Inventing Self Defence

Every time something blows up in the Middle East someone appears online to explain that this somehow proves Putin was right about Ukraine all along. The argument usually runs that if the US or Israel can strike Iran in the name of preventing a future threat, then Russia invading Ukraine must have been defensive too. It has the faintly chaotic logic of saying that because someone somewhere committed a burglary, the bank robbery down the road was really just prudent household security.

Putin has been claiming the Ukraine war was defensive since the start. The Kremlin line is that Russia recognised the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, those regions asked for help, and Russia therefore acted in collective self defence. It sounds tidy until you remember that Ukraine had not attacked Russia and that almost nobody recognises those regions as independent states in the first place. International law tends to frown on inventing the country you are supposedly defending.

That legal point has not stopped the argument, of course. The real purpose was never to persuade international lawyers. It was to create enough ambiguity that people outside the Western alliance might shrug and conclude that everyone bends the rules when it suits them.

Which is where the Iran strikes come in handy for Moscow. Russia can point to them and say, look, the West also uses force without waiting for the United Nations to approve it. From the Kremlin’s perspective that is useful material. Not because it suddenly validates the invasion of Ukraine, which it does not, but because it helps muddy the narrative. In geopolitical terms that is often good enough.

Then there is Iran’s rather elaborate network of regional proxies. Hezbollah in Lebanon, various militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen. For years Tehran has funded and armed them through the Revolutionary Guard. If the Iranian state weakened badly or collapsed, that entire funding pipeline would suddenly become rather unreliable.

At which point some people imagine Russia stepping neatly into Iran’s shoes and financing the whole enterprise. On paper it sounds plausible. Moscow dislikes Western influence in the region, the militias cause trouble for Western allies, and chaos in the Middle East has a habit of distracting attention from Ukraine.

In practice it is a stretch. Hezbollah is tied into Iranian religious and political networks in a way that Russia simply is not. Moscow is also busy spending vast sums on its war in Ukraine while under sanctions. Taking over as the principal banker of half a dozen militant movements would be an expensive hobby.

Russia might still try to keep links alive. Weapons shipments, intelligence sharing, the occasional quiet transfer of funds through murky channels. Moscow has always been comfortable operating in that sort of grey zone.

But replacing Iran as the central sponsor of the entire network is another matter. If Iran weakened dramatically, the more likely outcome is that these groups become poorer, more fragmented and rather less coordinated.

Which would leave the online strategists still insisting that somewhere in all of this lies the proof that Russia invading its neighbour was an act of self defence. It is an argument that tends to make perfect sense if you start with the conclusion and work backwards.