Will Iran Give Up On Assad?

by Mudar Zahran
August 26, 2011 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2379/iran-assad

Despite the dramatic meltdown of some of the Middle East's strongest regimes, Syrian president Bashar Assad seems more defiant than ever with stubbornness possibly well-justified: after all, he has a Middle Eastern superpower on his side, Iran. But will Iran give up on Assad?

in 2006, Hatem Shaheen, a prominent Jordanian lawyer on Saddam Hussein's defense team, mentioned that Saddam had given a verbal message to his defense team to convey to Syrian president Assad: "Mr. President, do not depend on Iran or trust it, they hate Arabs and they will give up on you."

When the Libyan rebels started taking over the streets of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on August 21^st, Assad appeared on TV, more defiant than ever. His tone even escalated into "warning the West" from the grave consequences of any military intervention on his country. Historically, this has meant two things in Arab dictatorship lingo: butchering citizens, and attacking Israel.

Assad, fighting for his regime's life, cannot open a front with Israel, due to Israel's military capabilities. Nonetheless, Iran's offshoot, Lebanon's Hizballah, can cause trouble for Israel. To underscore his point, and to set an example for others, Assad's forces killed 15 Syrian civilians by the end of the day he had appeared on TV. Assad's point reached way across to the West, Israel and his people: "There will be blood on the floor."

Assad's defiance is not simply stubbornness or delusion; Assad is not necessarily playing the same role as Saddam did when he refused to end his occupation of Kuwait in 1991 despite serious warnings from a united coalition. The Syrian regime has proven to be a witty survivor, pushing others to fight its wars, as in the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s, when he deployed Lebanese militias -- who were simply fighting on Syria's behalf-- and before that, with the Damascus-based Public Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization that had hijacked many airplanes and carried out some of the worst global terrorist attacks of the 1970s and 1980s, and which continues to receive Syrian financing and training, all while keeping itself away as much as possible from any serious one-on-one confrontation with Israel or the West.

Assad's coalition with Hezbollah and its mentor, Iran, is based on more than just mutual interest: it is based also on ethnic ties as Iran is a Shiite Islamic republic, and the Assads are Alawites, a minority sect of Shiite who are Islam that glorifies Muhammad's cousin, Ali, over anything else holy, and therefore considered heretical Muslims, or even sometimes non-Muslims, by the majority of Sunni Muslims, who make up over 70% of Syria's population. Iran's protégées in Lebanon, Hezbollah and Ammal -- a less-active Shiite terrorist group responsible for massacring the Sunni Palestinians in a siege refugee camps that lasted for years in the last 1980s — these people support Syria on orders from Iran and with a religious zeal.

All of this possibly makes Assad feel confident that Iran will stand up to his defense. Iran, however, might have other ideas. Iran has regularly used its neighbors, Syria and Lebanon, and the puppet terrorist organizations within them, to fight its own wars by-proxy against Israel, and as a boogeyman against its Arab neighbors. Yet will Iran itself engage in a war to defend the Syrian regime?

Iran most likely does have a religious – or sectarian -- compassion for the Alawite rulers of Syria, Shiite fundamentalism and brotherhood-of-the- faith are very different from its Sunni counterpart's: while fundamentalist Sunni religious leaders often live a rough life and choose to give up earthly spoils for the afterlife, even choosing to die to go to Paradise, the Shiite clerics ruling Iran enjoy a very prosperous lifestyle. The system there permits them to enjoy the advantages and benefits of a lavish lifestyle. Iran is a state of "Wilayat Al-Faqih," or "the rule of the clerics," in which religious leaders have power and therefore have wealth.

Despite its significant military power, and Russia's generosity in selling military technology to Iran, Iran knows it is no match for Western and Israeli military power; therefore Iran is left with only one strong arm: oil, a market which it can disrupt with its serious share of oil production and its stretching coast on the Persian gulf, and through which it can disturb the oil-exporting operations of its Arab neighbors with minimal military tension and no need for confrontations. Still, Iran's ruling clerics have more to lose the most by doing so: their lifestyle will be compromised.

In addition, Iran seems to think its ambitious nuclear program is what will put it on the map of superpowers and make it invincible; therefore, Iran, despite its close ties to Syria, will less than likely do anything that would disrupt that ambition as engaging in a war to save the Syrian regime might do. Iran's rulers must be wondering if Assad is worth it..

Although Iran might seriously wish to keep Assad in power, it may not have the will to fight to do so. Saddam Hussein's message to Assad may be right after all.

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