Hubris by proxy and the surprise attack on Iran
How the political vice of hubris emerges by proxy when super-powers give out blank checks.
In his History of the Peloponnesian War, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides recounts a dramatized dialogue between the Athenian emissaries and the leaders of Melos, a small (and neutral) Spartan colony laid siege by Athens. Athens demanded that Melos submit and surrender its freedom entirely, lest their city be razed and their people killed or enslaved by the Athenians, and the Melians refused. This dialogue has since been remembered as “The Melian Dialogue”, and recounts the arguments made by the Athenians and Melians before the city was besieged and laid waste. Importantly, Athens was far larger and more powerful. Just as importantly, Melos was neutral until Athens attacked it, but was suspect because of its Spartan heritage. In the dialogue, the Melians appeal to right and justice to defend the idea that their city ought not be unjustly attacked by the Athenians, while the Athenians say that Melos must submit regardless because Athens is the more powerful city. Melos might be morally in the right, but why ought they resist a more powerful enemy? Power is its own form of justice, the Athenians argue, and far more substantive than noble ideals like right and wrong.
Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
The Athenians argue that this is necessary to retain their own confidence in their military dominance:
No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
The Melians ask, what justice there is in this? Is this the Athenian idea of righteousness?
Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?
The Athenian response is classic might-makes-right reasoning, stating unequivocally that Athens has the power to define justice in accordance with its own needs and interests:
As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.
As Thucidydes recounts, the Melians refused the Athenian demands and bravely defended their city in a long siege however collapsed under the weight of Athenian reinforcements and internal betrayal. The consequence was the liquidation of the Melian men and the enslavement of their women and children:
About the same time the Melians again took another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned. Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves.
Athens had won, it had demonstrated its power. It had no use for the petty moralisms of the Melians, as it had a war to win. The victory was costly, but inevitable.
This dialogue went down as a classic of Ancient Greek history, demonstrating both the overwhelming power of Athens at the time but also the seeds of their own destruction. Athens was expressing the vice of hubris, an ancient Greek notion where pride, arrogance, megalomania, and overconfidence led a powerful party to disregard the morals and norms of their society to assert themselves by fiat. Importantly, Athens’s hubris was a product of their raw power. Athens wasn’t exactly wrong to say they were bigger and more powerful, and were practically able to overpower Melos.
Yet the kind of hubristic arrogance expressed by Athens was a part of what drove many Greek city-states to the side of Sparta during the war. It would contribute to the eventual Spartan victory, as the Spartans won out over an increasingly isolated Athens. This was a fate which the Melians warned the Athenians of:
But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?
Importantly, the Melians were correct that Athenian hubris would alienate the rest of the Greek world, even if their effort to remain independent was ultimately quixotic. The smaller cities like Melos depended on the norms of honor and justice to constrain the avarice of larger cities like Athens and Sparta. If these norms are eroded and Athens, Thebes, Corinth, or Sparta feel the right to terrorize and extract tribute from them, they will face a terrifying slippery slope. As they are impoverished by tribute, their oppressors only become wealthier and more powerful, and therefore more easily able to leech their resources. This gives the smaller cities a reason to resist, even at the possible cost of their destruction.
Yet the fact that there were multiple large Greek cities aside from Athens (Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta have already been mentioned, but there were others like Syracuse and Argos) gave all the smaller cities an out. If the current big dog like Athens bullied the smaller neutral cities, one or more of their smaller but still powerful rivals could build an alliance against them. This is what ultimately happened to Athens by the end of the war, as they surrendered and subjected to a Spartan puppet regime for a few years. Even if it did not come in time to save Melos, the Athenian Empire ultimately fell (only to be followed by a new Spartan hegemony that reproduced a similar dynamic … this cycle would continue until Philip and Alexander ended it for good).
Life continued in Athens after the war, and the city remained culturally and politically significant, yet it never again rose to the hegemonic imperial status in Greece again (at least not until the independence of the modern Greek nation-state). Despite their wealth and glory, they had been humbled as a military power, and became less susceptible to the hubristic mania that had earlier intoxicated their leadership.
In the story of Athens, we see the whole Greek cycle of hubris. Wealth enables military power, military power leads to regional hegemony, hegemony cultivates the vice of hubris, the vice of hubris leads to over-reach, and over-reach leads to the nation paying a brutal price. This brutal price puts the state back in its place, and leads it to regulate its behavior.
Hubris is not found in all powers, and some avoid it after observing its cost for others. Many countries do not bully their smaller neighbors, and the world’s second largest military power, China, has assiduously avoided all international wars. It’s rarely found at all in small nations who know full well the high price they might pay for launching unprovoked attacks on their neighbors.
