Iran
draws the line with Turkey on
Syria By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
In a sign of growing Iranian misgiving
about Turkey's role in Middle Eastern affairs,
Tehran has decided to throw its weight behind the
embattled Syrian regime, even if that translates
into a setback in relations between Tehran and
Ankara.
Iran's move is bound to represent
a new thorn in ties, with multiple potential
side-effects, since it comes at a delicate time
when Turkey is pressuring Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad and his government to adopt meaningful
reforms and to give legitimacy to the Syrian
opposition, which has repeatedly held meetings in
Turkey.
Over the weekend, Tehran hosted
Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Alaw for the signing of
a major trilateral Iran-Iraq-Syria gas deal worth
billions of dollars, while
showering the Assad regime with unconditional
praise as the "vanguard of resistance" that was
subjected to psychological warfare and
Western-Zionist conspiracy.
Articulating
Iran's steadfast support for its key Arab ally,
Iranian first Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi
used his meeting with Alaw to expel the slightest
doubt about Iran's stance on Syria, by stating
that "Iran and Syria are two inseparable countries
and allies, and Iran will stand by its friend and
Muslim [neighboring] country, Syria, under all
circumstances".
In sharp contrast to
Turkey's support for the Syrian opposition, Rahimi
dismissed the current unrest in Syria as "guided
by arrogant powers and the meddling of enemies".
Behind Iran's new Syria move is a
calculated gamble that contrary to some Western
perceptions, the Assad regime is not completely
isolated and still enjoys a considerable mass
following. This is reflected in huge
pro-government rallies consistently ignored by the
Western media, and that with sufficient internal
and regional support, Damascus could survive and
ride out the current storm.
Assad has been
unable to crush the uprising despite a crackdown
against ant-government protests in which activists
say more than 1,600 people have been killed since
mid-March.
A clue to the "new Iranian
thinking" on the crisis in Syria and its regional
implications emerged in a recent issue of Sobhe
Sadegh, the weekly publication of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), written by Reza
Garmabehry, that in unmistakable language warned
that if Iran had to choose between Turkey and
Syria, it would choose Syria. Titled "Iran's
serious position vis-a-vis the events in Syria",
the article implicitly criticized Turkey for
serving Western and Zionist interests by siding
with the opposition and thus weakening the regime
in Syria.
Simultaneously, the IRGC has
demonstrated Iran's hard power by conducting a
successful counter-insurgency military campaign
resulting in its incursion inside Iraqi territory
in hot pursuit of a Kurdish armed group known as
PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan). This is
a fresh reminder to Turkey of Iran's stability
role with respect to the Kurdish problem besetting
Ankara, in light of Iran's considerable clout in
Iraq.
This coincides with a new Iranian
naval strategy that focuses on "out of area"
missions for the navy in "open waters" and with
access to foreign ports such as in Syria (see
Iran on new voyage of discovery Asia Times
Online, February 24, 2011).
According to
some Tehran analysts, Iran hopes that Turkey will
adjust its Syria policy and rethink its stinging
criticisms of the Assad regime.
If this
does not happen and the policy contrasts between
Iran and Turkey over Syria grow sharper, then we
may witness a cooling period between Tehran and
Ankara. Turkey is seeking a leading role in the
deadlocked Middle East peace process, in light of
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's planned
visit of besieged Gaza, Ankara's hosting a
Palestinian summit and reports of Turkey's
intention to play a leading role in the upcoming
United Nations debates on Palestinian statehood in
September.
Much as Iran and Turkey may
cooperate at the UN level on the Palestinian
issue, given that Turkey-Israel strategic
relations have remained essentially untouched by
various negative developments, such as the murder
of nine Turkish citizens on a Gaza-bound ship by
Israeli commandos, Tehran continues to view with
suspicion some of Turkey's regional moves that may
come at Iran's expense.
Erdogan's three
conditions for normalizing relations with Israel -
an apology, compensation to the victims and the
lifting of the Gaza siege - are considered rather
lenient by Tehran, which would like to see the
conditions widened to encompass the return of Arab
lands, including the Golan Heights.
Assuming the Syria crisis lingers - which
would mean more Syrian refugees in Turkey - the
pressure on Ankara will likely increase and thus
force Ankara to look to Iran for influencing
Damascus. After all, contagion from Syria, as
compared to Iran's distance from Syria, represents
a minus for Turkey at the moment that adds to its
vulnerability.
Playing hardball with
Ankara, Tehran's new determination to stand behind
Damascus no matter what in effect confronts Ankara
with tough choices: ie, either continue with the
current position tilted in favor of the Syrian
opposition, and thus earn a substantial setback in
relations with Iran, or emulate Iran and refrain
from the hard push for reform inside Syria, and
thus avoid a broadening of the arc of crisis
engulfing Turkey's regional context.
According to Bahram Amirahmadian, a Tehran
analyst who says Ankara has been exploiting "weak
Iranian diplomacy", a more robust Iranian
diplomacy is called for to avoid lagging behind
Turkey in Middle East affairs. Apparently, the
above-mentioned IRGC initiative is intended to
address this issue, through a combination of soft
and hard power that includes the carrot of
economic (energy) incentives in league with
Baghdad.
Thus, it is not simply Iran but
rather the triumvirate of Iran-Iraq-Syria that
Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organization
member, has to reckon with.
Kaveh L
Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy
(Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here.
He is author of Reading
In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11
(BookSurge Publishing , October 23, 2008) and his
latest book, Looking
for rights at Harvard, is now available.
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