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Syrian War Brought Together Putin, Khamenei, Will 'Normalization' Pull them Apart?

Syrians wave the national, Iranian and Russian flags in Damascus in April 2019. (AP)
Syrians wave the national, Iranian and Russian flags in Damascus in April 2019. (AP)
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Syrian War Brought Together Putin, Khamenei, Will 'Normalization' Pull them Apart?

Syrians wave the national, Iranian and Russian flags in Damascus in April 2019. (AP)
Syrians wave the national, Iranian and Russian flags in Damascus in April 2019. (AP)

One of the main drivers of the initiatives, raids and pressure on Syria is the Iranian presence there and questions about the future of its military entrenchment there.

Iran is largely present, both directly and indirectly, in the recent contacts and disclosed and undisclosed meetings that have been held with Damascus and Syrian president Bashar Assad.

Damascus and Tehran have formed a "strategic relationship" since Iran's 1979 revolution and it has developed even further in wake of the eruption of the conflict in Syria in 2011. Iran's intervention in the war has helped keep the regime alive before Russia's military intervention in 2015 swooped in to play the role of "savior and victor".

Iran has sought to entrench itself further in the Middle East through the Syrian "gate" in order to protect its "backyard" in Iraq, link Baghdad to Beirut through Damascus and establish an opening to the Mediterranean. It also sought to establish a foothold that would put Israel within the range of its weapons.

The United States sought to confront Iran's entrenchment by establishing its own military presence in northeastern Syria and in the al-Tanf military base, to block the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut route.

Iran responded to that move by opening an alternate land route between Tehran, Damascus and Beirut through the Alboukamal and Deir Ezzor regions in Syria.

Israel, meanwhile, set its own red lines against Iran's entrenchment and delivery of sophisticated and advanced weapons to its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Turkey, which is also involved militarily in Syria, has sought to confront Iran's presence south of its border. It did so by coexisting with it in line with the 2017 Astana process that Moscow was also party to.

The Astana process, with Ankara, Tehran and Moscow, led to understandings between the parties over the division of influence in Syria against the other main foreign parties involved in Syria, namely the US and Israel.

Some Arab countries, meanwhile, had banked on Russia in reining in Iran's influence, while others had turned to Washington when Donald Trump was still in the White House. Western countries have in the meantime insisted that all foreign forces, except Russia's, withdraw from Syria as a condition to normalizing ties with Damascus or helping in reconstructing the war-torn country.

The calculations have all changed now give the changes in Syria and the region and the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House.

Biden has adopted a different approach than Trump and like Barack Obama, has pitted high hopes on the nuclear negotiations with Iran in Vienna. When Tehran tests the waters by attacking the al-Tanf base or stokes tensions in the Gulf waters, Washington weighs its response by assessing how much its retaliation may impact the negotiations.

As it stands, the room for confrontation is now limited between two options: the first is engaging Assad and ending Damascus' isolation with the hope of easing Iran's influence. The purpose would not be to immediately shift Syria from the "resistance alliance", led by Iran, to the "moderate camp". Rather, the aim is for Damascus to be open between the two camps because this is the realistic option and because some Arab countries have signed normalization deals with Israel and left the door open for dialogue with Iran.

Some Arab countries have indeed forged ahead with normalization based on this assumption, while others believe the conditions are not ripe yet. They are instead demanding that Damascus take "tangible steps" and begin reining in Iran in Syria and the region.

The second option lies in banking on the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ability to rein in Iran. This option stems from the position that the war had brought together Putin and Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei in Syria, but peace and normalization will pull them apart. Iran wants to support the militias, establish a regime that is subordinate to it and divide Syria. Russia, on the other hand, wants to strengthen the Syrian army and preserve the unity of the state. In other words, it supports the "Russian Syria" against the "Iranian Syria".

Israel also figures in the picture. It wants to receive logistic and intelligence support from the US as it raids Iranian positions in Syria. It wants to sever the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut route. It is also hoping that its normalization of relations with Arab countries would open Damascus' eyes to other opportunities that would end its isolation. It is also relying on its military strikes on Syria and military understandings with Russia.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had struck a deep understanding with Putin that prioritizes Israel's security. This understanding had also received the blessing of Trump and his team. This allowed Israel free reign in striking Iran in Syria to prevent its entrenchment.

Netanyahu's successor, Naftali Bennett, met with Putin in Sochi on October 22 and largely received the same reassurances over Syria that his predecessor did. He appeared to have received approval to expand attacks on Iranian targets as evidences in strikes on the outskirts of Damascus and the intensification of raids, whether from Lebanese airspace or from above the al-Tanf base of occupied Golan Heights.

The nuclear negotiations are significant for the fate of Syria and Iran's presence there. One must monitor the course of Israeli strikes on Syria and the various diplomatic visits to Damascus to determine just how much Iran will remain entrenched there or not.

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The US and Iran Have Had Bitter Relations for Decades. After the Bombs, a New Chapter Begins

Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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The US and Iran Have Had Bitter Relations for Decades. After the Bombs, a New Chapter Begins

Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran's and US' flags are seen printed on paper in this illustration taken January 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Now comes a new chapter in US-Iran relations, whether for the better or the even worse.

For nearly a half century, the world has witnessed an enmity for the ages — the threats, the plotting, the poisonous rhetoric between the “Great Satan” of Iranian lore and the “Axis of Evil” troublemaker of the Middle East, in America's eyes, The Associated Press reported.

Now we have a US president saying, of all things, “God bless Iran.”