Yet the Israeli strike on Iran last week is the most remarkable case of hubris in the 21st century. It makes George W Bush’s desire to reconstruct the Middle East by invading Iraq look humble by comparison. In fact, Netenyahu’s surprise attack is a continuation of this effort, as the invasion of Iraq was a part of a broader vision he had for Western dominance in the Middle East. Yet the difference with Iraq and Iran is that the United States actually is a global superpower and Iraq is a much smaller country than Iran. Israel is a tiny country of a few million in a small geographic area, and Iran is geographically and demographically far larger than it. It is also a mountanous country that is quite difficult to invade.
This raises an interesting question - if hubris is a product of a state or polis having regional or global hegemony and the excessive confidence and avarice this creates, how could it develop in such a small country? Even though they have notable defensive capacities and an elite air force, their economy and population cannot sustain permanent war. We are not talking about a United States, Russia, or China with unimaginably impressive industrial systems but a country with one major city, few resources, and an army of only a few hundred thousand. Most nations in Israel’s position are incredibly wary of seeking out war with their neighbors, and will utilize diplomacy even if their people feel somehow aggrieved and justified in attacking.
The answer is surely in the United States, and to a lesser extent Europe. The United States has guaranteed Israeli security as absolute, and since their war in Gaza has begun has repeatedly maintained their armaments. In normal years, the United States gives Israel over $3 billion a year - which is more money than 2/3 of all countries spend on their own militaries! Yet since the war in Gaza has begun, the actual aid which the United States has given is far higher, with estimates going up to nearly $20 billion. To a far greater extent than with its other allies, the United States doesn’t make this aid contitional on the human rights record of their army. Moreover, the United States has routinely made it clear that
All this means that Israel effectively can get away with far more aggressive behavior that any other country would find deeply irrational. No sane nation would launch a “pre-emptive” (read, surprise) attack a far larger rival under the possibility that this rival might build nuclear weapons at some point in the future and expect to get away with it. No sane nation would begin that war by intentionally targeting civilians either. Nor would any sane leader act as the “boy who cries wolf” for nearly 20 years as Benjamin Netenyahu has done with Iran inventing the bomb and then expect people to believe him now. Especially after Saddam’s infamous vanishing WMDs. Even if these nations wished to, it would simply be economically unsustainable, as few nations are really interested in paying the massive financial burden of fighting never-ending wars. Most nations do not attack their neighbors without a very good casus belli because they know it will bring international hate and isolation if they do so, but if you have the world’s superpower backing you, you might think you can get away without it.
In a sense, the United States acts in a profoundly irresponsible way by skewing the risk calculus of Israeli leaders, businesses, and voters alike. This is bad, not only for Iranians, Lebanese, and Palestinians but Israelis as they are sucked into a kind of Spartan society seemingly always in and out of wars, or on the cusp of the next one. Instead of treating diplomacy as a real and viable alternative, its leaders and voters consider it a luxury and a choice. Either the other side can accept Benjamin Netenyahu’s idea of a diplomatic solution, or they can fight a war. If Israel wants Iran to enrich no uranium at all because any uranium enrichment is equivalent to a nuclear weapons program, then the only diplomatic solution is for Iran to stop enriching uranium. Otherwise, they face the fate of the Melians.
Yet Iran is not Melos. If there’s any power analogous to Iran in the Peloponnesian War, it would be their ancestors in Persia! Persia of course was the true super-power of the Agean at the time, but preferred to mostly stay back during the war after they had paid the price for their own hubris at Marathon and Salamis (these two victories were a part of the hubristic narrative of Athens as we saw, as the Athenian victories over the Persian superpower humbled Persia but gave the Athenians delusions of grandeur). Yet despite their bad blood, Athens largely avoided conflict with Persia knowing full well what it might face as a consequence. It wasn’t until the end of the conflict that Persia would throw in its lot with the Spartans and finally bring ruin to Athens for their hubris.
The problem is not simply that Benjamin Netenyahu views the Iranian government as a rival. Nations have rivals, and usually when countries fear the consequences of war they manage these rivalries with diplomacy. It’s that from his perspective, it’s a sane and coherent strategy to resort to warfare instead of diplomacy. We forget that Barack Obama really had worked out a fair and reasonable agreement with Iran which was a framework for future peace. We forget that Netenyahu opposed this deal with every bone in his body, and that his “friend” Donald Trump tore it up not long after his first inauguration. We forget that Joe Biden simply ignored the question of whether this agreement should be re-started because the militarists in his administration didn’t like the deal. We forget that Iran had only enriched so much uranium as a kind of bargaining chip to get this deal back. It turned out that this bargaining chip didn’t end up working, but perhaps that is their fault for thinking they were talking with rational actors instead of a multinational military-industrial-complex led by demagogues and idiots.
