No. 1 November 2014 with aSingleObjective? The Iranian PoliticalEliteandSyria: Parallel Strategic Depth Resistance,” Preserving Salvaging the “Axis of

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi Tracks 1

العدد - )األول( The Iranian PoliticalEliteandSyria: Parallel Salvaging the “Axis ofResistance,” Preserving StrategicPreserving Depth Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi with aSingleObjective? Tracks 2 No. 1 November 2014

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this paper are the author’s alone, and do not rep- resent those of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. 3 4 No. 1 November 2014

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Nasser Mohajer, Dr. Nader Hashemi, Dr. Muhammad Idrees Ahmad who read a preliminary draft of this paper and the research department at KFCRIS. Abstract

This paper attempts to describe the public and private positions of the Islamic Republic of ’s political elite towards the Assad regime and since the uprisings of 2011 and in light of more recent developments in the region such as the rise of Islamic State of and the Levant. It is divided into three parts and tries to describe the differ- ences, but also complementary efforts and division of labour within and between the Iranian state’s manifold institutions vis-à-vis the Syrian file.

Part 1 assesses the diplomatic track focussing on the proposals and views of the Rouhani government and Foreign Ministry. Part 2 discusses a number of Jurist Sayyid ’s public statements, as well as those of his coterie of trusted advisers. Part 3 details the role of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in and its pivotal role in advising and training pro-Assad forces and how this process relates to the Islamic Republic’s broader regional strategy towards Iraq and the Le- vant, in particular.

Ultimately, the paper endeavours to discuss some of the evolving views of these various state institutions and how they collaborate and com- pete in the process of elite consensus building and help clarify the Islamic Republic’s endgame and contingency plans in Syria going into the future.

5 6 No. 1 November 2014 Table of Contents

Abstract 5 Introduction 9

Power Centers, Elite Consensus-Building, and the Formulation of Foreign 14 Policy

Part 1. The Government and the Foreign Ministry: Advocating a Political 19 Solution? - Elite Disagreement over the Assad Regime’s Use of Chemical Weapons? 22 - Should Tehran be Blocked from Political Participation on the Diplomatic 24 Front? - Zarif’s Qualified Criticisms 25 - Defining the Narrative: Assad’s “Terrorism” Discourse and the Rise of ISIL 27 - The Islamic Republic’s Four-Point Plan: A Way Forward? 33

Part 2. The Guardian Jurist, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, and His Office: 39 “Islamic Awakening” versus “Arab Spring”? - The Feared “Slippery Slope”: From Counterterrorism Campaign to “Regime 43 Change”? - A New Nixon Doctrine without Strings Attached or Entrenched Political 44 Sectarianism?

Part 3: The Revolutionary Guards and : The Imperative of Strategic 47 Depth - Elusive Regime Consensus: Should Assad Stay or Should He Go? 50 - Is Syria Iran’s Vietnam? 52 - A Cornucopia of Sectarian Militias: Cards to Play in the Balance of Power? 59 - IRGC Frustration with Syrian Military Incompetence? 61

Conclusion 65 About the author 68

7

Introduction

Iran and Syria became allies following the of 1979 that ousted Shah , and this rela- tionship has proven to be remarkably durable, despite the seem- ing ideological incongruity of an alliance between a Shi’i populist theocracy and a radical Arab nationalist/Ba’athist state.1 Since the inception of the Syrian uprising in the spring of 2011 and its de-

President Hojjat al-Islam Ali Khamenei visits to meet with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in September 1984, Mashreghnews.ir terioration into a full-blown civil conflict, the importance of this key strategic relationship remains undisputed within the political elite of the Islamic Republic of Iran. There are different institution- al priorities and agendas governing the views on the Syrian quag- mire in, for example, the Foreign Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards, but that is to be expected.

1- Jubin M. Goodarzi, Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), chap. 1.

9 10 No. 1 November 2014

Over the course of two decades this alliance has been consoli- dated and enshrined as an “axis of resistance” along with the Leb- anese political-paramilitary organization, and it has sought to project itself as an “anti–status quo” and revisionist force opposed to regionally and to American hegemony on the in- ternational scene (as well as the Arab countries that promote the Arab Peace Initiative). In the preceding decades the Islamic Repub- lic and the Assad regime have relied upon both soft and hard power in order to strengthen their ties and regional sway in what has of- ten seemed to many in the Arab world as an “unnatural” or “odd” alliance.2 Despite the efforts by Western states and regional ones such as Turkey and to detach Damascus from Tehran, it appears that Syria’s reliance on and cooperation with the Islamic Republic and the Lebanese Hezbollah have only deepened under the presidency of Bashar al-Assad, who acceded to power in July 2000, by all accounts a somewhat awkward and unexpected suc- cessor without the knack for the regional power balancing more dexterously achieved by his father.3 Since the early stages of the Syrian uprising, Iranian and Rus- sian political, economic, logistical, and military support have been indispensable to the Assad regime’s survival and ability to stave off collapse;4 this support has extended and deepened as the conflict

2- See Nadia von Maltzahn, The Syria-Iran Axis: Cultural Diplomacy and International Relations in the Middle East (London: I. B. Tauris, 2013), chap. 1. 3- Emile Hokayem, Syria’s Uprising and the Fracturing of the Levant (New York: Rout- ledge, 2013), Kindle edition, loc. 1875 of 3617. 4- High-ranking regime officials both within and outside of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have insisted on this point. Whether it is entirely accurate would re- quire an independent investigation. “Moshaver-e rahbari: Agar Iran pa-ye Surieh nemiistad Bashar soqut mikard; jang beh shiveh-ye Basiji ra beh anha yad dadim,” Kalemeh, Febru- ary 25, 2013, http://cutt.us/NxUEt; “Saffar Harandi: Iran pa-ye Surieh nemiistad Bashar soqut mikard,” , February 24, 2013, http://cutt.us/t9SX. Hojjat al-Islam Mehdi has ground on.5 Despite the incremental “Alawization” of the Assad regime in the early 1980s and its more overtly sectarian composi- tion (especially in the security apparatus) following the Ar- tillery School incident of June 1979 and the infamous mas- sacre of February 1982,6 it would be mistaken to say that this was the key driver of the Iranian-Syrian axis, even if as a result of the ongoing Syrian civil war it has become something of a self-fulfill- ing prophecy. The unconvincing but politically convenient fatwa of the Iranian-born, Lebanese Shi’i cleric Sayyid Musa al-Sadr de- claring Alawis to be Twelver Shi’is7 has come to constitute part of the dominant “common sense” for those analysts who insist on

Taʿeb is one such figure. He is the same individual who made the controversial statement calling Syria Iran’s “35th province.” Elaborating, he added, “Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic province for us. If the enemy attacks us and wants to appropriate either Syria or Khuzestan [in southern Iran], the priority is that we keep Syria.” Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “Head of Ammar Strategic Base: Syria is Iran’s 35th Province; If We Lose Syria We Cannot Keep Tehran,” Al-Monitor: Iran Pulse, February 14, 2013, http:// cutt.us/J2Wfk. 5- Robert Fisk, “Iran to Send 4,000 Troops to Aid President Assad Forces in Syria,” The Independent on Sunday, June 16, 2013, http://cutt.us/kbOHp. 6- It should be added that not all Alawis have benefited from state largesse equally and that both Bashar and Maher al-Assad married into Sunni families. While the enrichment of Assad-affiliated tribes and families, such as the Makhloufs, has certainly taken place and produced a predatory economic liberalization predicated on nepotism, cronyism, and pat- rimonialism, these effects should not be generalized to the entirety of the Alawi sect, since the Aleppo-based Sunni bourgeoisie/mercantile class has also been, at least traditionally, es- sential to the stability of Syria and the preservation of Assad power. Raphael Lefevre, Ashes of Hama: The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria (London: Oxford University Press, 2013),73; Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution From Above (London: Routledge, 2004), Kindle edition, loc. 1649 of 4735; Caroline Donati, “The Economics of Authoritarian Upgrading in Syria: Liberalization and the Reconfiguration of Economic Networks,” in Middle East Authoritarianisms: Governance, Contestation, and Regime Resilience in Syria and Iran, ed. Steven Heydemann and Reinoud Leenders (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), loc. 788 of 6213; Charles Glass, “In the Syria We Don’t Know,” New York Review of Books, November 6, 2014, http://cutt.us/ZrA1. 7- Martin Kramer, “Syria’s Alawis and Shi‘ism,” Sandbox, http://cutt.us/zoBE5; origi- nally published in Shi’ism, Resistance, and Revolution, ed. Martin Kramer (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 237–54.

11 12 No. 1 November 2014

the overriding sectarian nature of the conflict. Tehran’s imperative remains very much one of forestalling, if not preventing, a funda- mental shift in the regional balance of power; it appears that the preservation of the Assad regime in its current form is of secondary importance.8 This point can be discerned in public statements by regime officials, even if they are careful not to alienate their ally or to undermine him publicly.9 There are also the slow rumblings in quarters of Iran’s foreign policy establishment that the Islamic Republic cannot support Assad’s war of attrition indefinitely and that Syria is essentially a failed state over which it is doubtful the Syrian regime in its pres- ent form will ever be able to fully regain control. There is a long and nebulous road ahead. Iran has steadily come to acknowledge that a durable solution might only be achieved through a process involving all the key international, regional, and domestic actors in a multilateral political solution. It appears we are witnessing ac- cession to the idea that deadlock will continue and a viable solu- tion remain elusive in the longer term unless meaningful conces- sions are made by Assad. However, from the Iranian perspective, the terms under which any such process begins are crucial, and whether they will be favorable to Iranian interests is obviously a chief concern. This is why the balance of forces and the creation of “facts” on the ground are crucial to Iran’s strategy leading into any diplomatic process. I will try to explore this in greater detail in the course of this paper. That being said, it must be emphasized that any analyses on the basis of open source material are limited

8- Bassam Barabandi and Tyler Jess Thompson, “A Friend of my Father: Iran’s Manipula- tion of Bashar al-Assad,” Atlantic Council, August 28, 2014, http://cutt.us/jKLT. 9- “Chera Hezbollah dar Surieh dast beh kar shod; hadaf-e defaʿ az mehvar-e moqavemat ast, nah shakhs-e Bashar Assad,” Diplomasi-ye Irani, May 28, 2013. in their ability to shed light on national security policy in the Is- lamic Republic vis-à-vis Syria. Nevertheless, I shall attempt to pro- vide some modest clarification regarding Iranian elite perspectives on the Syrian uprising and the subsequent civil conflict which has been raging now for close to four years. As is often the case, the main contention dividing the Iranian elite and animating its manifold institutional rivalries concerns means, approach, and tactics rather than strategy and substance.10 These differences can often be hard to glean, as can Tehran’s end- game in Syria, as events in the latter but also in Iraq continue to unfold. The fluidity of the situation and Tehran’s appreciation of this fact must be taken seriously. It should, however, be noted that differences in approach among state institutions by no means equate to simple institutional rivalries or antagonistic, ideological competition; they also reflect to some extent an intra-state divi- sion of labor, which amounts to policy coordination on multiple tracks, including diplomatic and military. It is fair to say that there is a deep appreciation across the board that Iran’s “loss” of Syria would be a severe blow to the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Levant, the regional balance of power, and thus Iran’s ability to retain strategic depth beyond its immediate borders. This would not only weaken Iran’s hand with respect to the (GCC) states, but also impair Tehran’s ability to counter the threat, both real and imagined, of Israeli or American hegemonic encroachments closer to home.

10- See Bente Scheller, The Wisdom of Syria’s Waiting Game: Syrian Foreign Policy Un- der the Assads (London: Hurst, 2013), chap. 6.

