The Unwanted WarsNovember/December 2019 41STATES OF CHAOS
Along with the Middle East’s polarization
and integration, its dysfunctional state
structures present another risk factor.
Some states are more akin to nonstate
actors: the central governments in Libya,
Syria, and Yemen lack control over large
swaths o their territories and popula-
tions. Conversely, several nonstate actors
operate as virtual states, including Hamas,
the Houthis, the Kurds, and the Islamic
State before it was toppled. And these
nonstate actors often must contend with
nonstate spoilers o their own: in Gaza,
Hamas vies with jihadi groups that
sometimes behave in ways that under-
mine its rule or contradict its goals. Even
in more functional states, it is not always
clear where the ultimate policymaking
authority lies. Shiite militias in Iraq and
Hezbollah in Lebanon, for example,
engage in activities that their titular sover-
eigns don’t control, let alone condone.
Weak states cohabiting with powerful
nonstate actors creates the ideal circum-
stances for external interference. It’s a
two-way street—foreign states exploit
armed groups to advance their interests,
and armed groups turn to foreign states to
promote their own causes—that is all too
open to misinterpretation. Iran almost
certainly helps the Houthis and Iraqi
Shiite militias, but does it control them?
The People’s Protection Units, a move-
ment o Kurdish Äghters in Syria, are
aliated with the Kurdistan Workers’
Party in Turkey, but do they follow its
command?
The fact that nonstate actors operate as
both proxies and independent players
makes it hard to establish accountability
for violence or deter it in the Ärst place.
Iran might wrongly assume that it will not
be held responsible for a Houthi dronenow seem, still resonates across the region
and can mobilize its citizens in a way
that arguably has no equivalent world-
wide. Even subnational movements, such
as Kurdish nationalism, which spreads
across four countries, promote transna-
tional objectives.
Accordingly, local struggles quickly take
on regional signiÄcance—and thus attract
weapons, money, and political support
from the outside. The Houthis may view
their Äght as being primarily about Yemen,
Hezbollah may be focused on power and
politics in Lebanon, Hamas may be a
Palestinian movement advancing a Pales-
tinian cause, and Syria’s various opposition
groups may be pursuing national goals.
But in a region that is both polarized and
integrated, those local drivers inevitably
become subsumed by larger forces.
The fate o the Arab uprisings that
began in late 2010 illustrates the dynamic
well, with Tunisia, where it all began,
being the lone exception. The toppling o
the regime there happened too swiftly,
too unexpectedly, and in a country that
was too much on the margins o regional
politics for other states to react in time.
But they soon found their bearings. Every
subsequent rebellion almost instanta-
neously became a regional and then
international aair. In Egypt, the Muslim
Brotherhood’s fortunes and the future o
political Islam were at stake, and so Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the ¬¤ dove
in. The same was true in Libya, where
Egypt, once Sisi had prevailed and the
Brotherhood had been pushed out, joined
the fray. Likewise for Syria, where the
civil war drew in all three regional battles:
Israel’s confrontation with the “axis o
resistance,” the Iranian-Saudi struggle, and
the intra-Sunni competition. A similar
scenario has played out in Yemen, too.