Category Archives: United States

Iran, Syria, United States

Will Iran’s new president alter its policy on Syria?

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, is faced with a plethora of national and international challenges.

Rouhani’s presidential term starts at a particularly challenging time. The Islamic Republic of Iran is facing an unprecedented level of regional and international isolation, largely due to the US/EU sanctions because of Iranian aspirations in building a nuclear bomb.

One of the most crucial foreign policy objectives in Rouhani’s agenda will be the Syrian conflict, which has now entered its third year.

Iran’s election result raises vital questions as to whether its foreign policy towards the Assad regime will be altered or whether the Iranian-Syrian alliance will evolve into a new phase. The presidency of the centrist Rouhani could change the diplomatic ties with Damascus, with a change possible in Iran’s support for Assad. Tehran has provided the Syrian state with political, military, intelligence and advisory support to its army and security services. That support has, until now, been unconditional.

While there are high expectations among Western political leaders that the election of the centrist Rouhani might influence a change in Iran’s support of Assad, that enthusiasm must be balanced against a number of factors including the realism of Iran’s centrist ideology, the power of the presidential office, Iran’s political structure, and Tehran’s foreign policy objectives.

The political spectrum of the centrists in Iran analyses Syria more from a religious and geopolitical angle and how the realms of the balance-of-power lies. It is least interested in any deterioration in human rights.

Although Rouhani argues for constructive interactions with other countries, and supports applying a softer political tone – as opposed to the combative, controversial and provocative language used by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – Rouhani has not yet called for an overall sweeping shift in Iran’s foreign policy towards Syria. Rouhani has neither asked Assad to step down from power nor pressed to halt the intelligence, financial and advisory support to Damascus.

However, withdrawing support to Damascus could be perceived by some centrists as an attempt to undermine Tehran’s geopolitical leverage and balance of power in the region, which ultimately could endanger their own influence and power. This is particularly significant to those Iranian leaders who argue that they are surrounded by what they perceive as ‘existential and strategic enemies’. Military bases of the United States, for instance, are located throughout Iran’s borders and in the Gulf Arab states – Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The role of the Supreme Leader, too, plays a significant part in Iran’s foreign policy objectives. It may then be unrealistic to argue that Rouhani would be in a position to immediately alter Iran’s current political status quo towards the Assad regime. Iran’s policy towards Damascus is closely guarded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the high generals of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Etela’at – Iran’s intelligence service. Rouhani will, though, have the ability to set the tone in regional and international circles for the Supreme Leader.

Ali Khamenei has been very clear about his political stance on Syria, stating that Assad’s regime is targeted by Israeli and US-backed groups, foreign conspirators and terrorists.

The religious and pious angle is hugely important. One of the major pillars of Iran’s foreign policy has been that it has proclaimed itself as the safe-guardian of Islamic values, particularly Shi’ite. The Alawite sect-based state of Syria serves as a crucial instrument for advancing, empowering, and achieving this foreign policy objective. Many analysts will be of the view that Rouhani is unlikely to push for regime change in Syria, or by asking Assad to step aside as many Western and Arab Gulf states have done. The domino effect of halting any advisory assistance, be it political, military, or intelligence, to Assad’s ruling Alawite and socialist Bath party, would likely weaken Iran’s own regional influence and foreign policy leverage.

If the Alawites lose power, the next government in Syria is likely to be constituted from the current opposition groups: the Sunni majority in Syria comprises around 74% of the population. As in Egypt and Tunisia, where the Islamic Sunni parties were the ones who won the elections, in Damascus, the Sunni groups are more likely to win most of the parliamentary seats in any new government after Assad. When this happens this will be regarded as a considerable shift in regional and international power against Iran and in favour of the Arab Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Meantime, it seems likely that Iran will continue implementing its current strategies towards Syria to preserve Iran’s regional influence, its political and economic national interests, and the survival of the ruling clerics.

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Britain, Syria, United States

Decision time over Syria. Avoid making historic mistake…

As world leaders gather for the G8 conference in Northern Ireland, one issue seems certain to dominate all others: the Syrian civil war.

On Friday, President Obama triggered an escalation in this already terrifying crisis by announcing the US will shortly send weapons to moderate elements of the Syrian opposition.

William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, then rushed out a statement of support, saying ‘we have to be prepared to do more to save lives’ and put pressure on the Russian-backed Assad regime to negotiate.

Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has been visiting Britain today, and, officially, Downing Street insists no decision has been taken for Britain to deliver arms to the rebels. Worryingly, though, there is every indication that, where the US leads, Britain will wish to follow.

Of course, it’s not difficult to sympathise with politicians wanting to find a solution to a humanitarian disaster which has already claimed more than 90,000 lives. Millions more have been displaced.

But, as Conservative MP John Baron has said: ‘Arming the rebels and escalating the violence could be a mistake of historic proportions.’

In Syria, the ineluctable truth is we simply do not know who the enemy are. There is absolutely no way of preventing the supply of weapons falling into the hands of the extremists who are bolstering the ranks of the opposition forces – including Al-Qaeda.

Nor, even more frighteningly, can Downing Street predict the extent to which ramping up the violence in Syria will further destabilise a wider region which – with tensions simmering in Lebanon, Turkey and Israel – already resembles a fraught tinderbox.

We should not forget how Tony Blair’s egomania (and the subsequent suspension of the democratic process) enabled the former British prime minister to plunge Britain into its worst foreign debacle since Suez.

David Cameron has promised Parliament a say before Britain is dragged any further into Syria. He must honour his word on this. Making a historic mistake with Syria would prove disastrous.

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Britain, Syria, United Nations, United States

The Syrian tinderbox as the West considers sending arms to the rebels…

PRESIDENT Barack Obama is considering arming Syrian rebels in a bid to end a civil war that is now into its third year.

There are growing concerns that President Bashar al-Assad may be gaining the upper hand in the conflict that has claimed at least 80,000 lives and displaced millions more, as government forces recently captured the strategic key town of Qusair.

Mr Assad’s forces are said to be preparing for an assault on the city of Aleppo.

A decision to approve military aid for Syria’s opposition forces could come within the next few days. US Secretary of State, John Kerry, postponed a Middle East trip to attend a Syrian summit in Washington instead.

Opposition leaders in Syria have warned the White House their rebellion could soon face devastating losses without greater support from the United States.

Syria’s precarious position in the heart of the Middle East makes the conflict extremely unpredictable.

The major stumbling block of supplying arms to rebels remains the fear that Al-Qaeda linked and other extremists fighting alongside anti-Assad militias could end up with the weapons.

Washington is still examining evidence that Assad’s forces may have used chemical weapons against the rebels – something Mr Obama has warned Assad would cross a ‘red line’ in provoking swift US military intervention.

Britain and France claim they already have substantive evidence that Assad’s forces have used low levels of the deadly nerve gas sarin in several attacks on rebels, which they have presented to the UN.

OPINION

The threat to world peace and prosperity posed by the bloody civil war in Syria is impossible to exaggerate. The shock-waves from the conflict between rival Islamic factions are spreading far beyond the country itself. The entire region is on the brink of being destabilised.

In Iraq, for example, supposedly rescued from tyranny by Allied forces in the war that ‘ended’ with American troops being withdrawn in December 2011, some 2,000 violent deaths have been recorded in the past two months alone.

In Turkey, Lebanon and Jordon, tensions are rising as hundreds of thousands of displaced refugees pour across the borders in pursuit of safe haven and refuge. Many thousands are in need of food and medical attention. The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) has largely been prevented from attending the sick and dying as Assad has launched wave after wave of attacks on civilians on routes that should have been safeguarded as humanitarian corridors.

On the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel, after a 40-year ceasefire monitored by the United Nations, Austrian peacekeepers are pulling out as the area braces itself in becoming a war zone again.

In Syria, President Assad, far from being defeated, is being supported with Russian arms along with Hezbollah, the fanatically anti-Israeli terrorist group based in Lebanon.

Yet, this is the powder-keg into which President Obama is said to be on the verge of igniting a bigger flame. A decision is imminent on whether to send American arms to the beleaguered opposition forces.

Leaving aside the danger that Iran will retaliate by targeting Israel or US/UK interests in the region, the fact remains that the Syrian rebels (just like their counterparts in Libya two years ago), are riddled with factions hostile to the West – including Al-Qaeda.

Mr Obama, and the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, speak glibly of arming only ‘vetted, moderate rebel units’. The inherent risks of doing so should not be played down with an awareness that these weapons could end up in the hands of the perpetrators of 9/11.

No one can know the way to peace in Syria, the tense geopolitical situation in the region is a cocktail of extremism and hatred. If the United States and Britain have learned anything from the West’s recent past interventions in the Middle East, they must surely realise that ramping up the violence in Syria comes with grave dangers.

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