SPEAKING
FREELY Tehran jumps to Assad's
rescue By Richard Javad
Heydarian
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
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With Bashar al-Assad
regime in Syria gradually (or appearing to be)
losing its grip on power, Iran - sensing the
precarious position of its key ally - has come to
the rescue in the most unequivocal terms, with
Tehran's diplomatic efforts moving into high gear.
Earlier this month, Iran's President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met Saudi Arabia's King
Abdullah and other regional leaders during an
"emergency" gathering of the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation
in Mecca to discuss the
Syrian issue before Iran hosted the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) Summit now underway.
At the
summit, Tehran is testing its ability to attract
the Global South's support for a political
resolution of the Syrian crisis, while shoring up
international solidarity for its own (peaceful)
nuclear program.
Earlier this month, it
dispatched a senior envoy - no less than the
country's chief nuclear negotiator (and a
potential presidential candidate in 2013), Saeed
Jalili, to Damascus. As the secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council, he directly
represents the interest of Iran's top leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on
Iran's foreign and nuclear policy.
Jalili's talks in Damascus were followed
by the envoy's visit to Iran's main Shi'ite ally,
Hezbollah, in Lebanon to shore up regionwide
support for Damascus and consolidate the so-called
"axis of resistance" under Tehran's strategic
guidance.
Iran then sent the head of the
National Security Commission, Alaedin Boroujerdi,
to meet Assad and his deputy, Farouq Al-Sharaa.
Incidentally, Al-Sharra was the guy accused by the
opposition as defecting from the regime, so the
Iran's security chief's visit not only buttressed
Tehran support for the embattled Arab regime; it
also provided a high-profile pretext for the
regime to deny the vice president's defection.
Al-Sharaa made a public appearance on Tuesday,
quashing the rumors.
The Iranian foreign
ministry also joined the fray, with Deputy Foreign
Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian stating during a
meeting with Lebanon's leader, Najib Mikati: "We
are absolutely sure that Syria will get out of the
current crisis with its head held high and will
remain in the resistance front against the Zionist
regime [of Israel]."
To make clear that
Iran still believes in the viability of the Syrian
regime, he reiterated Iran's confidence in the
prospective success of Assad's purported "reforms"
to appease the opposition and put a lid on the
ongoing violence. Iran is simply encouraging the
Lebanese leadership to stay away from any
Western-Arab push for direct intervention and -
together with Iraq - alleviate Syria's isolation
within the immediate neighborhood.
However, with Syria's expulsion from the
Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Iran's
ultimate diplomatic support for Syria has come as
it hosts the 16th NAM Summit, which has brought
together more than 120 member countries, 17
observer nations, more than 30 state leaders, with
no less than UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon
participating in the proceedings - despite
tremendous Israeli and American opposition.
With Syria losing diplomatic
representation in almost all Arab countries,
suspended from the Arab League, being censured by
the UN General Assembly for the ongoing violence,
and suffering from high-profile diplomatic
defections to key states such as Britain, the NAM
is providing Syria a much-needed diplomatic
breathing space. Thus, Iran is allowing Syria to
enjoy a measure of international life - essential
to the external sovereignty of any regime.
Iran's foreign minister indicated that the
summit is an opportunity for Iran to present a
"rational and acceptable" solution to the Syrian
crisis. According to him, "During the Non-Aligned
Movement summit, the Islamic Republic of Iran will
discuss a proposal on Syria with participating
countries."
Foreign ministry spokesman
Ramin Mehmanparast described the proposal as,
"acceptable, reasonable, rational, and
comprehensive, being very difficult to oppose".
More specifically, Iran has proposed the formation
of a NAM special committee under the leadership of
the troika (NAM's current, past, and future
rotational chairs: Iran, Egypt, and Venezuela) in
cooperation with the UN to resolve the Syrian
crisis.
This comes against the backdrop of
Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi proposing the
inclusion of Iran in a regional contact group
bringing together Sunni powers in the Persian Gulf
- namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey (a member of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the
traditional Arab leader, Egypt, along with Syria's
powerful Shi'ite supporter, Iran.
India -
sending its leader to the NAM summit - has also
called for strengthening of the UN's role on Syria
under the rubric of a more effective multilateral
approach - signaling its dismay with the ongoing
"proxy war' over Syria's future and talks of
Western intervention.
Iran's "Damascus
dilemma' Without question, the Syrian
situation is appalling. So far, more than 20,000
civilians have been killed, while around 2 million
people are in dire need of humanitarian
assistance, with hundreds of thousands of people
fleeing across the borders to seek refuge from the
ongoing bloodshed across the country.
