05.11.2015
Compromise in the offing
With talks over Syria set to continue, Yassamine Mather reports on the contortions of the rival powers
Iran’s supreme leader, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is becoming an accomplished, compulsive liar.
Over the last few weeks Khamenei has spoken on a number of occasions against foreign countries deciding the political future of Syria - even though Iran participated last week in talks held between the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and a number of other countries in Vienna, aimed precisely at deciding Syria’s fate, and in the absence of a single Syrian, either from the government or the opposition.
Speaking to Iranian diplomats and officials, Khamenei had said: “We believe it doesn’t make sense that other countries get together and decide about a governing system and the head of that state ... this is a dangerous initiative which no country in the world would accept to be done for itself.”1 So why did Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif attend these talks - not only with the permission of the supreme leader, but, according to the minister himself, following word by word the instructions issued by Khamenei?
The reason is simple: despite denials repeated time and again that there are Iranian military personnel in Syria, every day the media in Iran carries reports and images of funerals for Islamic Revolutionary Guards of all ranks, including commanders, ‘martyred’ in Syria - killed while fighting Islamic State. All of them are diehard supporters of Khamenei: some are veterans of the Iran-Iraq war, others experts in counter insurgency, who were deployed in 2009 against the Iranian opposition.
For all Iran’s financial and military support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, his grip on power is in doubt, as continued US and Arab support for ‘moderate’ Islamist opponents (in reality al Nusra, an offshoot of al Qa’eda) - not to mention tolerance of and covert support for Islamic State from Arab countries - can change the balance of forces in Syria. Iran’s foreign ministry officials might deny it in press conferences, but the reality is that even the supreme leader is considering the possibility of removing Assad from power. For example, he said: “First, war and unrest should end, so that the Syrian people can elect anyone they want in a peaceful and calm environment.”
This, of course, comes from a man who has held the role of supreme power for the last 18 years, having been appointed by that shadowy group of senior (in some cases senile) clerics known as the Assembly of Experts in the oxymoron that is Iran’s Islamic Republic. A man who has overruled presidents, and elected governments that got past the strict vetting of the above-mentioned assembly.
As far as Syria is concerned, last week’s talks failed to reach a conclusion, ending with a bland, nine-point statement favouring a ceasefire and “committing the parties to a UN-led transition, in which Syrians, including the diaspora, elect their leaders.”2 Yet there is a shift in the position of both Iran and Russia, as far as the future of Assad is concerned. Both countries are more interested in preserving their geopolitical interests rather than saving a failing dictator.
The Saudis must have sensed this U-turn, for, only hours after the talks ended, the new foreign minister, Adel al-Jubair, who is well known for his dislike of Iran (there are allegations that Iran attempted to murder him in 2011, when he was the ambassador to the United States), initiated a new war of words between Tehran and Riyadh. He was adamant that Assad “should leave this afternoon - the sooner, the better”.3 Al-Jubair also insisted that Iranian forces would have to be withdrawn as part of any agreement.
The response from Tehran came swiftly. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, told the official IRNA news agency:
We warn Adel al-Jubeir not to test the Islamic Republic of Iran’s patience. Instead of blaming others, Saudi Arabia’s minister of foreign affairs would do better to end his visible and hidden support for terrorists in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.4
Soon the war of words had escalated to presidential level. Iran’s president, Hassan Rowhani, said: “If Saudi Arabia’s vision on the big regional questions confronts reality and it stops its intrusions, we can solve many problems, especially in our relations.” Of course, for their part the Saudis accuse Iran of destabilising Bahrain and Lebanon.
US and Iran
So how did it all start? Why are we witnessing civil wars in Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain as well as Syria? Contrary to reports in the mass media, this has little to do with Sunni-Shia conflict or Assad’s repression of protestors inspired by the Arab spring. It has everything to do with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. That was a war that left a major political vacuum in the region, allowing, amongst other things, Iran to expand its influence using regional allies.
And throughout this time Iran and the US have been holding talks, usually in secret. Over the last few weeks, Khamenei has insisted that the Islamic republic will not negotiate with the US except regarding the nuclear conflict, yet anyone with even limited knowledge of the region will know this to be untrue. Even if we forget Irangate (where Iran’s complicity with Ronald Reagan facilitated payment of ransom money to the Nicaraguan Contras via Israel and Swiss bank accounts), Tehran has never stopped negotiating with the United States since the day that the present regime came to power in 1979.
In the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks, a number of senior US officials flew to Geneva and met secretly with officials of the government of Iran. Throughout the next few months, the US and Iran cooperated on a wide range of issues, including moves against al Qa’eda, as well as the war waged against the Taliban government in Afghanistan: “During the US invasion, Iran opened its airspace to US forces, provided highly valuable intelligence on the movement of Taliban fighters, closed its borders to al Qa’eda and agreed to return any American soldiers forced to land in Iran.”5
There are contradictory reports about US-Iran relations prior to the US invasion of Iraq. However, no-one can be in any doubt that the single biggest beneficiary of the Bush/Blair war and the downfall of Saddam Hussein was neither the US, nor the UK nor the people of Iraq rather: it was Iran’s Islamic Republic. Since then everything about the occupation government in Baghdad and the power struggle between the labyrinth of Shia militias and political groups has been subject to negotiations between Tehran and Washington, be it through intermediaries or in secret.
One of the main beneficiaries of this policy was Ibrahim al-Jafari, Iraq’s prime minister in 2005-06. Jafari had been active as a spokesman for the Islamic Dawa Party - a close ally and protégé of Iran’s Islamic revolution. Later Iraqi premier Nouri al-Maliki of the Badr Brigades - the military arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq - was given a helping hand. Badr was trained and armed by Iran and had its headquarters in Tehran.
