Iran on horns of foreign policy dilemma over Syria

Iran consistently backed the anti-government protesters over the course of the Arab Spring, saying the voice of the people 'which echoes the Islamic reawakening,' should be heard.

But when the protests spread to Syria, the tone changed.

'Syria is a sovereign country, and we are sure that the government will be able to cope with its internal affairs on its own,' Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said.

The 'Zionist conspiracy' had to be neutralized and all foreign intervention resisted, Salehi insisted.

That intervention is now coming not only from Washington and the West, but also from the powerful nations of the Muslim world.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council have all called on President Bashar al-Assad to put an immediate stop to the brutal military action directed at his internal critics.

Tehran's silence runs the risk it will find itself isolated from the Arab and wider Muslim world.

'Iran finds itself on the horns of a foreign policy dilemma,' a political analyst in Tehran says.

'Palestine and its anti-Israel foreign policy are right at the top of the foreign policy agenda, and this would be difficult to implement without Assad,' the analyst, who decline to be named, adds.

Since the 1979 revolution, Tehran has shunned Israel. And the accession of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2005, has served only to confirm this aggressively anti-Israel policy.

Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to removed from the Middle East and provokes Western anger with his repeated denials of the Holocaust.

An Arab diplomat in Tehran believes: 'Iran is backing the Arab Spring primarily because it hopes for a change in policy by the Arab world against Israel and its main ally, the United States.'

This is certainly a possibility in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, which have all reached accommodations over years past with the Jewish state, but not in Syria.

Damascus not only backs Iran on its anti-Israel stance, but is also a close ally when it comes to supporting the Shiite Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, a firm ally of Tehran and an equally firm enemy of Israel.

'Even worse for Iran than the strategic setback represented by al-Assad's demise would be the success scored by Israel over its most bitter enemy,' the diplomat says.

The ramifications have not escaped Ahmadinejad, who constantly predicts Israel's collapse. 'Everyone in the region must now take care lest these developments suddenly turn out to serve the interests of the Zionist regime,' he has said.

This warning is also aimed at Iran's neighbour and ally, Turkey. Ankara tried last month to dissuade Tehran's theocratic leadership from further support for Assad.

But Ahmadinejad rejected this categorically, advising Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu not to be taken in by US conspiracies, 'because they merely serve the interests of the Zionists.'

Requests for military and financial assistance have thus far been rejected, but Tehran has been silent in the face of the increasing criticism of Assad being voiced by many Arab governments.

This is an attempt to avoid crossing either Damascus or Ankara, both vital allies.

The influential Revolutionary Guard has taken a different line, using its weekly magazine Sobhe Sadegh to say in a recent editorial that Iran's strategic interests 'are rather in the direction of Syria than of Turkey' and that if it came to choosing sides, Damascus should be the priority.

These internal differences indicate the difficulties in maintaining a foreign policy established over more than three decades that puts the liberation of Palestine right at the top of the agenda.

Source: Monsters and Critics