13 14 No. 1 November 2014

Power Centers, Elite Consensus-Building, and the Formulation of Foreign Policy In order to better understand the distinct, albeit mediated pol- icy tracks drawn upon by the Iranian state in Syria, it is necessary to look at the different institutions that are involved on the political, diplomatic, and military levels. Roughly speaking, each one over- sees and manages a particular “jurisdiction” in the context of the state and is in possession of its own institutional culture, norms, and weltanschauung. These institutions have the capacity for col-

Iranian newspaper, Haft-e sobh, juxtaposing the Quds Force’s Major General Qassem Soleimani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. The caption reads: “The greatest capital bearers of Iran: On two key men of our society today whose greatest capital is the trust of a nation”. 7sobh.ir laboration, disagreement, and competition for capital in the broad sense deployed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.11 They are not mutually exclusive or without overlap – for example, the

11- Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. John G. Richardson (New York: Greenwood, 1986), 241–58. Guardian Jurist is also the commander in chief – but they can per- form a heuristic purpose. The chief ones include the following:

- The Guardian Jurist’s Office –political and religious / executive power and authority - President and Government; Foreign Ministry – diplomatic / public diplo- macy / soft power - The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Quds Force –military / hard power

Briefly, the Guardian Jurist, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, stands at the top of the regime hierarchy; he is the ultimate ar- biter of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy and constitution- ally defined as the chief of the Islamic Republic’s armed forces. In theory he is the highest political as well as religious author- ity in the country.12 The Guardian Jurist directly appoints the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, which today is headed by a so-called shadow commander,13 Major General Qassem So- leimani. The President of the Islamic Republic, Hojjat al-Islam , is directly elected (although potential candi- dates are vetted by the clerical body, the ). The president appoints his foreign minister, who in turn requires the ratification of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Ma- jles. The incumbent foreign minister is the American-educated

12- Ayatollah Khamenei’s assertion of his marjaʿiyya does, however, entail transnational claims, in religious as well as political issues, on followers across the world. His office and representatives have tried since the mid-1990s to propagate his marjaʿiyya, albeit not always with great success. 13- Dexter Filkins, “The Shadow Commander,” New Yorker, September 30, 2013, http:// cutt.us/jQT8.

15 16 No. 1 November 2014

Mohammad-Javad Zarif, who is best known for his impeccable English, his hands-on approach to social media, and his long history as a professional diplomat. Both Rouhani and Zarif are regarded as moderates and pragmatists within the context of the Islamic Republic’s political elite, and both have exten- sive diplomatic experience: Rouhani as head of the Supreme National Security Council for more than 15 years and Zarif as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations. In the final analysis, both the president and the foreign minister operate within the constraints of the broader policy guidelines determined by the Guardian Jurist’s Office and the military strategy pursued by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC-Quds Force). They could par- ticipate and play a constructive role in a prospective negoti- ated solution to the conflict, as far as Iranian involvement is concerned, nudging an undecided Khamenei in a particular di- rection although ultimately at the mercy of his acquiescence and consensus at the highest echelons of the IRGC. This might occur, for example, if the military balance of power was either especially favorable or detrimental to Iran’s ally in Damascus or in the event of a particularly lucrative settlement (as far as Iran’s “interests” are concerned) advocated by world powers. It is a theme we shall return to time and again: Tehran realizes that a diplomatic solution is necessary in the long term, but the conditions and balance of power under which any such pro- cess begins are crucial. The site of any such elite-brokered consensus within the Iranian establishment would congeal in the context of the Supreme Na- tional Security Council (Shura-ye ‘Ali-ye Amniyat-e Melli) in con- cert with the consultation and guidance of the Guardian Jurist (GJ), his advisors, and influential members of the Majles’s National Se- curity Commission.14 As stated by Rouhani himself in his memoir, National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, published while he was still head of the Expediency Discernment Council’s Center for Strategic Research, following September 11 2001 it was held to be more pru- dent for the council not to officially convene on every single issue deemed pertinent to national security. Instead the council would take the “fundamental and principal decisions” and then devolve responsibility to the secretariat which would continue the process of policy formulation to be approved by the Guardian Jurist and the president.15 The meetings of the secretariat could and would often be attended by members of the Supreme National Security Council and the secretariat itself is composed of sub-committees relating to foreign policy, defense, domestic security and the like. By Rou- hani’s own account the Guardian Jurist always has the final say on “defensive-security” policy.16 Key members of the Supreme National Security Council include the president (Hassan Rouhani), the foreign minister (Mohammad- Javad Zarif), the chief of staff of the armed forces (Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, a GJ appointee), the commander of the IRGC (Major General Mohammad-Ali Ja’fari, a GJ appointee), the Guard- ian Jurist’s direct representative (Sa’id Jalili, formerly the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, obviously a GJ appoin- tee), the commander of army’s ground forces (Ataollah Salehi, GJ appointee), the Majles speaker (), the chief justice (Sadeq Larijani, a GJ appointee), and the minister of intelligence (Mahmud

14- For an illustration of the council’s modus operandi according to its former secretary see, Hassan Rouhani, Amniyat-e melli va diplomasi-ye hasteʾi (Tehran: Expediency Dis- cernment Council, Center for Strategic Research, 2011), 61-80. 15- Ibid, 79. 16- Ibid, 81.

17 18 No. 1 November 2014

Alavi, chosen with the agreement of the GJ). The council’s new sec- retary, Ali Shamkhani, appointed by President Rouhani in Septem- ber 2013 (he is also the GJ’s representative),17 was the defense minis- ter during the Khatami era; he is an ethnic Arab from the southern city of Ahvaz and generally thought to have good relations with the Arab world, being the first Iranian to receive the Order of Merit of Abd al-Aziz al-Sa’ud.18 Despite being among the founders of the IRGC and holding, for a time, the IRGC ministerial portfolio during the Iran-Iraq War (which was dissolved following the end of the war),19 he is today generally recognized as having moved toward the political center, and even openly defended the ostracized for- mer prime minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, following the latter’s post-2009 fall from grace.20

17- Shura-ye ali dar gozar-e zaman, Fars News, September 19, 2013, http://cutt. us/rVh8Z. 18- Alex Vatanka, “Ali Shamkhani: Rouhani’s Bridge-Builder to the Arab World?,” Na- tional Interest, October 20, 2014, http://cutt.us/wiyeo. 19- “ʿAli Shamkhani jaigozin-e Saʿid Jalili shod / vazir-e sepah-e Mir-Hossein dabir-e shura-ye ʿali-ye amniyat-e melli,” Kalemeh, September 10, 2013, http://cutt.us/A7hfD; “Hossein ʿAlaʾi az enhelal-e vezarat-e sepah miguyad,” Khabar Online, April 24, 2011, http://cutt.us/Rnyy7; Mashruh-e mozakerat, Majles-e Shura-ye Eslami, dowreh 6, jalaseh 137, August 21, 2001. 20- “Darkhast az ʿAli Shamkhani bara-ye azadi-ye Musavi va Karubi,” RFI Farsi, Sep- tember 14, 2013, http://cutt.us/RNbz. Part 1.

The Government and the Foreign Minis- try: Advocating a Political Solution?

The views of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today are argu- ably best represented by those of Foreign Minister Mohammad- Javad Zarif and his deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The latter, who is fluent in and English, has been working as a top diplomat in the Iranian foreign ministry for more than 17 years and continued in his current post in the aftermath of President Hassan Rouhani’s election in June 2013. The foreign ministry states openly that it advocates a “political solution” to the Syrian conflict but stipulates that “no precondi- tions” may be asserted in advance of any agreement or transition toward such a solution. By “no preconditions” the foreign minis- try essentially means that Iran will not accept any projected solu-

President Hojjat al-Islam Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif

19 20 No. 1 November 2014

tion that a priori excludes Assad from a hypothetical transitional government. If Iran were to accept such a condition it would not only make Tehran look like a fair-weather ally but also concede ground to regional rivals on terms it is thus far unprepared to ac- cept. This was purportedly the reason why Iran was excluded from the Geneva I conference and subsequently from Geneva II, held in June 2012 and January 2014, respectively. The Syrian opposi- tion, the United States, and Saudi Arabia are all said to have found Iran’s presence at the talks objectionable for their own reasons21 and as a result categorically pushed for the Islamic Republic’s ex- clusion. Given Iran’s significant economic and military backing of Assad, however, any such exclusion of the Islamic Republic is probably unrealistic in the longer term and unlikely to help yield a sustainable solution to the conflict, since while Assad is hardly the “Iranian puppet” many of his detractors depict him as, the Islamic Republic’s influence is significant and has increased markedly in the last two to three years. The problematic nature of Iran’s exclu- sion has only been reinforced following Moscow’s outmaneuvering of Obama on Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and the perceived failure of the latter to act despite professing the administration’s “” to be the use of such weapons, as occurred at in August 2013.22 Whether Obama’s remarks have been interpreted accurately is immaterial: this event undoubtedly gave the impression to Ira-

21- “Syria crisis: Iran cannot go to Geneva peace talks – US,” BBC News, January 20, 2014, http://cutt.us/ND4Yt. 22- Muhammad Idrees Ahmad has masterfully and thoroughly debunked the suggestion that it was the rebel forces who used chemical weapons at Ghouta. Muhammad Idrees Ah- mad, “A Dangerous Method: Syria, Sy Hersh, and the Art of Mass-crime Revisionism,” Los Angeles Review of Books, June 1, 2014, http://cutt.us/wOsX. nian decision makers across the board that the United States was unwilling to intervene and skeptical of the efficacy of arming the opposition, let alone direct military intervention,23 and that the Is- lamic Republic was far more willing to risk, albeit in a meted and measured way, blood and treasure in order to shore up its geostra- tegic position in the Levant and Mediterranean. This has been fur- ther confirmed by the Obama administration’s decision to initially train a force of 5,000 vetted individuals from the Syrian opposi- tion to fight the Islamist militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)24 and defend existing territorial gains (not to fight the Assad regime or acquire territory thorough offensive battles, at least at first), and the budgetary cuts made by the US State Depart- ment to the Commission for International Justice and Account- ability (CIJA) investigating war crimes that have occurred in the course of the Syrian civil war.25 News of President Obama’s fourth letter to Ayatollah Khamenei similarly confirms that the American president sees his foreign policy legacy in détente with Iran, as op- posed to getting US forces bogged down in an unpredictable and grisly civil conflict without terminus in Syria. The Iranian foreign ministry is aware of the Obama administration’s priorities in this regard and has acted accordingly.

23- Mark Mazzetti, “C.I.A. Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels,” New York Times, October 14, 2014, http://cutt.us/z5Pjd. 24- Maggie Ybarra, “U.S. to Train 5,000 Syrian Rebels to Fight Militants,” Washington Post, September 13, 2013, http://cutt.us/CSRru. 25- “Exclusive: Washington Cuts Funds for Investigating Bashar al-Assad’s War Crimes,” Foreign Policy, November 3, 2014, http://cutt.us/QoAD.

21 22 No. 1 November 2014

Elite Disagreement over the Assad Regime’s Use of Chemical Weapons?

Guardian Jurist, Ayatollah Khamenei with Ayatollahs Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Sadeq Larijani,

It is worth noting that following the Ghouta chemical weapons attack, Rouhani’s influential ally, former president, and Expedien- cy Discernment Council chairman Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi- Rafsanjani did break ranks with prevailing elite opinion, includ- ing that of Iran’s Guardian Jurist, Ali Khamenei, who held that the chemical weapons attacks were a Western-staged ruse to justify military intervention against Syria.26 According to multiple ac- counts of a speech Rafsanjani delivered at Jamaran in late August 2013, corroborated by one of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini’s grand- daughters, the former president stated, “A government that uses chemical bombs against its people will face hard consequences, just

26- “Enteshar-e film-e sokhrani-ye Rafsanjani dar bareh-ye hamleh-ye shimiyaʾi-ye Su-� rieh,” Radio Farda, September 3, 2013, http://cutt.us/Glfm9; “Bish az 30 sal ravabet-e Iran va Surieh dar yek negah,” Diplomasi-ye Irani, September 6, 2013. like Saddam, who earned eternal shame in the bombing of Halabja and suffered such a horrible fate.”27 On another account Rafsan- jani merely condemned the deployment of chemical weapons and compared it to Iran’s own traumatic experience at the hands of Saddam’s Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.28 In another speech dur- ing the same period in the northern province of Mazandaran, Raf- sanjani was also quoted as stating, “The people have been attacked with chemical weapons from their own government and now they must wait for an attack by foreigners.”29 However, in the face of much hostility Rafsanjani’s personal website was compelled to is- sue a public repudiation of such “unofficial” statements, and ever since he has remained relatively quiet on the Syrian issue. It is worth noting that FM Zarif has publicly advocated the the- ory that it was the rebels, not Assad, who were responsible for the chemical weapons attacks.30 Rouhani has arguably been the most diplomatic, calling for an impartial investigation. With the excep- tion of Rafsanjani’s slip, there has been a fairly unified front with- in the elite on the use of chemical weapons, especially in light of Iran’s own tortured relationship with such armaments. Further- more, whether reflecting real empathy or tactical acumen, there do appear to be additional indications that both Iranian and Hez- bollah representatives believe that Assad’s use of chemical weap- ons was a gross mistake. A senior Hezbollah representative’s mes-

27- Arash Karami, “Two Separate Rafsanjani Comments on Syria Denied, Deleted,” Al- Monitor: Iran Pulse, September 1, 2013, http://cutt.us/4U6k. 28- Arash Karami, “Did Rafsanjani Condemn ‘Government’ for Chemical Weapons?,” Al-Monitor: Iran Pulse, August 30, 2013, http://cutt.us/B4p3w. 29- Karami, “Two Separate Rafsanjani Comments.” 30- “Vazir-e kharejeh-ye Iran: Eshtebahat-e bozorg-e hakemiyat-e Surieh zamineh-ye suʾestefadeh ra faraham kard,” ʿAsr-e Iran, September 1, 2013.

