IRAN ON THE
MOVE Warships sail to
Syria By M K Bhadrakumar
A flotilla of Iranian warships crossed the
Suez Canal and docked at the Syrian port of Tartus
on Saturday. Iran's Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi
said the mission displays Iran's "might" despite
30 years of relentless sanctions.
The
flotilla comprised the 18th Fleet of the Iranian
navy. The warships would hold exercises and will
"train Syrian naval forces under an agreement
signed between Tehran and Damascus one year ago".
The influential cleric and deputy chairman
of the Majlis' (parliament's" National Security
and Foreign Policy
Committee, Hossein
Ebrahimi said:
"The presence of Iran and Russia's
flotillas along the Syrian coasts has a clear
message against the United States' possible
adventurism. In case of any US strategic mistake
in Syria, there is a possibility that Iran,
Russia and a number of other countries will give
a crushing response to the US."
The
activities of the Iranian warships at Tartus
(which is also used by the Russian navy) will be
keenly watched by the regional countries - Turkey,
Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in particular.
Unconfirmed reports appeared recently that
veterans of Iran's Qods Force (a special unit of
the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) might be
dispatched to Syria to assist the regime.
Simply put, Iran's message to Turkey and
its Arab allies (which are arming and supporting
the Syrian opposition) will be: "Brothers, if you
keep doing this, so can we." There is much food
for thought here for these countries - especially
the oil monarchies - as they gather in Tunis this
coming Sunday for the first meeting of the
"Friends of Syria".
For Turkey, the
Iranian warships have arrived in Syria at an
awkward time. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz
reported that the Syrian army had captured 40
Turkish intelligence officers involved in
subversive activities and over the past week
Ankara has been "conducting intensive
negotiations" with Damascus to secure their
freedom. But the latter insists in return Turkey
ending weapon transfers and infiltrations, and,
furthermore, wants Iran to be the mediator.
Ha'aretz noted:
Western officials fear that Iranian
military presence along with Russian aid could
turn Syria into a center of international
friction much worse than the struggle inside
Syria. They fear that the control over actions
in Syria will be taken over by a Russian-Iranian
"partnership" which would exclude the European
Union and Turkey ...
Testing
times However, Tehran is also testing the
waters. Under international law, Iran enjoys the
right of passage for its warships to pass through
Red Sea and the Suez Canal. But Egypt's equations
with Iran remain ambivalent.
Egypt never
allowed Iranian warships to cross the Suez until
February last year following the overthrow of the
Hosni Mubarak regime when, undeterred by the
diplomatic pressure from the US and threatening
noises from Israel, Cairo allowed an Iranian
destroyer to pass through. Israel called it a
"provocation".
But since then, Egypt has
been in turmoil and the initial enthusiasm for
normalization of ties with Tehran has somewhat
waned even as Egypt became dependent on financial
help from Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab
monarchies of the Persian Gulf.
Thus, the
permission given to an entire Iranian fleet to
cross the Suez last weekend signifies not only
Egypt's thinking toward Iran but also the growing
complexities and unpredictability of its relations
with the US.
The Egypt-US ties are passing
through testing times. A potentially serious row
has erupted with a crackdown on several dozen
foreign non-governmental organization (NGO)
workers by the Egyptian authorities, including 19
American nationals. An undisclosed number of US
citizens have taken shelter in the US Embassy in
Cairo.
Cairo announced on Saturday that 43
of these suspects who include foreigners
(Americans, Serbs, Germans, Norwegians, Jordanians
and Palestinians) and Egyptians will be put on
trial coming Sunday charged with "establishing
unlicensed chapters of international organizations
and accepting foreign funding to finance these
groups in a manner that breached the Egyptian
state's sovereignty".
Washington has
warned Cairo that the crackdown could harm
bilateral ties and hinted that it might cut off
military aid amounting to US$1.3 billion annually.
Washington apprehends that a public trial could
expose the scale of the US interference in Egypt's
internal affairs. Ten prominent American
civil-society organizations operating in Egypt
have been raided, including the National
Democratic Institute, International Republican
Institute and Freedom House, which receive US
government funding.
The ruling Supreme
Council for the Armed Forces in Cairo blames
"foreign hands" for the continued unrest in Egypt.
The colorful Minister of International Cooperation
Fayza Abul-Naga (who is one of the few officials
from the Mubarak regime to retain her cabinet
seat) is spearheading the campaign against the
foreign funding for NGOs.The Muslim Brotherhood
has threatened to review Egypt's 1979 peace treaty
with Israel if the US cuts off aid.
Strategic defiance Suffice to
say, Tehran chose the appropriate moment to fathom
the Egyptian mind. Cairo's decision to allow the
Iranian flotilla to cross the Suez underscores
that it retains the strategic autonomy to reset
relations with Iran. (Iranian Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Salehi has publicly expressed appreciation
for Cairo's decision.) Which contains more than a
hint to Washington.
Both Cairo and Tehran
are underscoring that the Middle East has
phenomenally changed and things can never be the
same again. The stunning reality is that Egypt and
Iran are not exactly seeing eye-to-eye on the
Syrian crisis and yet Cairo waved the warships
through as they headed for Tartus.
On its
part, the most important message Iran could be
giving is that neither the heightened standoff
with the US nor the avalanche of Israeli threats
has succeeded in brow-beating it or will detract
from its will and capacity to help its Syrian
ally.
However, the danger of an actual
confrontation with the US over Syria is very, very
unlikely and Tehran never quite estimated that the
Barack Obama administration was being swept into a
Libya-like intervention in Syria. Tehran, which is
well clued in on the ground situation in Syria,
remained confident that President Bashar al-Assad
was not in any danger.
Yet, Iran's display
of "might" in the eastern Mediterranean will cast
its shadows on regional politics. Actually,
Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Amal Movement in a
joint statement on Saturday reiterated their
alliance with Iran. They said events in Syria were
part of the "desperate efforts made by the
enemies" to destabilize the country and destroy
its national unity and undermine Syria's firm
support for the Palestinian resistance.
(Hezbollah chief Seyed Hassan Nasrallah
said this month that Iran rendered "moral,
political and financial support in all its
available forms since 1982" to the movement. He
said Hezbollah scored the "most prominent Arab
victory" over Israel, this victory couldn't have
been achieved without Iranian support and "Syria
had a big role in the victory".)
At any
rate, the display of "might" in the Mediterranean,
which is historically a "Western lake", is bound
to carry resonance within Iran itself. Such
displays appeal to the Iranian people's sense of
national honor and in turn helps consolidate
public opinion, which is particularly important
for the regime as the country approaches a crucial
parliamentary election in March in which the
calculus of power is expected to decisively shift
and the alchemy of the Majlis to transform
radically.
Ambassador M K
Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included
the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and
Turkey.
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