Why Iran Is Not the Winner in Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

by Shireen T. Hunter

After Donald Trump declared that he was pulling U.S. forces out of Syria, nearly all commentators declared that Iran would be one of the major beneficiaries–if not the major beneficiary–of the move. This is not surprising, since as a rule, U,S,, Arab, and even European commentators have declared Iran the winner of nearly all U.S. actions in the Middle East and West Asia since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

No doubt, some U.S. policies have led to some strategic gains for Iran. The weakening of the Taliban, following the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, initially relieved Tehran from the threat posed by the Taliban on its eastern frontiers. However, the extended U.S.  military presence in Afghanistan and its political sway over subsequent Afghan governments has burdened Tehran-Kabul relations. Today there are U.S. forces less than 250 miles from Iran’s eastern border. Should the United States decide to use force against Iran, its presence in Afghanistan would enable it to attack it on several fronts. Moreover, America’s military and political presence in Afghanistan has made Afghanistan less responsive to Iran’s legitimate demands regarding the sharing of the Hirmand (Helmand) River and other matters of interest to Tehran.

The same has been true of Iraq. Again the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq puts them in close proximity to the Iranian border and  has increased Iran’s vulnerability to potential U.S. military action. Moreover, Iran has paid a heavy price in both money and lives in Iraq–including fighting the Islamic State without getting credit for it–and these costs have been greater than the benefits it has received from its relations with Baghdad. The statistics regarding Iran-Iraq trade do not reflect the reality, since Iraq often does not pay Iran for its imports of natural gas and electricity. Meanwhile, in order to retain its remaining influence in Baghdad, and partly because of the U.S. presence, Iran does not dare to challenge Iraq regarding these unpaid accounts. Even so, Iran often gets blamed for Baghdad’s problems, as it was in 2018 when the Iraqis blamed Iran for their electricity difficulties. Furthermore, now that Iraq is relatively calm (partly thanks to Iran’s help), it is the Europeans and Gulf Arabs who will reap the benefits of the eventual Iraqi reconstruction boom. Thanks to U.S. sanctions, Iran has no money to invest domestically, let alone in Iraq.

A similar situation exists in Syria. To begin with, the U.S. withdrawal from Syria is not yet a reality. President Trump might change his mind. Moreover, the U.S. troops withdrawn from Syria reportedly will be moved to Iraq, closer to the Iranian border. In fact, it is conceivable that the U.S. is again thinking of a military attack on Iran and thus is redeploying some of its troops. President Trump’s statement that the U.S. is staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran shows that his announced withdrawal from Syria is not going to decrease U.S. pressure on Iran. Meanwhile, Arab states are lining up to go to Damascus and coopt Bashar al-Assad with promises of money and investment and Syria’s return to the Arab fold. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait have already reopened their embassies in Damascus, and eventually so will Egypt and Jordan. Regaining Arab acceptance is vital for Syria in terms of its long-term security, for geographic and cultural reasons in addition to the economic rationale. If this means somewhat loosening Damascus’s ties to Tehran, so be it. Iran, meanwhile, has nothing concrete to offer Syria in terms of money and investment.

In general, Iran-Syria relations since their early days have been an unequal partnership in Syria’s favor. Syria has always acted according to its own interests and has been unwilling to go out of its way to aid Tehran. In the 1980s and 1990s, Syria fought against Iranian influence in Lebanon. When the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference offered Damascus a hope that peace with Israel might be forthcoming and that it could regain the Golan Heights, Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad ignored Iranian concerns about his attendance at the conference. If Syria has had to maintain its Tehran connection, it has been because neither Israel nor Arab states have made it worth Damascus’ while to cut its ties to Iran. Syria has been a bottomless pit into which Iran has poured its meager resources that could have been used for domestic development. Meanwhile, should there be a need to fil the vacuum created by the U.S. departure, most likely it would be Turkey that would do so. Any action in this regard by Iran would certainly trigger a strong and negative U.S. and European reaction, which given its current conditions Tehran can ill afford. Nor would Iran be in a position to challenge Ankara. At the moment, Iran needs Turkey’s good will and cooperation more than ever in trying to survive the impact of U.S. sanctions.

Last but not least, it is very unlikely that Russia would want Iran to retain significant influence in Damascus. Instead, most probably, Moscow will try to leverage its Syrian success in negotiations with the U.S. on other issues, and cash in on Syria’s reconstruction if and when it comes.

Why, then, are so many analysts clamoring that Iran has won in Syria? It is simple–to scare the U.S. either into doing something drastic in Syria, such as reversing its withdrawal decision or increasing its military presence with an eye toward ousting Assad or even initiating a conflict with Iran. Meanwhile, when Iran–or to be precise the Iranian hardline faction– claims victory all over the Middle East, it validates the claims of those who support greater use of U.S. military force in the region. A sober analysis shows that Iran has gained very little in exchange for all of its financial and human expenditures in the Middle East, including in Syria. It shows the limits of Iran’s influence over Arab politics. It also shows how self-defeating Iran’s foreign policy has been over the last forty years.

Shireen Hunter

Shireen Hunter is an affiliate fellow at the Center For Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. From 2005 to 2007 she was a senior visiting fellow at the center. From 2007 to 2014, she was a visiting Professor and from 2014 to July 2019 a research professor. Before joining she was director of the Islam program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a program she had been associated since 1983. She is the author and editor of 27 books and monographs. Her latest book is Arab-Iranian Relations: Dynamics of Conflict and Accommodation, Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019.

SHOW 14 COMMENTS

14 Comments

  1. Traditionally, Iran’s view to its neighbors is not a short-visioned Business-First approach that the westerners are used to understand. Most of Iranian influence is through cultivating trustful relations with its friends and enemies that creates a soft-power which is much more influential than the hard-power that US projects. Of course the Iranian soft power is highly limited in extent due to the tendency to side in sectarian issues and internal corruption and a full democratic Iran would have a multitude of such influence that possibly the US-UK hub doesn’t like.
    The result of the special-relation with Syria was that all the world submitted to the Iranian will for Assad to remain while the expenditure by Iran remained a tiny fracture of them. This is what the author missed to admit and keeps to the line of being worried for Iran losses. May be better for the author to concentrate on the causes of US loss and to worry for the decline of US influence against the heavy investments.

  2. Eb Hadi, this amateur likes your comment exceedingly much. Yes, the “US-UK hub” should have allowed the real probability of a “full democratic Iran” to bud, bloom and flourish in 1953 and thereafter…but the “hub” couldn’t allow that, could it? Ahh, the shame of shortsightedness, missed opportunities, unintended consequences, imperial overreach….

  3. Iranian regime’s responses to the US gun policy and military adventurism with no political policy in Afghanistan and in the Arab world have been very methodical, slow and well thought out and done very quietly! This is what frustrates the US policy makers! Bottom line is that Iranians’goal is to force and bring the US to the negotiating table to sit down with their representatives to discuss many real issues that exist between them! Those conversations and negotiations and acceptance of the Iranians stature and political power in the region will result into many objectives that the US has had but unable to achieve them for the 2 decades!
    This would be possible only if the US reevaluates its own domestic policy in regards to Israel! The current policy for the US has been and still is to impose its own domestic policy over to the ME countries!

  4. Sorry my comment re-appeared! For some reason it was gone for a while but still awaiting review!

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