23 24 No. 1 November 2014

sage to Iran’s embassy, decrypted by German intelligence, shows that in private communications Iranian allies on the ground were critical of Assad’s use of chemical weapons, saying that the Syrian president had made a “big mistake” and had “lost his nerve,” even if they continued to back him in public statements and cynically sought to deflect blame for the attack onto the opposition.31

Should Tehran be Blocked from Political Participation on the Diplomatic Front? The case can still be made that it makes little sense to bar Teh- ran’s involvement given that the Assad regime itself has sent delegates to Geneva II. Again, Tehran knows this and has only increased in confidence with the preponderance of squabbling among the ,32 the exacerbation of the profound region-wide threat posed by ISIL, and the improvement in pro- Assad forces’ fortunes on the battlefield. The foreign ministry is aware of and has factored in these considerations and is thus bid- ing its time. It should also be added that the foreign ministry’s position has remained largely consistent across the Ahmadine- jad and Rouhani administrations, and insofar as policy has been tempered, it is in accord with political-military conditions. When Ali-Akbar Salehi was the foreign minister, his deputy for Arab and African affairs, the same Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, also aired the possibility (though it had yet to be formalized) of a transitional government. Again, a sticking point has been the composition of any such transitional government and whether it could counte-

31- Jeevan Vasagar, “Syria crisis: ‘Chemical Weapons Use a Big Mistake, Hizbollah Told Iran,’” Telegraph, September 3, 2014, http://cutt.us/J7KH 32- David Kenner, “This Is Why You Can’t Have Nice Guns,” Foreign Policy, October 20, 2014, http://cutt.us/J1Ep. nance the prospect of including not merely the “loyal” opposition, who have never posed any genuine challenge to the Assad regime, but also elements from the opposition in exile, such as the Na- tional Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, and from among the armed groups who are currently fighting on the ground.33 Iranian diplomats have still not publicly acknowledged this per- tinent issue in any serious fashion. Effectively linking the opposi- tion’s representatives to the forces fighting on the ground is neces- sary and might compel Iran to rethink this position more seriously. It is, of course, indispensable to any future negotiated solution, or even to the prospect of a viable ceasefire. Because of the still weak and fractured nature of the links between the opposition in exile and armed groups on the ground the prospect of local ceasefires has been regularly aired but has shown itself limited in its ability to snowball into a more comprehensive agreement. Local cease- fires appear to be more a matter of reactively putting out fires and alleviating the immediate suffering of civilians, which, though es- sential, has not fed into a sustainable national process.

Zarif’s Qualified Criticisms Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has on occasion been publicly crit- ical of the Syrian government in a way that his predecessor was unwilling to be. In a much publicized interview in the autumn of 2013 with the weekly Aseman (which has since been shut down by the judiciary) he stated candidly that the Syrian government has made

33- “Iran Proposes Transitional Government for Syria,” Mehr News, October 16, 2012, http://cutt.us/mw9f; Aron Lund, “Iran’s Unrealistic Endgame in Syria,” Carnegie Endow- ment for International Peace: Syria in Crisis, April 11, 2014, http://cutt.us/X8hh

25 26 No. 1 November 2014

“big mistakes” and as a consequence paved the way for its opponents and critics to take advantage of such errors.34 The core positions of op- position to military intervention and unwillingness to recognize the armed opposition remained untouched, however, and there was cer- tainly no direct criticism of the person of Assad himself. Zarif insisted that “there is definitely no military solution for Syria . . . the military solution will only be accompanied by disorder, extremism, and the exacerbation of sectarian differences and tensions.”35 Moreover, Zarif appeared to dismiss the opposition in exile in its entirety, conflating it with jihadist elements.36 “The actions of the opposition over the previous two years in Syria, firstly, weren’t undertaken by freedom- seeking democrats. Secondly, it was by takfiri groups, which are only after conflict, violence and sectarianism.”37 A degree of flexibility and realism was certainly manifest in Zarif’s comments, however, when he proclaimed, “Today, no country has eternal allies or rivals.”38 To this extent the diplomatic parlance of the foreign ministry is quite distinct from the ontological enmity expressed by both the Guardian

34- The interview has been reproduced online by the website ʿAsr-e Iran. “Vazir-e khare- jeh-ye Iran: Eshtebahat-e bozorg-e hakemiyat-e Surieh zamineh-ye suʿestefadeh ra faraham kard,” ʿAsr-e Iran, September 1, 2013. Zarif has not been alone among the diplomatic corps in his criticisms of the Syrian gov- ernment’s conduct. Most recently Iran’s former ambassador to , Mohammad Ali Sobhani, offered a number of particularly harsh criticisms of Bashar Assad and his regime’s response to the Syrian uprising. Sobhani’s influence within the policy decision making elite would be negligible, however, and has to contend with far more influential regime voices and institutions. Sobhani: Da’esh taz’if mishavad, ama az beyn nemiravad, Nameh News, November 22, 2014, namehnews.ir 35- Ibid. 36- Some Western commentators such as Patrick Cockburn agree with this assessment. Whether it is fair or accurate is another question. Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising (New York: OR Books, 2014), 18. 37- ʿAsr-e Iran, September 1, 2013. 38- Ibid. Jurist and the IRGC hierarchy. This does not imply, however, that their objectives or outlook vis-à-vis the Syrian dilemma are at loggerheads. It needs to be considered that their public expressions are colored by distinct institutional settings and by their respective audiences. Zarif, for instance, is fully versed and apprised of the importance of public diplomacy and Western public opinion. Furthermore, as pre- viously indicated, the structure and weighting of the state’s differ- ent centers of foreign policy decision making prevent such parlance, even if it harbored substantive content, from taking precedence in policy and practice in the final analysis.

Defining the Narrative: Assad’s “Terrorism” Discourse and the Rise of ISIL With ISIL’s seizure of Mosul in June 2014 and the Islamic Re- public’s military support for the peshmerga forces of the Kurdish Regional Government and a host of Shi’i militias,39 Iran in many respects reckoned itself vindicated. This perception derives from Iran’s confidence that it is the only state that can today help van- quish the threat posed by ISIL and ensure that ISIL is stopped in its tracks and unable to seize further territory. The comments of Zarif and other officials indicate that they firmly believe the United States is simply not up to the task of stabilizing the region without Iranian military and political assistance. The foreign ministry will thus continue to push for an internationalized solution in Syria akin to the 2001 international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn which secured a post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, a pro- cess in which Zarif personally participated.40 This would of course

39- Babak Dehghanpisheh, “Special Report: The Fighters of Iraq Who Answer to Iran,” Reuters, November 12, 2014, http://cutt.us/3vdD 40- Andrew Parasiliti, “Iran’s Foreign Minister Offers Help With Syria’s Chemical Weap- ons,” Al-Monitor, September 30, 2013, http://cutt.us/A43go; Nasser Hadian, “Reasons Iran

27 28 No. 1 November 2014

require Iranian involvement and inclusion, through which Tehran could not only ensure its interests were preserved in Syria and along the Syrian-Lebanese border – for example, linking important areas such as Qusayr (Syria), the Qalamoun district (Syria), and Baal- bek (Lebanon) – but also buy good will with Western powers on other fronts as a quid pro quo.41 Tehran knows that it needs to be part of the solution if it is going to capitalize on any successful diplomatic outcome and thereby preserve a geopolitical stake, however partial, in Syria’s future. A key distinction, of course, is that Bonn ensured the replacement of an erstwhile enemy in the Taliban with a largely friendly coalition in its stead, and it represented a point at which Iranian and US interests largely coincided. In Syria, by contrast, the overwhelming majority of the splintered opposition that hopes to inherit the Syrian state in the event of Assad’s ouster have spoken of their deep-seated resentment of and animosity toward what they term Iran’s “oc- cupation” of Syria, and virtually all of Washington’s allies are opposed to Assad’s remaining in power and by extension to dis- proportionate Iranian influence.42 Add to that the formation of the anti-ISIL coalition which has sought to challenge ISIL in Iraq and Syria, and tried to detract from Iran’s portrayal of itself as the sole opponent of the jihadist organization. Given the ongo- ing fluidity of the situation Iran is waiting to see whether it can benefit from its role in stabilizing Iraq in the short term, even if

Wants Peace in Syria,” United States Institute of Peace: Iran Primer, February 4, 2014, http://cutt.us/NCiL 41- “U.S. Opposes Linking Iran Cooperation on Islamic State to Nuclear Talks,” Reuters, September 22, 2014, http://cutt.us/5VavP 42- “Erdoğan Says Turkey Will Fight ISIL, Insists Assad Must Go,” Today’s Zaman, Oc- tober 1, 2014, http://cutt.us/GSnzd. its support of openly Shi’i militias will most likely prove damag- ing to the prospects of stability and peace in the long term. Nevertheless, Syria, Russia, the UN, and the former joint –United Nations peace envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, have persis- tently counterbalanced such a view, insisting that Iran should be included in any meaningful negotiations. In an interview with Al- Monitor Brahimi spoke directly of this polarized spectrum of opinion:

The thing is, very soon in Syria things were polarized, and the circle that needed to be squared, was that one part of the parties, both inside Syria, and around Syria, and even further afield, was that there cannot be a solu- tion with Bashar al-Assad and his immediate surround- ings, while the other side said there cannot be a solution without Bashar al-Assad. This is the circle that every- body tried to square, and failed, and to a certain degree it is still the question that is to be resolved.43

It seems the foreign ministry believes that the US effort to ex- clude Iran from a negotiated settlement will inevitably fail and that the tide has turned in the Assad regime’s favor, in particu- lar following the victory of pro-Assad forces, the IRGC, and Leba- nese Hezbollah in the Syrian border town of Qusayr in June 2013, a town that had hitherto acted as an important supply route for opposition forces in .44 It has also served as an important

43- Andrew Parasiliti, “Former UN Syria Envoy Says Iran Plan on Syria ‘Worth Discussing,’” Al-Monitor, May 18, 2014, http://cutt.us/9VLL. 44- Samia Nakhoul, “Analysis: Hezbollah’s Syria Victory Risks Wider Sunni-Shi’ite Con- flict,”Reuters , June 6, 2013, http://cutt.us/tamG.

29 30 No. 1 November 2014

route for the transport of arms shipments to Hezbollah’s depots in the Bekaa Valley. Such momentum was only reinforced by the May 2014 ceasefire brokered in Homs, which led to the withdrawal of approximately 2,000 opposition fighters and was widely inter- preted as being in Assad’s favor.45 This does not mean that the for- eign ministry will pursue a maximalist strategy, however, since it is not oblivious to the fact that it must show itself prepared to pres- sure its ally to gesture toward conciliatory reforms in the event of a more comprehensive solution. Meanwhile, the United States on some accounts has taken the Syrian quagmire as an opportunity to “bleed” the Islamic Republic and thereby weaken its hand in the nuclear negotiations; one source, though caution is warranted, has estimated Iran is spending some $600–700 million per month in support of the Assad regime.46 Exact or trustworthy figures, howev- er, are difficult to come by, since given the sensitivities surround- ing the nature of this regional conflict there is often a tendency toward hyperbole and black propaganda on all sides. Whether or not this perception of a US strategy to “bleed” the Islamic Republic is accurate, the collective inability to resolve the deadlock, produced by the failure to bring about the Assad regime’s demise, has instead opened up a series of vacuums in Syria, some of which have since been filled by jihadist groups of various stripes. This eventuality has been touted by the Assad regime (despite the latter’s alleged complicity in its occurrence)47 and by the Islamic

45- “Iran in Syria: From an Ally of the Regime to an Occupying Force,” Naame Shaam, September 2014, 28. 46- Nakhoul, “Analysis.” 47- Ruth Sherlock, “Syria’s Assad Accused of Boosting al-Qaeda with Secret Oil Deals,” Telegraph, January 20, 2014, http://cutt.us/LAC4m; Hassan Hassan, “Assad Has Never Fought ISIS Before,” New York Times, August 22, 2014, http://cutt.us/maqW. Republic to shift the focus of the international community and world opinion. Their goal has been to turn discussion on the civil war in Syria into a debate about terrorism and regional stability and to cast blame for the rise of ISIL in particular on the United Sates and the Gulf Arab states, which, they claim, have consistently looked the other way, if not outright supported the burgeoning of a particularly virulent and sectarian brand of jihadism.48 This view- point was most concisely summarized in the words of FM Zarif at his speech at the Council for Foreign Relations in New York on Sep- tember 17, 2014, where he dubbed the attendees at the Paris confer- ence pertaining to Iraqi security in the aftermath of ISIL’s seizure of Mosul “the coalition of the repenters.”49

