Page 2 of
2 SPEAKING
FREELY Iran's fate after
Assad By Richard Javad
Heydarian
When troops of the Saudi-led Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC - which also includes
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar) stormed into
Bahrain to crush the uprising, Iran valiantly
stood by the revolutionaries and warned the Arab
monarchs against violating the sovereignty of a
neighboring nation and the repression of a popular
democratic movement.
The tide
turns However, 2011 would prove to become a
rollercoaster year for Iran. By March, Iran's most
important regional ally, Syria, emerged as the
next victim of a transnational Arab uprising.
Initially, confident in the pillars of the Assad
regime, Tehran viewed growing pockets of protests
as a momentary phenomenon. After all, the Syrian
leadership itself failed to notice the depth of
discontent amongst the
public, thus refusing to contemplate structural
democratic reform.
Failing to capitalize
on Assad's popularity and charisma, the regime
shunned entering into a meaningful dialogue with
the broad spectrum of opposition groups - within
and outside the country - and institute
consequential democratic reforms to appease the
legitimate demands of its people for a
pluralistic-democratic system.
After years
of aggressive economic liberalization, many in
Syria noticed the meteoric rise of a cadre of new
elites close to the regime who benefited from
favorable privatization schemes and preferential
business-and-trade contracts.
So, in
addition to lingering concerns with the lack of
sufficient democratic space within a one-party
system, a combination of declining subsidies,
growing employment insecurity, a rollback of
state-owned enterprises, deteriorating state
services, widening inequality, and festering
corruption added to the broader popular discontent
against the regime.
However, it was
ultimately the regime's increasingly
indiscriminate use of force to quash the protests
that radicalized the opposition and provided
hostile Sunni Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf
as well as a myriad of radical Sunni groups - with
the prominent participation of al-Qaeda - with a
perfect opportunity to "internationalize" the
Syrian revolution.
Gradually, as the
opposition forces, most especially the Free Syrian
Army (FSA), gained growing logistical-financial
and diplomatic support from regional powers such
as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the Syrian uprising
morphed into a combination of a domestic sectarian
"civil war" - between pro-regime Alawite and
minority groups, on one hand, and the majority
Sunni population, on the other - as well as a
broader proxy conflict between two camps: you have
Iran, Russia, and China supporting the Assad
regime, while Turkey, GCC countries, and the West
side with the opposition.
Unlike the
"lightning" revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the
Syrian uprising has replicated a "slow-motion
disintegration" of the Syrian nation-state. With
almost 20,000 civilians killed, and hundreds of
thousands of people fleeing the country, there is
just so much blood on the hands of opposing
parties.
The whole country is practically
in a state of war, and the regime has resorted to
brutal siege tactics and carpet bombardment to
crush opposition strongholds. The opposition -
increasingly radicalized and infiltrated by
extremist elements such as the al-Qaeda - has been
returning the favor by targeting centers of
powers, ranging from government offices to
individual military units spread across the
country.
Former UN secretary general Kofi
Annan's six-point plan never stood a chance
because neither the opposition - from the Free
Syrian Army to the Syrian National Council and its
many offshoots - nor the regime was willing to
make necessary political concessions. The Syrian
uprising has become a "battle to the death".
Recent months have witnessed a decisive
turn in the balance of forces. For sometime, the
opposition has been particularly strong in the
center and south, but it is also beginning to
erode the regime's control over the country's most
important cities: Aleppo and Damascus.
After the successful assassination of
Syria top security officials, defense minister
Dawoud Rajha and his deputy, Assef Shawkat
(Assad's brother-in-law), the opposition forces
are beginning to wrest control of Aleppo from the
regime, while clashes in certain neighborhoods of
the very capital continue. Meanwhile, the regime
is experiencing a flurry of "high-profile"
defections, ranging from top diplomats in Baghdad
and London to Brigadar Manaf Tlas as well as the
Aleppo parliamentarian Ikhlas Badawi.
End game approaching For years,
the Iranian regime's opposition to the West and
Israel earned it tremendous popularity on the Arab
street. However, its support for the Assad regime
has severely undermined this trend. Iran is being
accused of not only supporting a brutal dictator
responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own
citizens, but also acting as an impediment to the
democratization of an Arab nation.
Iran's
continuous logistical, economic, and political
support has been crucial to the survival of the
Syrian regime, however as the opposition gains
increasing control over the country - and as the
international pressure on the regime grows - the
imminent downfall of Assad becomes ever more
likely.
Either the regime itself will
sacrifice Assad to save its own skin (akin to how
the Egyptian Army dispensed with Mubarak to retain
its own power), or the opposition will continue to
benefit from the inflow of increasingly advanced
armaments and defections within the regime's ranks
to eventually override the regime.
Today,
Iran faces the stark choice of letting go of Assad
to preserve a friendly regime or desperately stand
by him and risk the possibility of confronting a
hostile, post-Assad revolutionary state. It might
be too late for Iran to reach out to the
opposition and win their hearts.
Richard Javad Heydarian is a
Phillipines-based foreign affairs analyst
specializing on Iran and international
security.
(Copyright 2012 Richard
Javad Heydarian)
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