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Iran Still Stands by Assad

By William Tucker

In a show of solidarity with Syrian president Bashir al-Assad, Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, stated that, “Iran will never allow the resistance axis – of which Syria is an essential pillar – to break.” While many media outlets have correctly stated that the axis refers to Iran, Syria, and the Lebanese Hezbollah, what they fail to mention is how vital Syria is to Iran’s regional strategy. At present, Iran has managed to spread its influence throughout the Levant by dominating Iraqi politics and supporting non-state militants in the Middle East region as a lever against its large Arab – mainly Sunni Muslim – neighbors. Iran’s goal isn’t just about carving out an arc of influence from the Zagros to the Mediterranean coast, it’s also about preventing the creation of a power in Mesopotamia that would threaten Iran’s existence, or at the very least, contain Iran within its mountainous borders. Tehran is simply following what it’s predecessors have done in the centuries before. There is an arrester to the possibility of a Arab power rising in the west that Iran is well aware of – the concept of Arab unity is a myth. Iran’s adversaries know this as well, but as history has shown, the Arab’s can be unified under non-Arab leadership such as the Ottomans, the British, and even the U.S. Naturally, this doesn’t last, but it proves to be a real problem for Iranian ambition, nevertheless.

This is where Syria comes into play. Should Iran lose Syria, it will complicate its access to Hezbollah, or at least that’s the theory. Hezbollah may enjoy Iranian and Syrian patronage, but it is still a Lebanese movement and it doesn’t want to run the risk of having its political influence unraveled serving the needs of a foreign power. Hezbollah will still fight to help Iran and Assad because it likes the revenue stream and weapons support, but ultimately Hezbollah will have to look after its own interests. With the loosening of influence in Syria and Lebanon, the Iraqi’s too, namely the Shiite and the Kurds, will reevaluate their cooperation with Tehran and potentially look for support elsewhere. Iran is certainly feeling the pressure of losing its carefully cultivated influence abroad as witnessed by the Palestinian movements which have flipped on Assad and now support the Syrian opposition. Iran worked rather hard and spent a substantial amount of money to support movements such as Hamas and PFLP only to now have them work against Iranian ambitions. Other movements that once enjoyed Iranian patronage have simply abstained from the Syrian chaos which, from the Iranian point of view, is just as bad. This has not been lost on regional powers such Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Thus it is no surprise that Saudi Arabia has invited the Iranian president to a summit on Syria that will be held in Mecca later this month. Additionally, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has gone to Turkey recently to discuss the Syrian situation. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey are actively supporting the Syrian opposition and both know full well what the loss of Syria means to Tehran. Saudi Arabia has been quite worried about the spreading of Iranian influence in the Middle East and has used a variety of means to counter Tehran’s moves. As Iran supported the uprising in Bahrain and the protests by the small Shiite population in Saudi Arabia’s Qatif province, Riyadh has been looking for a lever of its own. The Saudi’s viewed the Syrian uprising as a godsend and have taken full advantage of the situation. A standoff of sorts now exists between these two powers, thus the invite sent to Ahmadinejad for the upcoming Syrian summit. While events on the ground in Syria will certainly have an impact on the nation’s future, so too will the diplomatic wrangling of the region’s powers.

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