By 2007 Iran not only controlled the government in Baghdad: it had forged a new alliance with Assad as well as reinforcing its relationship with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Arab allies of the US were very concerned about this situation, but Iran’s intervention in Bahrain and Yemen, plus its support for Assad, gave the Saudis and other Arab states the excuse they needed for generating the hysteria about Iran’s regional ambitions. Suddenly the country named by George W Bush as part of the “axis of evil” was exerting considerable influence over whole swathes of the Middle East. This situation represented a direct challenge not only to Sunni regimes backed by the US and the EU, but also to the west’s main ally in the region, Israel.
All of this provides the only rational explanation as to why Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states have armed and financed Salafi-Wahhabi forces in an attempt to start a sectarian conflict; why the US turned a blind eye to the rise of jihadists in the region; and why over the last few years the Saudi obsession with overthrowing Assad has been supported by western governments. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries are also concerned that Iraq, a traditional enemy of Iran, is now its main ally in the region. In this respect the war in Syria is all about weakening Iran’s position in the region and the fundamental issues driving the current conflict will not go away - even if the next round of the multinational negotiations results in a deal over who should replace Assad.
Alternatives
International talks about the future of Syria will resume in two weeks time, although Iran is threatening withdraw, using Saudi comments as an excuse. For the time being, however, Assad remains in power, as both the US and Russia agree there is no obvious replacement.
Russia and Iran have been and remain against regime change and there are obvious reasons for this, related to their own interests. But in Arab and western capitals too there is concern that if Assad was suddenly forced out, “two-thirds of his commanders would go with him and Syria would collapse”.6 The US and its allies know perfectly well what can happen when there is a political vacuum: they have seen the consequences of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and they cannot afford the creation of another Benghazi or Tripoli. So the proposals for an interim government has supporters beyond Tehran and Moscow and, according to the BBC, during the Vienna talks there were
discussions concerning which senior members of president Assad’s team would be asked to leave - a figure of 10-15 people was cited. There’s also a hope that new, more credible, leaders will emerge from the opposition during this period to replace figures seen as lacking support inside Syria.7
In 2012 the west, prompted by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, seemed to be supporting the Syrian opposition’s government-in-exile, the Syrian National Council. We were told the council was a democratic organisation where representatives of various groups shared power.
We no longer hear much about the SNC and there are many reasons for this, including the fact that the SNC was very much associated with the Islamist government of the then Turkish prime minister, Recep Erdoğan, and influenced by his party, the AKP. Also, thanks to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states pouring in resources for al Nusra and Islamic State, the semi-secular forces inside Syria were annihilated - although such forces are vocal outside the country, the main battles inside Syria are between jihadists and the Assad regime with Russian and Iranian support and between the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Islamic State.
As far as Syrian Kurds were concerned, the SNC’s close association with Turkey ruled out any long-term collaboration. The council’s declared position - “constitutional recognition of Kurdish national identity and the creation of a just, democratic formula for the Kurdish question within the framework of unity of the homeland” - did not go far enough, especially as some senior SNC figures kept talking about maintaining Syria’s identity as an “Arab republic”.
According to the Financial Times,
The best-positioned organisation to replace Assad right now is probably the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the group known as Isis that controls half of Syrian territory and is sowing terror well beyond the borders of the Middle East. The second best-placed is the Nusra Front, another jihadi group linked to al Qa’eda.8
UK vote?
Given all these facts, it would be madness for the UK to go for military intervention in Syria. David Cameron, wary of the possibility of losing a second vote on the issue, has now decided against it. According to the BBC, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee has warned that “any benefits of air strikes in Syria would be more than outweighed by the risks of legal ambiguity, political chaos on the ground, military irrelevance and diplomatic costs.”
Not only would the UK risk “further reputational” damage, but the consequences of tackling IS would be “hard to predict”.
The committee concluded: “… we believe that there should be no extension of British military action into Syria unless there is a coherent international strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating ISIL and of ending the civil war in Syria.”9
This summarises the dilemma faced by western governments. There has been no “coherent policy” from the US or other imperialist powers. On the contrary, the random air strikes have only succeeded in recruiting more volunteers for IS, while leaving its military and political structure intact. No wonder US air strikes in Syria have “fallen dramatically”.10 In fact in the 10 days proceeding the talks in Vienna were none at all.
Of course, Conservative ministers claim that the situation has changed since parliament voted against military intervention in 2013. It is certainly true that the war has escalated, IS is now in a much more powerful position and hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled. However, it should be obvious to everyone that any further intervention, with or without a UK parliamentary vote, will only make the situation worse, irrespective of whether it is declared legal or complies with the latest UN position.
yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.co.uk
Notes
1. www.wsj.com/articles/irans-khamenei-warns-countries-against-dictating-syrias-political-future-1446388677.
2. www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21677434-main-result-was-none-parties-walked-out-iran-joins-talks-vienna-about-syrian?fsrc=rss.
3. www.arabnews.com/featured/news/828886.
4. http://tribune.com.pk/story/983826/irans-rouhani-urges-end-to-saudi-intrusions-in-mideast.
5. http://defence.pk/threads/iran-from-axis-of-evil-to-last-best-hope-in-the-middle-east.323253/page-2.
6. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-34676238.
9. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34706279.
10. www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d74bbba-7efa-11e5-a1fe-567b37f80b64.html#axzz3qRWn8VLz.