Will cataclysms caused by wars in Gaza and Lebanon lead to a review of Iran’s military presence in the Levant?
Judging by the buzz in Tehran political circles, echoed in the official media, the answer may be yes.
Four factors may have pushed a review higher on the agenda.
First, feeling more secure in his albeit reduced status after over a decade of war, Syria’s still “legal” President Bashar al-Assad hopes to mobilize international support for a gradual rebuilding of the ungoverned land as nation-state.
In that he seems to enjoy the support not only of Russia but also a majority of Arab League plus the European Union.
To achieve that goal he needs to extend his writ beyond Damascus and a few other “islands of stability” across Syria. That requires a planned withdrawal of foreign forces, Turkish, American, Russian and Iranian, each of which have carved a fiefdom with support from local Arab, Kurdish and Turcoman communities.
Because the largest number of foreign forces in Syria are under Iranian control, Al-Assad sees their departure as a priority.
According to sources in Tehran, the Syrian leader gingerly raised the issue in 2022, after consulting Russia, but hit an Iranian brick wall.
His argument was that Syria needed to start reconstruction, an undertaking that requires an estimated $1 trillion in investments over a decade.
The late Iranian General, Qassem Soleimani, often promised to rebuild Syria.
Iranian estimates suggest Soleimani spent over $20 billon in Syria.
Things began to change when President Donald Trump in his first presidential term launched his “maximum pressure” policy to aggravate Tehran’s liquidity problem.
The return of the Obama faction to power in Washington under Joe Biden stopped the “maximum pressure” and enabled Tehran to maintain its hugely costly presence in the Levant.
Trump’s return is the second factor that has raised the issue of Iranian withdrawal from the Levant starting with Syria.
This is why Assad dwelt on it in recent meetings with high emissaries from Iranian “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei.
One meeting was with the new Iranian Defense Minister, Brigadier Aziz Nasirzadeh, who, though not in charge of Iran-controlled forces in Syria, could relay Assad’s message to the military in Tehran.
The second was with Ali Ardeshir Larijani, a former high official who had been pushed out in the cold but was brought back to relay a message that, because he has no official position, wouldn’t commit the new administration of President Massud Pezeshkian, thus making later pirouettes possible.
According to analysts in Tehran, both Iranian emissaries listened to Assad with “sympathetic ears”.
The specter of Trump loomed in the room.
The Tehran leadership hopes to play its usual game of one-step-backwards-two steps forward by making a deal with Trump which would require at least a lowering of the Iranian military presence in the Levant.
But if that can’t be done and “maximum pressure” is back, Tehran would simply not have the cash to maintain a high military profile.
In any case, Syria has become too costly a mistress to keep.
The third factor is the consequence of the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s unexpectedly forceful response. Tehran’s indirect war with Israel started in the 1980s with Lebanon as the first battlefield. In 2014, after Iran-controlled units attacked Israel via the Golan Heights, Syria was added as a battlefield.
The fourth factor is the collapse of Soleimani’s strategy of “war from a distance” through proxies in a glacis in foreign lands.
Israel and Iran have tested each other’s threshold of pain with direct attacks but without taking off their gloves.
The “Supreme Guide” now knows he might have to fight his own war at a time that according to experts his war machine isn’t ready for direct duel with the “Zionist foe” and his “Great Satan” ally under Trump.
If I understand the mood in Tehran, the leadership is already contemplating a review of using Syria as a glacis.
In fact, some withdrawal started before October 7.
Between 2021 and 2023, an estimated 3,000 Iranian “military advisors” were brought home. At the same time the Abufazlal-Abbas unit of
Iraqi mercenaries was merged with al-Nujaba and re-deployed in Iraq.
Tehran also held talks with Islamabad to organize the return of Pakistanis in Zaynbioun Division.
Even if it leaves Syria, Iran is determined to keep a presence in Lebanon through Hezbollah. France and some other EU members dream of an accommodation with Tehran over Lebanon. In a new paper, The European Council on Foreign Relations claims that “pushing Iran out” could be counter-productive without saying why.
Tehran hopes to cajole Europeans to its side by promising to leave Syria to placate Trump in the hope of being allowed to keep a presence in Lebanon.
