January 8, 2016 5 News & Analysis Syria In Syria, some see Iran as an occupation force Ed Blanche volving Iranian commanders, fun- damental changes introduced into Beirut Syrian government institutions as a result of the Iranian regime’s in- ack in February 2013, tervention, as well as statements when Iran was starting to by Iranian officials indicating how build up its military pres- they view their role in Syria.” ence in war-torn Syria to Syrian opposition activists told support the flailing and The Arab Weekly that Iranian offic- Bwidely despised President Bashar ers control all regional operations Assad, a senior and shadowy fig- centres, which has had a demoral- ure in the inner circle of the Tehran ising effect on Syrian troops who regime declared: “Syria is the 35th are widely despised by the Irani- province (of Iran) and a strategic ans. “Syrian officers, among them province for us. If the enemy at- Alawites, have become secondary tacks us and wants to appropriate members, whose tasks can some- either Syria or Khuzestan, the pri- times be reduced to handing out ority is to keep Syria.” Hojjat al-Islam Mehdi Taeb, head The Iranian regime of the Ammar Strategic Base, a radical think-tank associated with and its Shia militias Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah are effectively an Ali Khamenei, went on to say in an occupying force in address to university students in the so-called the Basij paramilitary force: “If we keep Syria, we can get Khuzestan regime-held areas in back too. But if we lose Syria, we Syria. cannot keep Tehran.” Khuzestan, a largely Arab prov- tea and coffee,” said one who iden- ince in south-western Iran border- tified himself as Abu Said. ing Iraq, is the centre of Iran’s oil There has been persistent specu- industry and so has immense stra- lation that the Iranians were be- tegic value. Taeb’s words thus un- hind the assassination of four Syri- derline how important Syria is to an regime security chiefs, members Iran as its Levantine spearhead and of a high-powered 11-man “crisis to its ambition to become the domi- cell” on July 18, 2012, apparently nant power in the Middle East. in a bombing at the highly secure Almost three years on, the National Security headquarters in world’s only Shia-controlled state, Damascus. is widely perceived to control the The explosion killed Defence embattled quasi-Shia regime in Da- Minister Daoud Rajha; Major- mascus and to be the military force General Assef Shawkat, Assad’s that determines security strategy brother-in-law, former military in- and its implementation. Iran’s mili- telligence chief and Rajha’s deputy; tary commander in Syria, Major- vice-president Hasan Turkmani; General Qassem Soleimani, who and Hisham Ikhtiyar, the national commands the elite Quds Force of security chief and Assad’s security the Islamic Revolutionary Guards adviser. Corps (IRGC), or Pasdaran, is Teh- The bombing was claimed by ran’s pro-consul with all the power both the Free Syrian Army and of the Iranian regime behind him. another rebel group known as the Assad lives in his shadow. Islam Brigade. However, Naame Shaam claimed that Western intel- Iran’s strategic ligence services believe it was the work of IRGC agents “possibly with purpose in Syria direct orders from General Soleim- appears to be the ani”. creation of a Shia Naame Shaam maintains the Syr- state comprising ian leaders were killed “because some members of the ‘crisis cell’ Damascus. had been opening communications channels with Arab Gulf states and “All military operations in Syria the US to make a deal behind the are being run, commanded, con- back of Iran. The Pasdaran struck to trolled, organised and coordinated prevent such a deal, and since then, by the Pasdaran and Hezbollah,” fully control President Assad, who said Fouad Hamdan, a Lebanese de facto became their hostage.” analyst. “Not a single battle hap- Hamdan and Youssef concluded pens in Syria without them know- in a December 14, 2014, report that ing and coordinating and even giv- the relationship between Iran and ing the orders for it to happen… Syria — one the only Shia power “What regime are we talking in the Muslim world and the other Funeral of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Brigadier-General Hossein Hamedani, killed in Syria, about in Syria? It doesn’t exist any- ruled since 1970 by a regime domi- last October. more. It’s an empty shell,” he said. nated by the Alawite sect, a Shia Assad and his inner circle “are de offshoot — has changed since the drive majority Sunnis from their rich north-east, the north-western of the eastern and northern parts facto hostages of… Soleimani. The war began. traditional areas and transplanting region along the Mediterranean of the country that were now under whole family is still there. No one “From historically