During that speech, Zarif said specifically on the person of Bashar al-Assad and the diplomatic deadlock,

The problem is that people have entrenched themselves in a position that this gentleman or the other gentleman should not have a role in the future of Syria. That’s not for us to decide. We are not saying that Assad or anybody else should be the future president of Syria. We are say- ing that if this man is so brutal, allow the Syrians to kick him out of office. Put conditions on how the elections should be run, not on who should run in the election.50

48- “Jokar dar goftogu ba Defaʿ Press: ʿArabistan bayt al-mal-e mosalmin ra kharj-e Daʿesh mikonad,” Defaʿ-e Moqaddas, October 15, 2014, http://cutt.us/LNtcg. 49- “Iran Foreign Minister to U.S.: ‘What Did You Gain from Sanctions?’” (interview with Mohammad Javad Zarif), National Interest, September 17, 2014, http://cutt.us/zcB4z. 50- “Iranian Foreign Minister Pledges Support for Iraq in Fight Against ISIS: A Conversa- tion With Mohammad Javad Zarif,” Council on Foreign Relations, September 17, 2014,

31 32 No. 1 November 2014

In this way Zarif has sought to portray the Islamic Republic as a disengaged observer beyond the fray instead of an active partici- pant supporting one party militarily against another. This rhetorical sleight of hand is dubious not only for this reason but also because Zarif is undoubtedly aware that the Assad regime has no intention of holding free and fair elections monitored by international ob- servers so long as it has a military edge against the opposition and

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs

is in the process of regaining lost territory or even just comfortably holding key cities and their environs. This was further confirmed by the Syrian presidential election of June 2014, in which Bashar is supposed to have received a whopping 90% the vote.51

http://cutt.us/19aL 51- “Bashar al-Assad Wins Re-election in Syria as Uprising against Him Rages On,” Guardian, June 4, 2014, http://cutt.us/9FsF. The Islamic Republic’s Four-Point Plan: A Way Forward? The chief plan proposed by Iranian diplomats hitherto has been the so-called four-point solution of March 2014. The plan calls for (1) a comprehensive ceasefire at the national level, (2) the formation of a national unity government consisting of the regime and “the opposition,” (3) the transfer of presidential powers to the new tran- sitional government, and (4) preparations for presidential and par- liamentary elections.52 Amir-Abdollahian has presented a variation of this plan in which he says the focus is first of all on “takfiri ter- rorism.” This seems to imply an alliance with and empowerment of the Assad regime in order to re-secure those pockets of territory that have been lost to the control of a broad spectrum of Islamist groups including the Nusra Front and ISIL. It is not clear whether Iran believes this is a realistic goal. It might simply be a best-case scenario that even Iranian policy makers realize is unlikely. The second focus in Amir-Abdollahian’s alternative version of the plan is the provision of humanitarian aid; the third is the re-initiation of comprehensive talks; and the final step is national talks within Syria in which the UN would be involved.53 Many of these recommendations seem purposefully vague and more preoccupied with redefining Syria’s political woes as overrid- ingly related to the catch-all malady of “terrorism” on which West- ern powers, the Assad regime, and Iran might find common cause. From the outset of the Syrian uprising President Bashar al-Assad has sought to depict the opposition as “terrorists,” to divest them

52- Lund, “Iran’s Unrealistic Endgame.” 53- Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, “Iran’s Four-Part Plan for a Political Solution in Syria,” Al-Monitor, March 5, 2014, http://cutt.us/iKYd.

33 34 No. 1 November 2014

of any legitimate political demands, and to frame the disturbances rocking Syria as a foreign-orchestrated conspiracy – a narrative that, as previously mentioned, has been overwhelmingly support- ed by the Iranian political elite.54 But the chief concern seems to be less the preservation of Assad come what may and more the main- tenance of the Islamic Republic’s influence in the Levant and its strategic ties with Hezbollah.55 It should also be borne in mind that Tehran cannot live indefi- nitely with the prospect of two fast disintegrating states with po- rous borders and embattled capitals as its neighbors, since it will naturally find itself compelled to dedicate considerable resources and manpower to help guarantee not only the security of its al- lies, but also security at home. The news of the possible penetra- tion of ISIL into western in April 2014 was repudiated by the IRGC, but if true, as some sources have claimed,56 it shows that Tehran cannot stand by while its Iraqi and Syrian allies continue to show themselves incapable of asserting a monopoly of violence over their own territories. Given that the Tehran government has already had to confront the activities of Baluch Sunni militants in Sistan-Baluchistan province and along the Iran-Pakistan border,57 additional threats

54- David W. Lesch, Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad (New Haven, CT: Yale Univer- sity Press, 2012), Kindle edition, loc. 1334 of 6423. 55- The visit of ʿAli Shamkhani, the Supreme National Security Council’s secretary, to Beirut and the pledge of military aid at the end of September are very much in step with this larger view on Iranian positioning in the Levant. “Fehrest-e hedaya-ye nezami-ye Iran beh Lebnan montasher shod,” Digarban, October 19, 2014, http://cutt.us/L22a. 56- “Edeʿa-ye dargiri-e Daʿesh ba niru-ha-ye nezami-ye Iran,” BBC Persian, April 29, 2014, http://cutt.us/kSSzC; “Daʿesh beh Azarbaijan miravad,” ABNA, June 24, 2014, http://cutt.us/iYgF. 57- Thomas Erdbrink, “Insurgents in Pakistan Stepping Up Iran Strikes,” New York Times, October 9, 2014, http://cutt.us/a45N. by Sunni militants and jihadists would not be a welcome develop- ment.58 Thus far, however, the interior and intelligence ministries have shown themselves confident that Iran’s borders are secure and the authorities competent enough to counter any such threats, which by and large derive from local grievances in any case. In line with this assessment, Iran’s intelligence minister, Hojjat al-Islam Sayyid Mahmud Alavi has announced the arrest of more than 130 individuals allegedly linked to “takfirigroups” in order to assure the general public that events in neighboring Iraq will not cause blow- back at home.59 Moreover, despite the Islamic Republic’s contribu- tion to the instability afflicting Iraq and Syria, the credibility of Iran’s foreign ministry relies on its ability to demonstrate that the Islamic Republic is an “island of stability,” to use President Jimmy Carter’s unfortunate phrase, in a troubled neighborhood and can contribute to regional security in a way that no other regional state is able to do. In short, while contributing to regional instability through its cultivation of sectarian-based militias in Iraq and Syr- ia, the Islamic Republic has time and again sought to depict itself as indispensable to the region’s security architecture. This strat- egy has been yielding results, as the number of Western politicians publicly calling for Iranian cooperation on Iraq and elsewhere has further increased in recent months.60

58- That being said, there is general agreement that Sunni militant groups in Sistan-Bal- uchistan are primarily a local issue relating to relative deprivation, underdevelopment and ethno-religious discrimination in the province and that their grievances can be redressed, providing the government steps carefully and without too heavy a hand. Scott Peterson, “Facing Its Own Islamic State-Inspired Militants, Iran Wields a Smaller Stick,” Christian Science Monitor, October 30, 2014, http://cutt.us/DvUp. 59- “Vazir-e ettelaʿat-e Iran az dastgiri-ye ‘130 ʿamel-e takfiri’ khabar dad,”BBC Persian, October 7, 2014, http://cutt.us/eq5h. 60- “Islamic State Crisis: Kerry Says Iran Can Help Defeat IS,” BBC News, September 19, 2014, http://cutt.us/yCTj; “France Wants Arabs, Iran, UN Security Council to Tackle

35 36 No. 1 November 2014

FM Zarif and the Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, have aired the possibility of the withdrawal of all foreign fighters as a preliminary step on the road to a political solution.61 However, this option seems to be beyond the absolute control of both Iran and Saudi Arabia and especially the latter, since unlike Hezbollah, which is, for manifold reasons, more responsive to the command structure of its Iranian patron, the Sunni jihadist groups in Syr- ia have no comparable relationship with the Gulf Arab states and have set about establishing their own independent streams of rev- enue. Iran is not ignorant of this fact. Moreover, while the IRGC, as discussed below, has played an instrumental role in streamlining and professionalizing pro-Assad militias, it is doubtful that Teh- ran has unqualified control over their movements and operations. More importantly, as Brigadier General Sayyid Mas’ud Jazayeri, for- mer deputy for affairs and cultural defense and more recently deputy chief of the armed forces, stated in no uncertain terms, the Iranian negotiators currently engaging the P5+1 have no authority to negotiate Iranian policy in Syria or Iraq.62 Key strategic decisions on Syria will predictably continue to reside with the Guardian Ju- rist’s office and the top brass of the IRGC. An important point to note with respect to the Rouhani govern- ment’s policy and the regional outlook of the diplomats residing at the foreign ministry and associated think tanks as well as elite-lev- el well-wishers such as the former president Hashemi-Rafsanjani is that while they no doubt see themselves as geopolitical rivals

Islamic State,” VOA News, August 20, 2014, http://cutt.us/841z. 61- “Iran FM: Tehran Could Withdraw Foreign Fighters in Syria,” VOA News, November 5, 2013, http://cutt.us/T2If. 62- Arash Karami, “Iran Nuclear Negotiators Have No ‘Authority’ to Discuss IS,” Al- Monitor, September 24, 2014, http://cutt.us/ffC0J. to the Gulf Arab states and Turkey in Syria, they also realize the importance of preserving and improving bilateral ties with these countries in the name of Iran’s own economic prosperity and re- gional ambitions.63 Given the recent precipitous decline in oil rev- enues due to global market conditions,64 so crucial to the Rouhani government’s economic pledges and projections, regional trade and its expansion will no doubt remain a primary concern. In this respect and despite tensions, the key states in this equation have often, though not invariably, shown themselves adept at compart- mentalizing the issues on which their policies clash from those on which they yield cooperation. While competition and confronta- tion with these countries in the Syrian theater is held to be inevi- table, foreign policy pragmatists within the Iranian establishment do not want such competition to spill over into other areas and fan the flames of instability in either Iraq or the Levant nor to irrepara- bly jeopardize their relations with either Turkey or the Gulf states. Recent meetings between FM Zarif and the Saudi FM, Saud al-Fais- al, seem to indicate a level of realism that had been absent from the diplomacy of the two-term Ahmadinejad administration and a desire to set relations on a new footing, even if disagreements over the future of Syria, above all, remain contentious and deep.65 There is also the basic Saudi distrust springing from the belief that while

63- The Rafsanjani administration’s efforts to establish détente with Saudi Arabia in the 1990s are well known, as is the capacity of Iranian-Turkish bilateral trade in softening the edge of disagreements over issues of foreign policy. Also see Sobhani’s comments where he states that Iran and Saudi Arabia’s relationship, while competitive, must not take on a hostile complexion, “Sobhani: Da’esh taz’if nemishavad”. 64- Anthony DiPaola and Golnar Motevalli, “Iran’s Oil Revenue Falls 30% Because of Global Price Decline,” Bloomberg, October 30, 2014, http://cutt.us/79xkQ. 65- “Zarif: New Chapter Opens in Iran-Saudi Relations,” IRNA, September 21, 2014, http://cutt.us/bK2Yz.

37 38 No. 1 November 2014

the Iranian government’s tone might have changed, neither Zarif nor Rouhani have control over the activities and aspirations of the IRGC. Both Zarif and Rouhani, and particularly the latter, have the ability to encourage and coax Khamenei, as Rouhani in fact has done in the past on the subject of the nuclear file as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.66 Ultimately the deci- sion resides with the Guardian Jurist and depends on whether the policy elite are convinced the diplomatic solution on offer or to be extracted is sufficiently lucrative.

66- Hassan Rouhani, when head of the Supreme National Security Council, is claimed to have played a decisive role in persuading Khamenei to accept the suspension of nuclear en- richment in October 2003 in the course of negotiations with the EU-3. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 198. Part 2.

The Guardian Jurist, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, and His Office: “Islamic Awak- ening” versus “Arab Spring”?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his coterie of trusted advisers, who include the former long-serving foreign minister (1981–1997), Ali- Akbar Velayati,67 and former head of the IRGC (1997–2007), Major General Sayyid Yahya Rahim Safavi, have publicly taken a less tem- perate and diplomatic line on the Syrian crisis. On several occasions Khamenei has stated his conviction that events within Syria and, more recently, Iraq, including the emergence of such groups as ISIL, constitute part of an elaborate colonial conspiracy by outside pow- ers, especially the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel, to

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets with Iran’s Guardian Jurist Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei

67- Upon Rouhani’s election as president Velayati was appointed head of the Expediency Discernment Council’s Center for Strategic Research.

