Iran’s strategic mistake: Too many enemies

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hitler was delighted. Japan, as an ally, he reasoned, was going to attack the Soviet Union from the East, depriving the Soviets its divisions from the east necessary to defend Moscow from the Wehrmacht. He was dead wrong. Bringing the United States into WWII was the beginning of his demise. It was a case of one enemy too many. Sometimes, political demise is a case of too many enemies. When the Islamic State (ISIS) threatened to overrun Baghdad after overrunning Mosul, pundits wondered if the terrorist group’s ascent was to be a rerun of the rise of the Arab empire in the seventh century. Perhaps, until the Islamic State began killing Americans and nationals of other allies in Iraq and attracting Chechen Islamist fighters. First, the Americans and their allies began pounding Islamic State bases and fighters only to be followed by Vladimir Putin’s Russian Air Force. The Islamic State never lived long enough to regret its folly.
David Ben-Gurion, by contrast, knew in Operation Horev toward the end of the War of Independence, when the IDF first perfected its fire and maneuver tactics and overwhelmed the Egyptian forces in Sinai, that Britain, which had a defense pact with Egypt, was one enemy too many. He ordered the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the despair and anger of their commander, Yigal Allon. Choosing one’s enemies and even more importantly, limiting their number, has been throughout history the art of successful leaders, and the folly and demise of others who did not do so.A photo of the Iranian commander of the Revolutionary Guard Missile Corps, graced from all sides by the flag of Iran and its Iranian proxy militias, strongly suggests that the Islamic Republic of Iran is following in the footsteps of Hitler and the Islamic State rather than the path of Ben-Gurion.The message the photo wanted to elicit is clear enough: Just as a US general in NATO is likely to be graced not only by the American flag but the flags of all the member states in commenting on a military aspect related to Iran – let us say, the missile threat Iran poses to Europe – so does Iran have its allies, the proxies, Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, the Houthi flag and those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian militias. 
Iran made a poor choice in broadcasting the event. Instead of emitting a sense of similarity, the photo showed the chasm between the United States and its allies and Iran, theirs. The US is backed by an alliance of states, which deters enemies for the mutual benefit of all NATO members. Iran has proxies which deepen the enmity between Iran and the states in which the proxies operate. The “American” photo emits a message of solidarity, Iran emits a message of undermining sovereign states. The first reinforces friendship, the second reinforces enemies.Fortunately for Iran, President Donald Trump wants to make a deal, so that Iran can make the transition to a state which chooses its friends and foes selectively instead of creating a wall-to-wall coalition against it.
The fate of the Islamic State, which it helped defeat, provides the answer. A no to Trump might spell a similar fate for the Islamic Republic in the future. The writer is a professor in the Political Studies and Middle Eastern Studies departments of Bar-Ilan University.