being mutu- Syrian Alawites, along with Iranian, coast that embraces the Alawite the rebels’ control,” Naame Shaam can fly, no one can leave… ally beneficial allies, the Iranian re- Lebanese, Iraqi and Afghani Shias heartland and the Qalamoun re- said. “The Assad regime would have gime is now effectively an ‘occupy- to refashion Syria into a Shia-domi- gion on the western border with “Instead the focus from 2013 on collapsed long ago if it was not for ing force’ with the responsibilities nated entity, cutting loose outer re- Lebanon and to conduct a sectarian would be on defending and con- this Iranian support. The Iranian that accompany such a role,” they gions populated by Sunnis or other cleansing that will make it exclu- solidating the Syrian and Iranian regime and its Shia militias are ef- wrote. ethnic groups such as the Kurds. sively Shia. regimes’ control in Damascus and fectively an occupying force in In some quarters, it is said that This, Hamdan and Youssef allege, its surroundings, Homs and its the so-called regime-held areas in the United States, which has dog- has spawned massive purchases of “All military surroundings (which connect the Syria.” gedly refused to be dragged into businesses, industrial concerns and operations in Syria first with the coast region) and the In February 2013, former Syrian the complex Syrian conflict, even vast amounts of real estate, usually are being run, Qalamoun region (which connects prime minister Riyad Hijab, who agreed to give Tehran a relatively at knock-down prices, by Iranians the first two and connects both defected the previous August, told free rein in Syria in exchange for and figures in Assad’s inner circle, commanded, with Lebanon)… Al Arabiya television that Syria was Iran’s participation in the nego- such as his maternal cousin Rami controlled, “At the same time, loyalist zones “occupied by Iran” and was run by tiations that produced the nuclear Makhlouf, whose family runs a organised and or corridors had to be created and Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s agreement in Vienna. huge business empire that has long secured. And the ‘easiest’ way largely covert paramilitary cam- been the regime’s much-favoured coordinated by the to achieve this, it seems, was to paign to subvert and take over Arab “Syria is the 35th financial arm. Pasdaran and change the demographic composi- states in the Gulf and the Levant. province (of Iran) In conjunction with the IRGC’s Hezbollah.” tion of those areas; that is, to empty Naame Shaam (Letter from Syr- and a strategic own vast commercial holdings in them of all ‘wanted elements’, who ia), a group of activists founded Iran, including the country’s big- They point to the battle for the happened to be Sunni, and replace by Hamdan and Syrian activist province for us.” gest construction conglomerate, strategic western border town of them with loyal ones, namely Shair Youssef after the war began Tehran appears to be preparing to Qusayr in April-June 2013 as a sig- Alawis and Shia militants and civil- to monitor the Iranian presence Both are fighting the Islamic maintain this controlling presence nificant turning point in the war be- ians, both local and foreign. in Syria, observed in a September State (ISIS) and its caliphate span- for the foreseeable future, with As- cause it was won by Hezbollah, the “The mass destruction and ap- 2014 report: “There is abundant ning Syria and Iraq in an unde- sad as a Syrian figurehead of what- forerunner of other Shia militias propriation of civilian property evidence that the Iranian regime clared alliance given substance by ever rump state emerges from the created by the IRGC that are now and the forcible displacement and has established and is exercising the agreement curbing Tehran’s carnage that will maintain Iran’s the military spearhead of Iran’s ex- transfer of civilian population… ap- authority in Syria, both directly nuclear project, a deal widely seen vital supply routes through Syria to pansionist ambitions. pear to be part of this policy.” through its armed forces and mili- as a rapprochement between the Hezbollah, Tehran’s first and most After Qusayr, “there was a notice- tias and indirectly through the Syr- long-time adversaries. successful proxy, in Lebanon. able shift in the Iranian regime’s Ed Blanche is the Analysis editor of ian regime. There is growing evidence that Iran’s strategic purpose in Syria military strategy in Syria: conced- The Arab Weekly. He has covered “The evidence includes new Iran is seeking to alter Syria’s demo- appears to be the creation of a Shia ing, or perhaps losing interest in, Middle Eastern affairs since 1967 military command structures in- graphics by helping Assad’s regime state comprising Damascus, the oil- the possibility of regaining control and lives in Beirut..