It’s rare in history for smaller countries to get so intoxicated by hubris that they launch suprise attacks on larger powers. Perhaps the most famous case in history was that of Japan in 1941 with their assault on Pearl Harbor and various other American military bases across the Pacific. Their Grand Admiral Yamamoto knew full well that this act was deeply arrogant and would probably lead to the destruction of the Japanese empire unless they could get incredibly lucky in the beginning. The Japanese failed to get so lucky, Yamamoto died after his plane was shot down in 1943, and Japan was defeated. No doubt, one can argue that Hamas faced a similar kind of hubris in 2023 by winning a sudden victory over the IDF, before being subject to what we’ve seen since. Yet that calculation is always different for militias and guerilla groups fighting asymmetric wars. In other cases, like America’s invasion of Canada in 1812, the explanation had as much to do with the perception of opportunity as it did hubris (the Americans had good reason to think the British were too distracted by France).
Funnily, of all the G-7 powers, Japan was the only country to recognize the attack on Iran for what it was (though they still signed on to the same declaration as all the other powers). Though they have failed to fully reckon with their wartime policies, the Japanese at least have sorted out that it’s a bad idea for countries to launch surprise attacks on their rivals.
Now, we are seeing various deeply unpopular Iranian opposition groups flock to support the attack, in the hope that they may take over following a hypothetical regime change. Most notable is the Pahlavi crown prince. For those who have forgotten, it was the brutality and misrule of the Pahlavis which brought the Ayatollahs into power in the first place. We’ve entirely forgotten that the primary reason Iran’s government hates the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel is their legacy of support for the Pahlavi autocracy and their mutually beneficial financial relations with Iran’s oligarchs. It was the hubris of the CIA and MI6 that toppled Mossadeq and placed all power in the hand of the Shah in the first place. This grievance is increasingly moving into the background in Iran as people tire of religious law, morality police, and elections “managed” by the Shia clergy, yet it is not unforgotten. Their dissatisfaction with Khamenei’s misrule does not mean a desire to return to the Shah’s misrule. Other opposition groups like the infamous MEK (which sided with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s war) is similarly unpopular. Though Khamenei’s government isn’t particularly popular, he does benefit from being the “devil they know”.
Thus, we see Benjamin Netenyahu exhibiting the kind of hubris we saw George W Bush exhibit, even down to the toady (in the case of Iraq, that toady’s name was Chalabi). The danger is, the United States ultimately paid the price for its hubris by 2008 and rejected the Iraq war because of the financial and human costs of the war. They saw the war was based on a bed of lies. Yet Israel is protected from the cost of this hubris by the United States. America refills their arsenal, pays for a significant portion of their military, keeps their economy afloat, and even shoots down missiles flying towards it. So long as Benjamin Netenyahu can continue convicing the citizens of his country that all his targets are immediate threats, he has no incentive to engage in good-faith diplomacy with the Palestinians (not only Hamas but even the moderate PLO), the Lebanese, the Iraqis, Turkey, Yemen, and especially Iran. Iran and Yemen made peace with Saudi Arabia, the warring factions of Lebanon like Hezbollah came to peace terms, and so on.
This is one weird case in history of a government which suffers hubris by proxy. As this government can expect American assistance to reduce the consequences of war for its own people, it can get away with absurd levels of risk. It can kick the can down the road indefinitely of coming to a final diplomatic solution with its enemies (let’s not forget, past Israeli leaders did come to such a solution when it came to Egypt and Jordan, in part thanks to the diplomatic interventions of the United States, so we know it is possible) and instead simply hopping from one war to another. The war might be motivated by its Prime Minister trying to avoid corruption charges, but the people support it because the fear of their neighbors outweighs the cost of war when the world superpower has given them a blank check.
We should want the people of Israel and Palestine to enjoy a nation akin to the Athens of Plato, not the Athens of Alcibiades. We should want the opportunity for real diplomacy and dialogue that is good faith, not one that is bad faith and fundamentally hubristic. We should want this without Israelis, Palestinians, Iranians, Lebanse, and so on facing never-ending warfare. Yet for this to happen, Israelis must reckon with the hubris of their government once and for all, and Americans should reckon with how they’ve enabled it at their own expense.
What is worse, this makes American entry into their war much more likely. Eventually, Netenyahu will miscalculate. He may well have just done so. Once this miscalculation occurs, then the US government feels inclined to get involved directly. In that case, Americans will only pay a higher price for the hubris of their ally.