or Saudi Arabia.

For instance, Iranian authorities declare vicious slogans against “Great Satan”, but at the same time, they spend great financial resources and energy to create, expand and support Iranian Lobby in US. These efforts continued even when Iran, not directly, but through Shiite armed militias was involved in a military conflict with the US army in Iraq. Iranians have been contacting with representatives of the Iraqi opposition since Saddam Hussein’s years in power.

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February  23, 2018, “Al Arabiya”