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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 June 2000 Issue No. 486
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Iranian anxieties
By Azadeh MoaveniPresident Mohamed Khatami's presence at Assad's funeral, his foreign minister's immediate visit to the Syrian embassy in Tehran following the announcement of the Syrian president's death and the official three-day national mourning period declared in Iran are more than symbolic gestures. Syria has, after all, been Iran's key regional ally for two decades now, and the death of Assad inevitably focusses attention on the continuing viability of that alliance.
Even the normally reclusive Mrs Zohreh Khatami told Mrs Al-Assad in a message how much Iran would miss the man who \"under the worst circumstances directed the Syrian people towards the shores of dignity and honour.\"
In many ways, the Syria of today bears more similarity to Iran than its Arab neighbors: inward-looking, economically backward and at logger-heads with Israel, the two nations found common interest in the militant resistance in south Lebanon.
The resemblance -- and their relationship -- is historic. Syria backed Iran from the start in its war with Iraq (1980-1988), eight years of support that earned Syria much more than Iranian funding for its local Shi'ite shrine. In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, Iran returned the favour by supporting the Hizbullah resistance, which battled with the Israelis for nearly two decades, staving off the threat to Syria and supplying it with a means to pressure Israel. Yet as much as Syria required Hizbullah as a bargaining chip with the Israelis, it is questionable whether it could have supported the movement without Iran's financial and military input and spiritual guidance. Hizbullah's successful expulsion of Israeli forces just two weeks ago is a major foreign policy triumph for the Iranian-Syrian alliance.
Iran had never relied on the \"beating heart of Arab nationalism\" to win friends across the region, though it has faced an uphill struggle reviving relations with countries once considered markets for the export of its Islamic revolution.
With Syria's relations with its neighbors strained, Assad had little to lose by his close ties to Iran, and the two found common ground in their relative isolation.
Though in recent times Iran and Syria shared a similarly tough stance on Israel, Syria is ultimately prepared to negotiate. Iran is not. The future prospects for the alliance, then, will depend on the direction Assad's son and successor, Bashar, will take on peace with Israel. In the event of a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty, which opens the way for \"normal\" diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries, Iran may find itself alone in its hostility to Israel.
This is unlikely to take place any time soon, and for the moment Iran's commitment to Damascus remains firm. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei confirmed this in a condolence message to the younger Assad: \"The government and nation of the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to stand by the side of the Syrian government and nation.\" The Supreme Leader's foreign policy advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati, accompanied Khatami to Assad's funeral.
While Iran's establishment politicians may be content to watch Bashar succeed his father, the younger generation of reformists are likely to view the generational change as an opportunity to review, if not revamp, Iranian foreign policy while in some quarters of the Iranian press a cautious note was sounded about assuming an automatic renewal of the bilateral friendship. \"The world has to wait a while until he [Bashar] takes full control of Syria's affairs before judging the great man's son,\" said Iran News in its Sunday editorial.
What Bashar will mean for Syria is still unclear, but if he acts to modernise the country and create a new economic life for his people, Iran may well lose its key ally. And should Lebanese predictions that Bashar Al-Assad will tighten Syria's economic links with Lebanon be true, Iran may well be left the lone economic backwater in a region that is integrating, albeit at varied paces, with the rest of the world.