39 40 No. 1 November 2014

divide and rule the Muslim ummah.68 This view has been reaffirmed on numerous occasions by high-ranking members of Iran’s mili- tary and security forces, such as the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces, Brigadier General Jazayeri.69 Khamenei’s direct representa- tive in Syria, Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Hosseini, who is supposed to reflect the views of the Guardian Jurist’s office, has repudiated the notion that Assad’s removal is an option: “The majority of people are with the government and the protestors are manufactured and received orders from the outside . . . The goal they have in mind is to give assurances to Israel and cut the hand of the revolution and the Islamic resistance in the region . . . the solution is that the entry of weapons officially cease completely and the borders are sealed.”70 Even Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Amir-Abdollahian, repeated this conspiratorial idea with aplomb at the beginning of November 2014: “The ISIL Takfiri terrorist group is a product [of] Israel’s Mossad and it aims to tarnish the image of Islam.”71 Given Khamenei’s youthful fondness for the Egyptian ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, the irony of his position toward the Islamist opposition in Syria, conflated entirely with the likes of ISIL and al-Qaeda, is quite striking. The young Khamenei’s zeal, public statements notwithstanding, has given way to the dic-

68- “Khamenei: Engelis-e khabis Daʿesh ra baraye moqabeleh ba Jomhuri Islami dorost kard,” Radio Farda, October 13, 2014, http://cutt.us/IDjn. 69- “Ettelaʿat-e ma sabet mikonad Amrika dar ras-e modiriyat-e ‘Daʿesh’ ast. Ejazeh nemidim Iyalat-e mottahedeh beh hadaf-e khod dar Surieh beresad, Defaʿ-e Moqaddas, October 7, 2014, http://cutt.us/cxuow. 70- “Mosahebeh ba namayandeh-ye maqam-e moʿazam-e rahbari dar keshvar-e Surieh,” Nehad-e namayandegi-ye maqam-e moʿazam-e rahbari dar omur-e ahl-e sonnat-e Sistan va Baluchistan, March 25, 2013, http://nahadsb.ir/?p=2348. 71- “Iran Terms ISIL Product of Mossad,” Fars News, November 4, 2014, http://cutt. us/82Zxc. tates of “offensive realism” (to adapt John Mearsheimer’s term), in which the desire to guarantee Iranian hegemony and “pan-Islamic unity” under the imprimatur of the Islamic Republic is an over- arching priority. That being said, conservative parliamentarians in Tehran have spoken of at least ten private meetings between Iranian and Amer- ican representatives despite denials by both the Obama adminis- tration and the Islamic Republic.72 The content of the meetings has not been divulged, but such leaks move one to question the de- cidedness of Khamenei’s harsh rejection of potential cooperation with the US over ISIL in Iraq following his widely covered prostate operation in September of this year.73 From the outset of the Arab uprisings in January 2011, the Is- lamic Republic has sought, in ideological terms, to appropriate developments in the region as part of an “Islamic awakening,” in- spired by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent estab- lishment of a hierocratic-populist state. In this discourse the Arab states undergoing popular turbulence would elect fellow Islamists into power and decide once and for all to cast aside their client- patron relationships with Washington and to dispose themselves favorably toward Tehran as part of a broader region wide trans- formation.74 Moreover, underlying many of the Guardian Jurist’s statements is a conviction that this regional realignment is not only inevitable, but also part and parcel of the gradual decline of

72- Yek namayandeh-ye mohafezehkar-e Majles khabar dad: Iran va Amrika 10 jalaseh-ye khosusi dashteh-and,” Digarban, October 15, 2014, http://cutt.us/9Ve5. 73- “Rahbar-e enqelab: Amrika dar Surieh shekast khord, dar ʿAraq ham hich ghalati nemitavanad bokonad,” Keyhan, September 15, 2014, http://cutt.us/l2jfX. 74- See Payam Mohseni, “The Islamic Awakening: Iran’s Grand Narrative of the Arab Uprisings,” Middle East Brief, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, no. 17 (April 2013).

41 42 No. 1 November 2014

the Western powers, and even Western civilization, in an increas- ingly multipolar global order.75 The Syrian uprising, by contrast and somewhat predictably, was not welcomed. If anything, it was rapidly dismissed because of the profound cognitive dissonance it provoked in light of Khamenei’s representations of the Arab uprisings qua “Islamic Awakening.” Unlike the events in Cairo, Bahrain, or Tunisia the Syrian upris- ing was held in contempt and denounced as a foreign conspiracy to undermine the “axis of resistance.” How much of this rhetoric Khamenei genuinely believes is difficult to discern based on open source material. It should be noted that he attunes his rhetoric to various constituencies within the domestic arena, and thus one should exercise caution when reading such statements and avoid accepting them at face value. That being said, it is fair to presume that he holds a deep-seated skepticism vis-à-vis Western policy and a conviction of its ultimately predatory intent. Given that Khame- nei views the US military presence in the region as pernicious by definition and as a threat to the Islamic Republic’s own regional ambitions, any event or issue that provides a fresh pretext for such a presence is suspect by definition and to be resisted.76 ISIL’s declara- tion of its intent to strike at Iranian targets in recent months have served to reinforce the narrative that the militant jihadist organiza- tion has a mysterious array of patrons antipathetic toward Tehran, and they have entrenched the menacing and conspiratorial narra-

75- “Khamenei: Nazm-e novin dar hal-e sheklgiri ast,” Radio Farda, September 4, 2014, http://cutt.us/DK9g. 76- Senior military commanders in the IRGC regularly confirm Iran’s objective to be driving the United States out of the region, in particular from those areas where Iran has considerable interests and influence, such as Iraq, the Gulf, and the Levant. “Gozaresh-e Fars az ezharat-e akhir-e Daryadar Fadavi: Khoruj-e Amrika az Khalij-e Fars az barnameh- ha-ye Sepah ast,” Fars News, November 1, 2014, http://cutt.us/iSfO. tive Khamenei and his circle have sought to impress on events.77

The Feared “Slippery Slope”: From Counterterrorism Campaign to “Regime Change”? In keeping with Khamenei’s antipathy to any increase in the US regional military presence, several prominent conservative estab- lishment figures close to him, such as the parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, have forthrightly criticized the anti-ISIL coalition as little more than a ruse to enable a strike against Syria and the expansion of the anti-ISIL campaign into one of regime change.78 In short, it is the slippery slope of Western interventionism that all state organs in Iran fear. They judge, perhaps accurately, that any limited campaign will find itself wanting, almost inevitably expand outward, and feed into a broader call for regime change.79 This was why Khamenei, as previously mentioned, explicitly declared that he had vetoed coop- eration with the United States over ISIL.80 Nevertheless, it is conceiv- able, even likely, that there is limited intelligence sharing and coop- eration through intermediaries in various hot spots in Iraq, where both the al-Abadi administration and the Kurdish Regional Govern- ment (KRG) are ostensibly allies of Iran as well as the United States,81

77- Jassem al-Salami, “Iran Says It’s Under Attack by ISIS,” Daily Beast, October 9, 2014. 78- “Larijani dar ekhtetamieh-ye panjomin namayeshgah-e melli-ye ketab-e defaʿ-e mo- qaddas: Sepah az qodratmandtarin niru-ha dar manteqeh ast; hamleh beh Daʿesh bahanehʾi baraye zadan-e zirsakht-ha-ye Surieh ast,” Fars News, October 1, 2014. 79- The Obama administration is still trying to forge a coherent policy with respect to this issue. Elise Labott, “Obama Seeks New Syria Strategy Review to Deal with ISIS, al- Assad,” CNN, November 13, 2014, http://cutt.us/hVckC. 80- Scott Lucas, “Iran Feature: Supreme Leader ‘I Rejected US Offer to Cooperate over Iraq,’” EA Worldview, September 15, 2014, http://cutt.us/ebm7. 81- The prominent role of the chief, Hadi al-ʿAmeri, and his subordi- nates in the Iraqi cabinet and anti-ISIL campaign should not be forgotten. Susannah George, “Breaking Badr,” Foreign Policy, November 6, 2014, http://cutt.us/jE09k.

43 44 No. 1 November 2014

while Iran carefully monitors US operations in Syria, even helping Assad reap the rewards of an anti-ISIL bombing campaign.

A New Nixon Doctrine without Strings Attached or Entrenched Political Sectarianism? That the Rouhani government, at least, would be open to some- thing like a latter-day Nixon Doctrine, albeit with few, if any, strings attached, in which the Islamic Republic would be given the green light to pursue policies with regional partners in Iraq, the Gulf, and the Levant in the name of “stability and security” is not beyond the realm of possibility.82 Such a tacitly understood agreement seems to approximate to what foreign policy wonks at state-affiliated Ira- nian think tanks such as the Center for Strategic Research (headed by Rouhani until his election as president) mean when they talk of the need for the Islamic Republic to be incorporated into the “secu- rity architecture” of the Gulf and the broader Middle East, thereby recognizing its “authority” and “autonomy of action” in its manifold spheres of influence. The problem is that because of Iran’s reliance on substate actors and proxies of a sectarian complexion, the tacit ac- knowledgment of Iran’s regional prerogatives would also be affirm- ing the sectarianization of regional competition and conflict in the Fertile Crescent.83 It would not underwrite states and those eager to

82- This is not to say that it is at all feasible or realizable on the domestic US or Iranian political scenes. Rather, it is a kind of recognition by both the United States and the larger international community for which technocratic-pragmatic elements within the regime elite on some level yearn. 83- The only onetime “insider” to come out harshly against the Islamic Republic’s policy in Syria and its engendering of a sectarian climate is President Khatami’s imprisoned for- mer deputy interior minister, Sayyid Mostafa Tajzadeh. But given his imprisonment and complete political marginalization since 2009 he is in no position to impact regime policy at present. “Tajzadeh beh Khamenei: Siyasat-e Iran dar Surieh be jang-e Shiʿieh va Sunni mi anjamad,” Radio Farda, February 16, 2013, http://cutt.us/fls7u. partake in cross-sectarian nation building but rather give impetus to countervailing substate organizations and their own sectarian agendas. Moreover, once such sectarian militias have emerged, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to put the genie back in the bottle; they will remain on the scene and work to enlarge their stake and control of regions, neighborhoods, and institutions for partisan gain. The story of the Badr Organization in the post-Saddam era in Iraq attests to this. Publicly, of course, the Islamic Republic has gone on record stating its support for the territorial integrity of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and in fairness it recently pledged military assistance to the Lebanese army, generally seen as a unifying institution quite distinct from Lebanon’s confessional political system. The Islamic Republic cannot be excluded from the broader project to restore stability to Iraq and the Levant, but it must be confronted with the question, will the Islamic Republic continue to back substate sectar- ian organizations for its own self-aggrandizement and shortsighted realpolitik, or will it contribute to national institutions that can help break the vicious sectarian cycle? Because of the implications of a potential expansion in the scope of the US-Western campaign in Iraq and Syria beyond its pre- viously stated objectives it is unlikely Khamenei will permit open and expansive Iranian-US cooperation, despite contiguous inter- ests at certain junctures. Mutual distrust and the unpredictable re- percussions of such a shift in policy, which would in all probability directly contravene the Islamic Republic’s geostrategic position in the Levant, pose formidable obstacles to such cooperation – un- less, that is, the United States is prepared to take a very hands-off approach. While a public admission by the Guardian Jurist of even limited cooperation is improbable, if not impossible, the current secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Rear Admi-

45 46 No. 1 November 2014

ral Ali Shamkhani, has admitted that Khamenei has responded to some of President Obama’s four letters.84 This implies that how- ever restrained and mediated cooperation may be, a reciprocal and direct line of communication has been opened between the two commanders in chief. Publicly stated positions jettisoning coop- eration, however, do create a degree of path dependency for both leaders from which it might be difficult to extricate themselves. While Iranian and US goals to some extent coincide in Iraq, they are potentially diametrically opposed in Syria. The primary way in which Khamenei’s fear on this score might be allayed would be if the anti-ISIL coalition were to include the Assad regime as part of the anti-ISIL campaign. Such cooperation would not only expedite Assad’s efforts to once again assert direct control over regions the regime could not have recaptured otherwise, Iranian support not- withstanding. It would also undermine the viability of the “regime change” thesis, as Assad would come to be viewed as the only re- habilitated alternative to a “failed state” with a multitude of power vacuums acting as incubators for jihadists. While this is perhaps an overly optimistic and maximalist view, as far as the Iranian perspective is concerned, the Islamic Republic knows well how to play on the politics of the “lesser evil” and has, in any event, pre- pared contingency plans for several conceivable outcomes. It has also absorbed the Obama administration’s lack of appetite for em- broilment in a foreign intervention that might lead to boots on the ground, which in turn reinforces Khamenei’s view of terminal US decline and counterbalancing multipolarity.

