War Day #131. Proxies & Parenting

Wednesday, February 14: YOU are responsible.

Most parents already know what International politicians don’t seem to understand.

Kids are kids.

It is parents who are ultimately responsible for their kids’ behavior. You can’t just abdicate responsibility because you find parenting challenging: You raised them this way.

Michigan just found Jennifer Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Two years ago, her teenage son engaged in a gun rampage in Michigan’s deadliest school shooting. The trial was a lightning rod for parental responsibility in gun violence by minors.

Yet most news outlets are reporting that Iran doesn’t entirely control its Mideast proxies, including those proxies that recently attacked US troops. And that this lack of control over proxies lowers the chance of a U.S.-Iranian direct confrontation. And that it removes any accountability.

Awww, poor Iran. So hard to keep all the kiddies in line. Free pass.

Seriously? The U.S. is going to let Iranian proxies off the hook because Iran can’t control them?

This is like saying parents don’t entirely control their tantrum-ing two-year-olds - so they’re not responsible for what they do.

Guess what: If your two-year-old dissolves in a rage in a grocery store, yanks packages from the shelves, and breaks things - guess who isn’t off the hook? That’s right, parents. Just because it wasn’t you losing it, doesn’t absolve you. If your kid made a mess or caused damage, you’re still liable. Because it’s your kid.

Same with countries.

If a parent can be charged for manslaughter because their child shoots up a school, how can countries disown what their (paid, militarily equipped, and mentored) proxies do?

If we continue to let countries off the hook because they don’t fully control their proxies - they can get away with literal murder.

Even though these proxies are the official elected governments of the country everyone seems inclined to give them a free pass. Gaza with Hamas, Lebanon with Hezbollah, Yemen with its Houthis, Iran with proxies in all of the above…

But any parent can explain why that won’t work.

Parents need to rein in their kids. And Iran needs to rein in their proxies,

Or suffer the consequences.

PS After I had written this piece, UNRWA somewhat disingenuously insisted that they hadn’t been aware that Hamas Central was in the ground underneath the main UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City - this despite the fact that there were weapons and explosives found in the actual main UNRWA offices. This tepid disclaimer is akin to the parent again not taking responsibility — and not for the shoplifted small pack of gum sequestered in an underwear drawer, but let’s say, for the TANK or hippo—the child is storing in their bedroom closet: “But we never knew it was there!”

It is UNRWA cover-your-tail time. If not deliberate, it is at best gross incompetence on their part.

And do we really want a grossly incompetent international organization dishing out billions of dollars in one of the most sensitive spots in the world?

Sheesh.

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