The
Syrian uprising is morphing into a "war to death",
with both sides refusing to contemplate any
meaningful concession - the chief culprit
responsible for the collapse of the Annan
Six-Point Plan and UN's ultimate withdrawal from
Syria.
Sensing the increasing possibility
of Assad's collapse, Iran has stepped up its
support for the regime. Tehran's strategic
position is two-fold: (a) ensure the survival of
its most important ally, the Assad regime, and (b)
give the Syrian regime enough breathing space to
lay the ground for an eventual dialogue with the
opposition - once both sides enter an
unquestionable state of military stalemate, which
could only be resolved by a political compromise.
Of course, the question is whether Iran
will more "directly" participate in the protection
of its ally by concretely providing substantial
financial aid, logistical support, and
security-military assistance. Top American
officials have already been accusing Iran of doing
as much: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General
Martin Dempsey have accused Iran of building and
training a specific militia to support the Syrian
regime. This came against the backdrop of recent
kidnapping of 47 Iranian pilgrims in the suburb of
Sayyida Zainab in Damascus.
Iran
dispatched its foreign policy chief, Ali Akbar
Salehi, to Ankara in order to gain Turkish
assistance with regards to the abduction. The
Iranian foreign ministry also asked the help of
Arab countries (with leverage over opposition
groups) such as Qatar. While Iran maintains that
the victims are non-combatants, the Syrian
opposition has described them as Iranian security
forces on a reconnaissance mission, alluding to
the presence of members of Iran's elite
revolutionary guards among the abductees. Iran has
categorically denied such charges, while
maintaining that some of the pilgrims were simply
veterans of Iran's security apparatus.
However, so far, there seems to be little
evidence of whether Iran is contemplating (or has
engaged in) direct participation within the Syrian
theatre of conflict, since any intervention would
not only escalate the ongoing proxy-war, with
uncertain possible outcomes, and provide a pretext
for direct NATO-Arab intervention, but it would
also undercut Iran's efforts to open channels of
communication with the opposition in order to
exercise an effective mediating role.
What
is clear is that Iran's main strategy is still
focused on a diplomatic and political approach,
and the language of the Iranian representatives to
Syria is a key indication of Iran's commitment to
pursue all politico-diplomatic means to help the
regime.
During his meeting with the
embattled President Assad, Jalili expressed Iran's
unflinching support by saying Tehran, would "never
allow the resistance axis - of which Syria is an
essential pillar - to break". His statement was
based on Iran's particular characterization of the
Syrian crisis as, "... not an internal issue but a
conflict between the axis of resistance on the one
hand, and the regional and global enemies of this
axis on the other".
During his talks with
Hezbollah's charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah,
Jalili emphasized his country's opposition to
external intervention in Syria while expressing
Tehran's solidarity with the Lebanese "resistance
movement". Iran has been prodding the Lebanese
group to be more explicit in its support of the
Syrian regime, as Lebanon feels the aftershocks of
the Syrian crisis and Hezbollah faces growing
tensions between its "state obligations" as a
legitimate part of the ruling government, on the
one hand, and strategic alliance with Iran and
Syria on the other.
Iran's ultimate
strategy Paradoxically, Iran is
simultaneously describing the Syrian uprisings as
a "domestic matter" that should be exclusively
left to the regime and the opposition forces to
sort out, but also an "international conflict"
between a revisionist alliance, on one hand, and a
coalition of status quo powers, namely Arab
monarchies, Turkey, and NATO, on the other - thus,
necessitating and justifying Iran's pro-active
participation in the Syrian conundrum.
Iran - along with Russia and China - has
been among the most vocal critics of a potential
military intervention in Syria as well as of
Western and regional support (by both Turkey and
Arab monarchies) for the Free Syria Army and other
more extremist elements.
For Iran, more
than rescuing a key ally and retaining any modicum
of regional influence in the Greater Middle East,
the Syrian crisis has another strategic dimension:
Tehran sees the Syrian issue - and its leverage
over the ruling clique - as a vital bargaining
chip in its ongoing negotiations with the world
powers, ostensibly centered on the nuclear
question but in essence a potential foundation for
a broader Iran-West "grand bargain".
It
remains to be seen whether how far Iran is willing
to go in order to prevent Assad's downfall and
convince its Arab neighbors to focus on a
political resolution of the Syrian crisis. For
now, Iran's regional standing (and even national
security) is heavily hinged on how it
strategically maneuvers around the Syria-nuclear
nexus as it struggles to overcome a barrage of
economic sanctions, deter an American-Israeli
strike, and manage growing tensions with Arab
neighbors and Turkey.
Speaking Freely
is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
Richard Javad Heydarian is a
Philippines-based foreign affairs analyst
specializing on Iran and international
security.
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