84- Arash Karami, “Iran Official: Obama’s Letters Have Been Answered,” Al-Monitor, November 12, 2014, http://cutt.us/4wUd; Jay Salomon and Carol E. Lee, “Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State,” Wall Street Journal, No- vember 6, 2014, http://cutt.us/fiVs. Part 3.

The Revolutionary Guards and Quds Force: The Imperative of Strategic Depth Obviously, and as should be clear from the preceding analysis, it is impossible to disentangle completely the positions of the civil- ian-clerical leadership, namely, the Guardian Jurist and his aides, from those of Revolutionary Guards’ personnel. As commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, Khamenei supervises and directs overall strategy toward Syria but affords his appointed command- ers a great deal of autonomy in the sphere of operations. First of all, it should be stated that Iran’s military establishment sees the Levant as constituting an indispensable part of the Islamic Repub- lic’s “strategic depth” and ability to ward off conventional and un- conventional military threats from the United States and Israel, in addition to repelling the spread and empowerment of Saudi Ara- bian influence. This has been said openly by numerous IRGC com- manders and most recently by Hojjat al-Islam Ali Sa’idi, Ayatollah

Guardian Jurist Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei with Major General Hassan Firouzabadi (L) and Major General Mohammadld Ali Ja’fari (R)

47 48 No. 1 November 2014

Khamenei’s clerical representative to the IRGC, who used the term “strategic depth” explicitly, although he also included , Iraq, and Bahrain among the countries where Tehran wielded influence and allies.85 The official organ of the IRGC’s political bureau also regularly speaks in such terms, contending that strategic depth of this nature is indispensable to Iran’s deterrence capability.86 The IRGC thus naturally has a more military strategic outlook and com- portment toward the Syrian civil war and its implications for its proxy-ally Hezbollah, which relies on both Iran and Assad for vital materiel, so instrumental to the balance of power both in Lebanon and the wider region. Such strategic depth is deemed essential for deterrence purpos- es and for acquiring political leverage, as hard power can be par- layed into political chips on the international stage. It is regarded as necessary for the regularly aired threat of retaliatory operations in the event of an attack on Iranian nuclear and military installa- tions by Israel or the United States.87 Iran’s leaders have learnt the lessons of Iraq’s Osirak and Israel’s Operation Opera, when Saddam was impotent to respond to Israel’s unilateral bombing of his nu- clear installations in June 1981. In keeping with this policy, arms

85- “ʿAli Saʿidi, namayandeh-ye Khamenei dar Sepah: Yaman, Bahrain, ʿAraq va Lebnan, marz-ha-ye nezam hastand,” Digarban, October 16, 2014, http://cutt.us/nLwh. 86- Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, “IRGC Publication: ‘Is the Revolutionary Guard af- ter War?,’” Al-Monitor: Iran Pulse, October 12, 2012, http://cutt.us/NdWH6; “Organ-e rasmi-ye edareh-ye siyasi-ye sepah-e pasdaran: Iran ahrom-ha-ye feshar-e ziyadi ʿalayheh ʿArabistan darad,” Digarban, October 28, 2014, http://cutt.us/NS7S. 87- This threat was arguably at its peak under President George W. Bush but subsided considerably with the election of Barak Obama, despite the latter’s insistence that “all op- tions were on the table.” The Obama administration deemed it more prudent to draw solely on “smart” means (already developed during the Bush presidency) to slow down the Iranian nuclear program, e.g., . See David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power ([New York]: Random House, 2012), prologue. and other supplies have made their way to the Assad regime and its supporters through Latakia and Tartous ports,88 and Iranian warships, to Israel’s irritation, crossed the Suez Canal in February 2012 and docked at Tartous, where Russia also has an important naval base.89 In November 2014 the commander of IRGC’s aero- space force, Amir- Ali Hajji Zadeh, stated not only that the Islamic Republic has a distinguished history of supplying ballistic missiles to Damascus, but also that Iran actually built Syria’s missile pro- duction facilities.90 At the very outset of what would become the Syrian uprising, during the initial protests in Dera’a, Iran may well have hoped that calm could be restored with limited casualties, as it had been in the 2009–2010 crisis that shook Iran following the contested reelection of Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in which Iran’s security and paramilitary forces, judiciary and court system, and anti-riot po- lice managed to reestablish a strained air of stability without ever having to declare martial law. The inveterate habits of the Syrian security services, however, quickly kicked in and were not destined to change in the immediate term, and the Assad regime, desperate not to appear soft or wont to grant concessions, repeatedly relied on the pronounced exercise of disproportionate violence, show- ing indifference to civilian casualties. As a result, Iran’s preference for the protests to be nipped in the bud rapidly dissipated and the Islamic Republic was drawn into a full-blown military confronta-

88- Jonathan Saul and Parisa Hafezi, “Iran Boosts Military Support in Syria to Bolster Assad, Reuters, February 21, 2014, http://cutt.us/A0Quv. 89- “Iran Warships ‘Dock in Syria›s Tartous Port,’” Al-Jazeera, February 20, 2012, http:// cutt.us/Gbf6v. 90- “Farmandeh-ye havafaza-ye sepah-e pasdaran: Karkhanejat-e mushaki-ye Surieh sakht-e Iran ast,” BBC Persian, November 11, 2014, http://cutt.us/nVsN.

49 50 No. 1 November 2014

tion and proxy war as the Gulf Arab states, Turkey, and the United States (albeit only half-heartedly committed) lent support of vary- ing kinds and degrees to a cornucopia of civilian and armed op- position groups, often less than competently, with the objective of bringing about the fall of the house of Assad. The eventuality of a drawn-out civil conflict was certainly not desired by the Islamic Republic, but once the die had been cast it was one to which it could adapt and with which it could come to terms given its de- cades of experience in unconventional warfare.

Elusive Regime Consensus: Should Assad Stay or Should He Go? Tehran’s own commitment was and is not without bounds, however, and Khamenei could not afford to lose sight of its own domestic economic concerns in light of Western pressure over its nuclear program; this pressure included sanctions against Iran’s Central Bank, which have severely impacted Iranian oil revenues and industry. Both Iran and its regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia are well aware of this, and it is no doubt why Tehran has sought to dexterously use its military and political resources rather than enter the war in a heavy-handed and even more costly fashion. The Quds Force commander, Major General Qassem Soleimani, the seemingly ubiquitous “shadow commander” whose name is on the tip of ev- eryone’s tongue,91 has visited Damascus on a number of occasions. His first known visit took place in January 2012 in order to help buoy the Assad regime’s military efforts and recapture key territories.92

91- Mushreq Abbas, “Iran’s Man in Iraq and Syria,” Al-Monitor, March 12, 2013, http:// cutt.us/aFUD. 92- Will Fulton, Joseph Holliday, and Sam Wyer, “Iran’s Strategy in Syria” (joint report, American Enterprise Institute Critical Threats Project and Institute for the Study of War, May 2013), 12. The actual tenor of Soleimani’s personal views on the Syrian conflict is difficult to divine, but in one notable speech in February 2014 in his home province of Kerman he indicated his resistance to the idea that Bashar al-Assad ought to be forced to resign:

The same Syria that is the axis of disagreement, we have all of the world on one side, and on the other side there is Iran. Some like to offer an “intellectual” thesis that this gentleman [i.e., Assad] should go and another person fill his place, and they say, let’s assume he’s dead. This is because they don’t know the truth (haqiqat) of the mat- ter . . . What factor caused America, the Zionist regime, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to insist for three consecutive years that this gentleman should leave Syria? Here I see well the role of the khawarij.93

The comments by Soleimani seem to indicate that disagree- ment exists as to whether Bashar should remain in office or be gently pushed aside in favor of another, less controversial and tar- nished politician. The “intellectual thesis” to which Soleimani is referring may well have been aired by Rouhani government offi- cials in the course of a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council or even by the secretary of the council itself. Unlike the former Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who was nudged

93- “Bazkhani-ye enqelab-e eslami beh revayat-e Hajj ,” Fars News, February 16, 2014, http://cutt.us/f3seB. As Daniel Lav explains, the term “kharijite” (pl. khawarij) has generally been used to designate “renegade” groups that have rebelled against “legitimate authority” and sought to distinguish themselves from the rest of the Muslim community and from “established doctrine.” Daniel Lav, Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Kindle ed., loc. 172 of 10801.

51 52 No. 1 November 2014

from power with Tehran’s acquiescence in August 2014, Bashar has thus far eluded a similar fate, and this may well be due, at least in part, to IRGC and Khamenei’s resistance on this score within the Iranian state apparatus.

Is Syria Iran’s Vietnam? Despite being one of the highest-ranking officers overseeing the “Syria file,” Soleimani94 is surrounded by many other senior commanders. Moreover, there is compelling evidence that the Islamic Republic has deployed IRGC Ground Forces in addition to the Quds Force in Syria.95 As Will Fulton of the American En- terprise Institute has observed:

That fact is important when we consider how much force Iran can potentially put into such clandestine military operations abroad, since the Ground Forces is the IRGC’s largest combat service and includes thirty-one provin- cial units, ten major operational bases, and several com- bat divisions and brigades. The IRGC-GF is responsible for defending Iran in the event of a ground invasion as well as for internal security operations.96

The presence of IRGC ground forces speaks to how much poten- tial military investment the Islamic Republic is ultimately capable

94- “Ayatollah Khatami beh Tasnim khabar dad: Sar Lashkar Qassem Soleimani sokhan- ran-e vizheh-ye chahardahomin ejlas-e Majles-e Khebregan,” Tasnim News Agency, August 17, 2013, http://cutt.us/WmFp. 95- Will Fulton, “IRGC Shows Its (True) Hand in Syria,” AEI Iran Tracker, January 14, 2014, http://cutt.us/CaIb. 96- Fulton, “IRGC Shows Its (True) Hand.” of, but its actual operational practice looks like a more pared down affair. Sources close to the IRGC have claimed that some 60–70 Quds Force commanders are in Syria at any one time.97 Although this is a significant commitment, it hardly warrants the analogy offered by some analysts, that the Syrian civil war is tantamount to “Iran’s Vietnam.”98 The intelligence directorate of the IRGC has been very active in Syria, as testified by casualties acknowledged in official sources themselves. The most recent high-profile -casu alty, in October 2014, was Second Brigadier General (Sartip-e dov- vom) Jabbar Darisavi, deputy chief of the Karbala Intelligence Joint Headquarters.99 In November 2013 an important member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly’s National Security Commission, Javad Karimi Qoddusi, had publicly acknowledged, though almost certainly exaggerating, the presence of “hundreds” of IRGC battal- ions (gordan) “operating behind the scenes” in Syria, even going so far as to claim that they were ultimately responsible for the Syr- ian army’s “victories.”100 Moreover, it is becoming clear that the officers who have been deployed to Syria often hail from various regional commands and therefore possess decades of experience dealing with ethnic separatist and autonomist groups and with Sunni militants. More generally, the IRGC command has intimate knowledge when it comes to strategizing drawn-out wars of attri- tion, urban warfare, and counterinsurgency, none of which require

97- Saul and Hafezi, “Iran Boosts Military Support.” 98- Mark Fitzpatrick, “Syria Has Become Iran’s Vietnam – Let’s Help It Escape, IPS News Agency, September 6, 2013, http://cutt.us/3dUk. 99- “Marg-e farmandeh-ye arshad-e sepah beh dast-e niru-ha-ye ‘takfiri’ dar Surieh,”Ra - dio Farda, October 17, 2014, http://cutt.us/Se1B. 100- “Karimi Qoddusi, ʿozv-e komisiyun-e amniyat-e melli-ye Majles: Jomhuri-ye Esl- ami sad-ha gardan-e nezami dar Surieh darad,” Digarban, November 4, 2013, http://cutt. us/p6NRQ.