This change of tone, however fleeting, came after the intense US bombing of Iranian nuclear-development sites this week, Iran's retaliatory yet restrained attack on a US military base in Qatar and the tentative ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump in the Israel-Iran war.

The US attack on three targets inflicted serious damage but did not destroy them, a US intelligence report found, contradicting Trump's assertion that the attack “obliterated” Iran's nuclear program.

Here are some questions and answers about the long history of bad blood between the two countries:

Why did Trump offer blessings all around? In the first blush of a ceasefire agreement, even before Israel and Iran appeared to be fully on board, Trump exulted in the achievement. “God bless Israel,” he posted on social media. “God bless Iran.” He wished blessings on the Middle East, America and the world, too.

When it became clear that all hostilities had not immediately ceased after all, he took to swearing instead.

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing,” he said on camera.

In that moment, Trump was especially critical of Israel, the steadfast US ally, for seeming less attached to the pause in fighting than the country that has been shouting “Death to America” for generations and is accused of trying to assassinate him.

Why did US-Iran relations sour in the first place? In two words, Operation Ajax.

That was the 1953 coup orchestrated by the CIA, with British support, that overthrew Iran's democratically elected government and handed power to the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Western powers had feared the rise of Soviet influence and the nationalization of Iran's oil industry.

The shah was a strategic US ally who repaired official relations with Washington. But grievances simmered among Iranians over his autocratic rule and his bowing to America's interests.

All of that boiled over in 1979 when the shah fled the country and the theocratic revolutionaries took control, imposing their own hard line.

How did the Iranian revolution deepen tensions? Profoundly.

On Nov. 4, 1979, with anti-American sentiment at a fever pitch, Iranian students took 66 American diplomats and citizens hostage and held more than 50 of them in captivity for 444 days.

It was a humiliating spectacle for the United States and President Jimmy Carter, who ordered a secret rescue mission months into the Iran hostage crisis. In Operation Eagle Claw, eight Navy helicopters and six Air Force transport planes were sent to rendezvous in the Iranian desert. A sand storm aborted the mission and eight service members died when a helicopter crashed into a C-120 refueling plane.

Diplomatic ties were severed in 1980 and remain broken.

Iran released the hostages minutes after Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981. That was just long enough to ensure that Carter, bogged in the crisis for over a year, would not see them freed in his term.

Was this week's US attack the first against Iran? No. But the last big one was at sea.

On April 18, 1988, the US Navy sank two Iranian ships, damaged another and destroyed two surveillance platforms in its largest surface engagement since World War II. Operation Praying Mantis was in retaliation against the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf four days earlier. Ten sailors were injured and the explosion left a gaping hole in the hull.

Did the US take sides in the Iran-Iraq war? Not officially, but essentially.

The US provided economic aid, intelligence sharing and military-adjacent technology to Iraq, concerned that an Iranian victory would spread instability through the region and strain oil supplies. Iran and Iraq emerged from the 1980-1988 war with no clear victor and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, while US-Iraq relations fractured spectacularly in the years after.

What was the Iran-Contra affair? An example of US-Iran cooperation of sorts — an illegal, and secret, one until it wasn't.

Not long after the US designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984 — a status that remains — it emerged that America was illicitly selling arms to Iran. One purpose was to win the release of hostages in Lebanon under the control of Iran-backed Hezbollah. The other was to raise secret money for the Contra rebels in Nicaragua in defiance of a US ban on supporting them.

President Ronald Reagan fumbled his way through the scandal but emerged unscathed — legally if not reputationally.

How many nations does the US designate as state sponsors of terrorism? Only four: Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Syria.

The designation makes those countries the target of broad sanctions. Syria's designation is being reviewed in light of the fall of Bashar Assad’s government.

Where did the term ‘Axis of Evil’ come from? From President George W. Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address. He spoke five months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the year before he launched the invasion of Iraq on the wrong premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

He singled out Iran, North Korea and Saddam's Iraq and said: “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”

In response, Iran and some of its anti-American proxies and allies in the region took to calling their informal coalition an Axis of Resistance at times.

What about those proxies and allies? Some, like Hezbollah and Hamas, are degraded due to Israel's fierce and sustained assault on them. In Syria, Assad fled to safety in Moscow after losing power to opposition factions once tied to al-Qaida but now cautiously welcomed by Trump.

In Yemen, Houthi militants who have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea and pledged common cause with Palestinians have been bombed by the US and Britain. In Iraq, armed Shia factions controlled or supported by Iran still operate and attract periodic attacks from the United States.

What about Iran's nuclear program? In 2015, President Barack Obama and other powers struck a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear development in return for the easing of sanctions. Iran agreed to get rid of an enriched uranium stockpile, dismantle most centrifuges and give international inspectors more access to see what it was doing.

Trump assailed the deal in his 2016 campaign and scrapped it two years later as president, imposing a "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions. He argued the deal only delayed the development of nuclear weapons and did nothing to restrain Iran's aggression in the region. Iran's nuclear program resumed over time and, according to inspectors, accelerated in recent months.

Trump's exit from the nuclear deal brought a warning from Hassan Rouhani, then Iran's president, in 2018: “America must understand well that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace. And war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

How did Trump respond to Iran's provocations? In January 2020, Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran's top commander, when he was in Iraq.

Then Iran came after him, according to President Joe Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland. Days after Trump won last year's election, the Justice Department filed charges against an Iranian man believed to still be in his country and two alleged associates in New York.

“The Justice Department has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump," Garland said.

Now, Trump is seeking peace at the table after ordering bombs dropped on Iran, and offering blessings.

It is potentially the mother of all turnarounds.