Breaking the Alliance
29/07/2006
By Manal Lotfi
Asharq Al Awsat, London - After meeting the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week, the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice announced, “It is time for a new Middle East,” but did not elaborate further.
Earlier this month, US officials spoke about breaking the “alliance of convenience” between a theocratic regime in Tehran and a secular Baathist regime in Damascus, on the basis of there being no commonalities between the two, except their international “isolation”. They believe that by merely promising to end one party’s isolation and re-integrating it into the international community, this will lure the party to change its alliances. The United States has already spoken about “the weaker partner”, Syria, and attempts to convince it, through Arab intermediaries, to stop its support for Hezbollah, in order to neutralize Damascus and exert pressure on Iran, ultimately, to draw the features of a new Middle East. Without publicly speaking of “incentives”, the current US administration believes it can tempt Syria away from Tehran.
What are the roots of the Syrian-Iranian alliance? Can it survive current developments in the region?
Bilateral relations between Damascus and Tehran go back to before the Iranian revolution, in 1979, when then-president Hafez Asad supported Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers, in the hope of defeating the Shah’s regime, which threatened Syria because of its excellent relations with the United States, and weakening the Baath in Iraq. Crucially, the ruling Alawis in Damascus were naturally drawn to Iran’s Shiaa, given the religious affinity of the two groups.
After the success of the revolution in February 1979, Asad was amongst the first leaders to welcome the revolution and congratulate Khomeini. In August of the same year, the Syrian foreign minister at the time, Abdel Halim Khaddam, visited Tehran and said the Iranian Revolution was the most important event in contemporary history and said his government had supported it from the very beginning.
Under Khomeini and his successor Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, relations between the two countries remained strong, especially after Saddam Hussein seized power in July 1979. It was therefore entirely expected that Syria would standby Iran in its war against Saddam, in opposition of the rest of the Arab world which supported Iraq. The war, which lasted from 1980 until 1988, ended with a practical Iranian victory. During these years, as Iran fought its western neighbor and Syria came under pressure from Israel, the two countries agreed to support the Shiaa community in Lebanon, to lessen the pressure on both countries. Soon after, Hezbollah was born, through 1000 members of the Iranian revolutionary guards and significant financial and military assistance and training. In 1982, Iran sent members of the revolutionary guards to train Hezbollah cadres. In recent years, however, Iran has started training Hezbollah members on its own soil, because it believes there is no need for its troops to be on Lebanese soil, according to a senior official who spoke to Asharq Al Awsat, adding that the training was intense and of a high-level. As part of the special relations between the two countries, Damascus imports oil from Tehran at a reduced price and receives assistance in agricultural and industrial projects. The commercial exchange between the two countries reaches 70 million dollars a year, the biggest part of which is Iranian exports to Syria, worth some 60 million dollars annually. Both countries signed a defense agreement in 2004, after the US invasion of Iraq, because of their fear of US policies and intentions in the region.
Cont'd >>
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=5804 
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