53 54 No. 1 November 2014

the large numbers of boots on the ground necessary in the arts of conventional warfare. The participation of Lebanese Hezbollah, another well-disci- plined, Iranian-backed Shi’i organization versed in unconvention- al and guerrilla warfare, in the Syrian civil war has become more pronounced as time has passed, perhaps reaching its climax in the aforementioned victory in the western Syrian town of Qusayr. Like many on today’s mushrooming list of Syrian militias, Hezbollah was born of civil war and formed and succored by IRGC expertise. Although Iran has trainers and advisers conversant in Arabic, the language barrier has continued to present an issue; Hezbollah has consequently performed a crucial role in the training of various pro-Assad militias, in addition to directing and overseeing com- bat operations on the ground. The conviction and commitment of the Hezbollah leadership is not blind or unthinking, however. For instance, Sheikh Subhi al-Tufayli, who served as Hezbollah’s secre- tary general from 1989 to1991, contended in a recent interview, “I was secretary general of the party and I know that the decision is Iranian, and the alternative would have been a confrontation with the Iranians . . . I know that the Lebanese in Hezbollah, and Sayy- id more than anyone, are not convinced about this war.”101 While the accuracy of al-Tufayli’s claims is yet to be confirmed by Hezbollah’s active leadership, there have been indi- cations that the Assad’s regime’s conduct in the conflict has been far from beyond reproach (see above). Hezbollah, however, is not oblivious to the fact that it has as much to lose from Assad’s demise as Iran, if not more. Moreover, even if there were doubts regarding

101- Special Report: Hezbollah gambles all in Syria, Samia Nakhoul, Reuters, 26 Septem- ber 2013, http://cutt.us/0B2L. Hezbollah’s commitment to the cause, they seem to have dissipat- ed altogether once the Nusra Front and ISIL became an immediate threat to Lebanon and began engaging the Lebanese army in direct hostilities.102 There has been a trade-off. Because of its partisanship in the conflict, a great deal of the admiration and kudos Hezbollah has enjoyed across the sectarian divide over the years as a result of its fight against Israel, its instrumental role in ejecting the Is- raeli occupation from southern Lebanon, and the 33-day war with Israel in 2006 has been squandered. This is most likely why Nas- rallah avoided public admission of the extent of his organization’s involvement in the civil war until April–May 2013, by which time such denials had lost any semblance of credibility. Nevertheless, Iranian sources, both military and civilian, have continued to insist that the IRGC’s role in the Syrian conflict is strictly an “advisory” one; a claim that has proven to be a euphe- mism for military training in both Syria and Iran, intelligence gathering, logistical support, and arms supplies. The chief objective of this “advisory” role was to establish a fighting force that would remain loyal to the Assad regime even under strained circumstanc- es, since fear of defections within the was high and defections are proving an increasingly anxiety-provoking reality.103 For example, it is well known that the is made up of many such defectors. This was the impetus to develop the pro-regime National Defense Force (NDF, also known as al-Jaysh al- Sha’bi). As of mid-2014 it is estimated to comprise approximately 50,000–70,000 men and women, many of whom were originally

102- ISIL, Nusra Side by Side Fight Lebanese Army, Al-Manar, 5 August 2014 103- “Iran in Syria,” 12.

55 56 No. 1 November 2014

civilian volunteers.104 Many of the NDF’s members emanate from a pool of Syrian minorities, such as Alawis, Christians, and Druze, who fear the repercussions of a Sunni Islamist victory. These fears Assad has exploited time and again. NDF members receive regular salaries and military equipment from the Syrian regime, and Ira- nian military personnel have admitted working with the NDF in an “advisory” capacity, modeling it along the lines of Iran’s own Basij paramilitary force.105 The Basij, which during the tenure of Major General Ja’fari (2007 to present) has been incorporated into the command structure of the IRGC, was established on the order of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 and originally en- visioned as a popular citizens’ militia to defend the clerically led regime. It was in the course of the Iran-Iraq War that the force saw its ranks professionalized, and in the aftermath of the eight-year conflict it was employed in the reconstruction effort, domestic se- curity, and the repression of internal dissent. Leaks on a variety of occasions and funeral ceremonies held in several Iranian provinces also lead one to question the exact modus operandi of the IRGC’s “advisory” role, not to mention the fact that the number of IRGC “martyrs” is edging close to triple figures.106 The

104- “Iran in Syria,” 17–18; Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick, “Iran and Hezbollah Build Militia Networks in Syria, Officials Say,” Guardian, February 12, 2013; Jim Muir, “He- zbollah Plunges Deeper into Syrian Conflict,” BBC News, May 22, 2013, http://cutt.us/ Xu3Oh. This figure also appears to have been confirmed by one of the leading IRGC com- manders responsible for the “Syria file,” Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani. “Hossein Hamedani, yek az farmandehan-e Sepah: bara-ye manafeʿ-e enqelab dar Surieh mijangim,” Digarban, May 5, 2014, http://cutt.us/oLhK. 105- “Iran in Syria,” 12–13, 14; DeYoung and Warrick, “Iran and Hezbollah Build Militia Networks.” 106- “Farmandeh-ye pishin-e sepah-e pasdaran va az ‘modafeʿan-e haram’ dar Surieh koshteh shod,” Radio Zamaneh, May 28, 2014, http://cutt.us/Evzf8; “Tashyiʿ-e peykar-e panj ‘modafeʿ-e haram-e Zeinab’ dar ,” Digarban, October 2, 2014, http://cutt. us/sPhTB. The reliance on provincial commanders is interesting in and of itself and very Free Syrian Army’s capture in August 2012 of 47 Iranian citizens,107 who the Islamic Republic publicly maintained were Shi’i pilgrims, and the Assad regime’s willingness to release 2,130 prisoners in ex- change for their release testify to the IRGC’s direct involvement in the conflict and Tehran’s sway with Damascus.108 One investigation has concluded that at least nine of those captured were active-duty IRGC members, including Second Brigadier General Abedin Khor- ram, an IRGC commander in West Azerbaijan.109 Moreover, one of the most sensational pieces of footage captured by Syrian rebels (the Dawud Brigade, to be precise) and reported to have been obtained from an Iranian journalist embedded with the Guards, who was later killed in an ambush laid by opposition forces near Aleppo, shows an IRGC commander by the name of Isma’il

much in line with Brigadier General Mohammad-ʿAli Jaʿfari’s reorganization of the IRGC in 2007, which led to the Basij paramilitary forces’ incorporation into the Guards and added a focus on the provinces, which were believed to be susceptible to religious and ethnic tensions whipped up by external powers. Ali Alfoneh, Iran Unveiled: How the Revolution- ary Guards Is Turning Theocracy into Military Dictatorship (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2013), Kindle edition, loc. 1062 of 5434. 107- Thom Shanker and Damien Cave, “Syrian Rebels Said to Be Holding Elite Fighters From Iran,” New York Times, August 15, 2012, http://cutt.us/LQNl. 108- Ali Alfoneh, “Pilgrims or Mercenaries? Iranian Hostages Freed by Free Syrian Army” (FDD policy brief, January 15, 2013), http://cutt.us/p3tBR; Fulton, “IRGC Shows Its (True) Hand.” The foreign-based Persian-language site Digarban has also vindicated independently a number of Alfoneh’s and Fulton’s findings. “Hoviyat-e haft ʿozv-e azad shodeh-ye sepah moshakhas shod,” Digarban, January 11, 2013, http://cutt.us/yL21C. Despite denials by his deputy, Iran’s minister of foreign affairs at the time admitted that some of the captive “pil- grims” were “retired IRGC and army” personnel. “Salehi chand gerogan-e Irani dar Surieh ra bazneshashteh-ye ‘sepah va artesh’ danest,” Radio Farda, August 7, 2012, http://cutt.us/ R21Fc. This seems to have been further confirmed by the IRGC commander of the Hamzeh Sayyid al-Shohada Operations Base, Mohammad-Taqi Osanlu, upon the Iranian captives’ release and return to Iran. “Farmandeh-ye qarargah-e ʿamaliyati-ye ‘Hamzeh Sayyid al- Shohada’ sepah: 48 zaʿer-e robudeh shodeh dar Surieh basiji budand,” Digarban, January 16, 2013, http://cutt.us/3qa0p. 109- Alfoneh, “Pilgrims or Mercenaries?”

57 58 No. 1 November 2014

Ali Taqi Heydari not only boasting of Iran’s support to pro-Assad fighters and their having been trained in Iran itself, but actu- ally partaking in armed combat against Syrian opposition forces.110 His status was confirmed only when establishment and other sources published news of his death111 and coverage of his funeral in August 2013 in , Mazandaran.112 The high-profile assassi- nation on February 13, 2013, of Brigadier General Hassan Shateri of the Quds Force, who had an extensive history of collaboration with the Lebanese Hezbol- lah, allegedly en route from Damascus to Lebanon after having returned from Aleppo, demonstrates not only the involvement of the upper- most level of the Guards but also potential links between Iran’s and Syria’s chemical weapons program.113 IRGC commader Isma’il Ali Taqi Heydari, teribon.ir

110- “Syria Footage Sheds Light on Iran’s Involvement,” BBC News, October 30, 2013, http://cutt.us/UJyeR. 111- “Film: Sardar shahid Esmaʿil Heydari dar Surieh mikard,” Teribun-e Mostazʿafin, September 15, 2013, http://cutt.us/SQmH; “Tashyiʿ va khaksepari-ye Shohada-ye ʿamaliyat-e teruristi-ye Surieh dar 3 shahr,” Ettelaʿat, August 24, 2013. 112- “Marasem-e tashyiʿ-e jenazeh-ye Sardar Shahid Hajj Esmaʿil Heydari,” Haraz News, August 21, 2014. 113- Fulton, Holliday, and Wyer, “Iran’s Strategy in Syria,” 33; James Ball, “Syria Has Expanded Chemical Weapons Supply with Iran’s Help, Documents Show,” Washington Post, July 27, 2012, http://cutt.us/LvkQB; “Evidence Suggests Sepah Pasdaran May Have Played Role in 2013 Ghouta Chemical Attack in Syria,” Naame Shaam, August 19, 2014, http://cutt.us/U3UcB. A Cornucopia of Sectarian Militias: Cards to Play in the Balance of Power? The IRGC is also alleged to have played a key role in funding and training Afghan (e.g., the Fatemiyoun Battalion) and Iraqi Shi’i mi- litias (e.g., the Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade, the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, the Kata’ib Hizballah, and the Badr Organisation),114 ostensibly committed to defending Shi’i religious sites in and around Damas- cus.115 This “subcontracting” strategy does not necessarily mean that the IRGC is struggling to find personnel to fight in Syria, but rather that it is opting for a more “cost-effective” option, which will allow it to partake in a war of attrition for a great- er span of time and avoid un- necessarily sacrificing its more “valuable” human capital.116 Alleged members of the Fatemiyoun Battalion, ABNA.ir

114- Suadad al-Salhy, “Iraqi Shiʿite Militants Fight for Syria’s Assad,” Reuters, October 16, 2012, http://cutt.us/b7Al1; Suadad al-Salhy, “Iraqi Shi’ites Flock to Assad’s Side as Sectarian Split Widens,” Reuters, June 19, 2013, http://cutt.us/677O; Martin Chulov, “Con- trolled by Iran, the Deadly Militia Recruiting Iraq’s Men to Die in Syria,” Guardian, March 12, 2014, http://cutt.us/SNNE. 115- Farnaz Fassihi, “Iran Pays Afghans to Fight for Assad,” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2014, http://cutt.us/uGHu; Phillip Smyth, “Policy Watch 2262: Iran’s Afghan Shiite Fight- ers in Syria,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 3, 2014, http://cutt.us/ CE1SY; “10 mohajer-e Afghan moqim-e Iran, shahid-e defaʿ az haram-e hazrat-e Zeynab dar Surieh,” Tasnim News Agency, November 27, 2013 http://cutt.us/1jlZ; Jassem Al Sa- lami, “Iran Is Forcing Poor Afghans to Fight and Die in Syria,” War Is Boring, October 22, 2014, http://cutt.us/ekVR. 116- Kevan Harris, in quite a different context, has spoken about the Iranian state and the IRGC’s penchant for subcontracting manifold economic ventures in what he terms the “politics of pseudo-privatization.” I am tentatively suggesting that one might think about the IRGC’s deployment of foreign fighters in an analogous fashion. See Kevan Harris, “The Rise of the Sub-Contractor State: Politics of Pseudo-Privatization in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45 (2013): 45–70.

59 60 No. 1 November 2014

It has also been claimed that the IRGC and Hezbollah have played a role in supporting and training the Assad regime’s own dreaded militias,117 which have been responsible for indiscriminate attacks against Sunni civilians.118 These militias became notorious under Bassel al-Assad and later under Maher al-Assad, who com- mands the elite Fourth Armored Division of the military, as well as under the president’s equally infamous cousin, . Prior to the Syrian civil war the murky shabiha’s activities were largely restricted to smuggling and racketeering in the Alawi- dominated coastal city of Latakia.119 However, the shabiha acquired a new importance once opposition to the regime began to spiral, as Maher and Makhlouf took the lead in transforming the militia into a force to repulse and brutalize the opposition.120 It has been speculated that Iran’s and Hezbollah’s involvement on this front may be part of a long-term strategy preparing for the eventuality of Assad’s removal from office, whereby Iran would retain power and influence in important coastal cities and minority enclaves, by means of which it could continue to supply and thereby retain its gateway into the Levant and the Mediterranean. This, of course, does not necessarily imply that Tehran believes the Assad regime is on the brink of collapse, but rather that it has readied several con-

117- It should be added that it is inaccurate to claim the shabiha are exclusively Alawi, even if they are predominantly such, contrary to what some analysts have stated. 118- “: UN Blames Syria Troops and Militia,” BBC News, August 15, 2012, http://cutt.us/8VI3H. 119- “Insight: Syrian Government Guerrilla Fighters Being Sent to Iran for Training,” Re- uters, April 4, 2013, http://cutt.us/VzcmI; Hugh Macleod and Annasofie Flamand, “Syria: Brutally Violent Shabiha Militia Member Tells It Like It Is,” Global Post, June 15, 2012, http://cutt.us/c7lII. 120- Salwa Amor and Ruth Sherlock, “How Bashar al-Assad Created the Feared Shabiha Militia: An Insider Speaks, Telegraph, March 23, 2014, http://cutt.us/n7z3R. tingency plans to preserve an essential strategic asset.121 While there is a small Twelver Shi’i community dispersed with- in Syria, it seems the conflict has given impetus to an influx of for- eign Shi’i fighters concentrated above all in and around the shrines of Sayyida Zeynab and Sayyida Ruqayah, which have traditionally catered, for the most part, to Iranian Shi’i pilgrims/tourists.122 Those foreign fighters who have gathered in the vicinity of the shrines appear to be a mixture of the religiously and the ideological com- mitted, alongside those who have been induced to fight through either material inducements or threats. The IRGC played a decisive role in setting up an organization by the name of “The Defenders of the Sayyida Zeynab Shrine,” but there is also evidence to sug- gest that foreign fighters have ventured as part of Iranian-led units beyond Damascus into northern and western Syria, especially to the areas around Aleppo and Homs.123 As in the case of al-Jaysh al- Sha’bi, the IRGC has sought to train and equip a disorganized and unprofessional band of individuals into a disciplined and profes- sional fighting force. The results have been mixed.

IRGC Frustration with Syrian Military Incompetence? The task of organizing and arming pro-Assad groups has been no easy task, and at a number of junctures Iranian frustration at the Syrian military and security forces’ reflexive recourse to wide- spread and indiscriminate violence has surfaced. This does not ap- pear to be due to any especial compassion, but rather derives from

121- DeYoung and Warrick, “Iran and Hezbollah Build Militia Networks.” 122- Von Maltzahn, Syria-Iran Axis, chap. 7. 123- “Farmandeh-ye pishin-e sepah-e pasdaran va az ‘modafeʿan-e haram’ dar Surieh koshteh shod,” Radio Zamaneh, May 28, 2014, http://cutt.us/3mKa; Al Salami, “Iran Is Forcing Poor Afghans to Fight.”

61 62 No. 1 November 2014

a belief that such a policy is ultimately counterproductive to the battle for “hearts and minds” and only serves to alienate the large pool of Syrians who are already resentful and angered by post– spring 2011 developments but unprepared to join the armed revolt against the regime. This has become an issue at a number of points, so much so that the deputy chief of the IRGC-Quds Force, Briga- dier General Isma’il Qaani, stated in May 2012 that if Iran had not been present in Syria, civilian deaths would have been consider- ably higher, indirectly criticizing the Syrian government’s conduct in the war.124 Two years later in May 2014 the Quds Force deputy acknowledged the dissatisfaction of some of the Syrian population with the government and exhorted the latter to address the sourc- es of discontent in a timely fashion, while nevertheless insisting that the Syrian conflict had nothing to do with such discontent.125 The IRGC commander allegedly overseeing this process most im- mediately is Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani, who also played a decisive role in the 2009–2010 postelection crackdown in Iran that crushed the so-called Green Movement led by longtime regime in- siders, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Hojjat al-Islam Mehdi Karrubi, a former prime minister and a former parliamentary speaker, respec- tively.126 Interestingly enough, Hamedani first rose to prominence

124- “Janeshin-e niru-ye Quds: Agar Iran dar Surieh hozur nadasht koshtar chand barabar mishod,” -e Emruz, May 27, 2012, http://cutt.us/oAEU. 125- “Janeshin-e farmandeh-ye niru-ye Quds-e Sepah: Amrika az qodrat-e Iran vahemeh darad,” Fars News, May 23, 2014, http://cutt.us/ATdP. 126- “Pas az dow sal-e jang dar Surieh dar defaʿ az Bashar Assad nam-e farmandeh-ye meydani-ye Sepah dar Surieh eʿlam shod,” Digarban, October 5, 2014, http://cutt.us/8Ew1; Morteza Nik Pendar, “Farmandeh-ye sepah-e Tehran-e bozorg kist?,” JARAS, November 22, 2009, http://cutt.us/RDWD; “Tazehtarin sokhanan-e Sardar Hamedani dar mored Su- rieh,” ISNA, June 27, 2014. It is also noteworthy that Iran sent the deputy commander of the Law Enforcement Force (LEF), Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Radan, to Damascus in April 2012 to advise the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate on how to most effectively in his role as one of the founders of the IRGC in Kurdistan, involved in its repression of Kurdish ethnonationalist, autonomist, and left- ist forces in the first years of the Iranian Revolution.127 In May 2014 Hamedani spoke openly of Iran’s role in the formation of a “second Hezbollah,” that is, the NDF, in Syria and its capacity to ably partake in urban warfare, which he claims has led in turn to a decrease in the number of casualties.128 While this statement no doubt reflected

Commander Hossein Hamedani, Basijpress.ir

deal with opposition protests and resistance. The LEF was censured by the US Department of the Treasury for its role in the repression of popular protests following Iran’s 2009 post- electoral protests. The role of the LEF also implicates the Guardian Jurist and the Supreme National Security Council, to which it is, in the final analysis, answerable. Fulton, Holliday, and Wyer, “Iran’s Strategy in Syria,” 13–14. 127- Pendar, “Farmandeh-ye sepah-e Tehran-e bozorg kist?” 128- “Farmandeh-ye arshad-e Sepah: Iran Hezbollah-ye dovvom ra dar Surieh tashkil dad,” BBC Persian, May 5, 2014, http://cutt.us/ufxi.

63 64 No. 1 November 2014

a fair amount of bravado on Hamedani’s part given the persistent perception of the ineptitude of the Syrian army and the NDF, we can assume that the IRGC has had a considerable impact in not only professionalizing these forces but also cultivating allies that will go on to play a role as part of the fragmented Syrian polity’s future. The Syrian military has relied heavily on aerial bombardment and barrel bombs, which have had devastating consequences in terms of Syrian civilian casualties and appear to have only increased from 2012 through to the present,129 belying Hamedani’s claims that Iran’s involvement has proven constructive in helping to reduce ci- vilian casualties. In the same speech Hamedani expressed the view that Iran’s role in the Syrian conflict is on a par with its role in the eight-year war with Iraq, known in regime circles as the “sacred defense.”130 While certainly hyperbolic, the claim shows that the IRGC’s top brass has become less bashful about publicly defending its military presence in Syria and the continued relevance of state and non-state actors sympathetic to Iran’s broader regional agenda.

129- “Syria: Barrage of Barrel Bombs; Attacks on Civilians Defy UN Resolution,” , July 30, 2014, http://cutt.us/05qE 130- “Farmandeh-ye arshad-e Sepah.” Conclusion From the above outline of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s insti- tutional comportments, policies, and publicly stated positions regarding the Syrian conflict, one can discern noteworthy differ- ences within the Iranian elite, even if they are not oceans apart or unmanageable. Differences of approach and expression within the Iranian state are not only signs of institutional disagreement but also the product of distinct languages, institutional cultures, pri- orities, and audiences. Such debate goes to the heart and nature of policymaking and thus hardly exceptional. Ultimately, there can be no strategic shift in Iran’s position without a change in the intra- elite consensus, in which some persons and offices, namely, the Guardian Jurist’s Office and senior commanders of the IRGC-Quds Force, have more weight than others. The strategic indispensabil- ity of Iran’s stake in Syria remains undisputed. The debate rather resides in how much of Tehran’s ally might be preserved and in what form; when and if Assad will go, and whether and how fa- vorably disposed vestiges and dependents of his regime might be preserved. It appears that while unqualified backing of the person of Assad is still being debated among Iran’s policy makers, the IRGC with its major investment in training and organizing numerous pro-Assad militias has ensured that it will retain influence in Syria even in the event of Assad’s downfall – an eventuality that at the present conjuncture is looking increasingly unlikely, given the Obama administration’s ongoing reservations. Even if the US administration eventually comes to the conclusion that combat- ing the likes of ISIL is not dissociable from a genuine and compre- hensive political solution and transition toward a post-Assad Syria, the Islamic Republic has ensured that it will have much to bargain with and to guarantee its inclusion in any future process.

65 66 No. 1 November 2014

In keeping with this sentiment, the foreign ministry and SNSC will continue to work the diplomatic angle and push for Iran’s in- clusion within the diplomatic process, albeit on terms consonant with Tehran’s Syria policy. As mentioned at the outset of this pa- per, a major shift in Iran’s Syria policy is unlikely as long as the military balance resides in the Syrian government’s favor and radi- cal jihadists such as ISIL and the Nusra Front appear the only alter- native to Assad’s dictatorship. In particular, the foreign ministry is cognizant of the fact that the United States will prefer to deal with the devil it knows, that is, the Assad security state, as opposed to a Pandora’s box seemingly dominated by unwieldy Islamist radicals. Despite its own origins in a brand of radical Shi’i with transnational aspirations, the Islamic Republic in the twilight of Khomeini’s life came to accept, on an official basis, the state sys- tem and the basic norms of the international order, even if a num- ber of unresolved paradoxes remain. Iran knows it can play on the fear of the unknown and of forces such as ISIL that desire to over- turn this order in toto, and in this way it can work to constrict Western ambitions, perhaps hubris, on the issue of regime change in Syria. Meanwhile, the realization that Assad will probably never be able to rule Syria as his father once did is beginning to hit home. While for decades the alliance with Syria was of key strategic im- portance, a central and unavoidable question today poses itself to Iranian policymakers: what real worth does the alliance with the Assad regime in its present beleaguered state really have? The Guardian Jurist, Ayatollah Khamenei, will continue to op- pose the Western military presence in the region, which both he and the IRGC see as an obstacle to Iran’s own designs for regional hegemony. They will nevertheless continue to expect and antici- pate Washington’s recognition of Iran’s self-avowed “prerogatives” in the Gulf, Mesopotamia, and the Levant. The IRGC and its Quds Force will similarly continue to work in line with the broad policy guidelines determined by the Guardian Jurist and to pursue its strategic doctrine dedicated to the cultivation and construction of allies, most often non-state actors in weak states where power vacuums exist,131 with whom it can work to guarantee its strategic depth against the perceived threats posed by, above all, the United States, but also its chief regional rivals in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia.132 It will utilize these actors the best it can in order to underwrite the regional balance of power, but also to ex- tract concessions if and when the conditions for the political track ultimately ripen and become tenable. In the meantime, the messy, brutal quagmire that is the Syrian civil war will continue to grind on as it has for almost four years. Its victims will be, as they have been all along, innocent civilians, whose former lives have been destroyed and whose society lies in tatters, with death, terror, and privation having become staples of ordinary life.

131- This can also be seen in Iraq in Nouri al-Maliki’s reliance on Shiʿi militias to defend Baghdad. Cockburn, The Jihadis Return, 12. 132- For a pertinent analysis along these lines, see F. Gregory Gause III, “Beyond Sec- tarianism: The New Middle East Cold War” (Brookings Doha analysis paper no. 11, July 2014), http://cutt.us/SxR0.

67 The Author

King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

Founded in 1983 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the mission of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies is to be a beacon for humanity as envisioned by the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz. The Center aims to accomplish this through conducting research and studies that stimulate cultural and scientific activities for the service of mankind, enrich cultural and intellectual life in Saudi Arabia, and facilitate collaboration with the East and the West.

The Center’s activities include lectures, seminars, conferences and roundtable discussions. It houses the King Faisal Library, collections of rare manuscripts, an Islamic art museum and the King Faisal Museum. It also administers a robust Visiting Fellow Program. Since the Center’s focus is scholarly research, the Research Department was restructured in 2013 to carry out in-depth analysis in contemporary political thought, Saudi studies, regional studies, Arabic language studies and modernity studies. The Center has also been collaborating with various research centers around the world within its scope of research.

The Chairman of the KFCRIS Board is HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal bin

Abdulaziz, and the Secretary General is Prof. Yahya bin Junaid.

P.O.Box 51049 Riyadh 11543 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tel: (+966 11) 4652255 Ext: 6764 Fax: (+966 11) 4162281 E-mail: [email protected]