Iran on Tuesday intervened in the crisis that’s enveloping Syria, expressing support for embattled President Bashar al-Assad and insisting it would never allow a break in the alliance between the two nations.
“Iran will never allow the resistance axis — of which Syria is an essential pillar — to break,” Iranian National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili said in Damascus, where he met with Assad, who made his first public appearance after weeks in hiding.
Analysts in the United States said Iran’s intervention in Syria could be an effort by Iran to counter Western allies in the region, like Saudi Arabia, that wish to expand their own influence while preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
“I definitely do think it’s a proxy war,” said Arturo Munoz, a former CIA official who is now a senior intelligence analyst with the RAND Corp. “The rebels are receiving outside support. Iran is becoming more threatening to its Sunni neighbors, so aiding the rebels is not part of some international aggression because the nation is already immersed in a civil war.”
Assad has been struggling for 17 months to hold on to power as anti-regime rebels fight on, killing some of his top advisers and helping orchestrate the defection Monday of a top official in his regime, Prime Minister Riad Hijab. Iran has pumped billions of dollars in aid into Syria to bolster Assad’s regime. Meanwhile, China and Russia have helped deflect additional sanctions on Syria from the United Nations.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both Sunni nations with close ties to the U.S., are supporting the Syrian rebels, promising them weapons in recent months. And Shiite Iran clearly hopes to provide a counterbalance to their influence, one U.S. official told The Washington Examiner.
“Iran’s desperation to retain Assad in power is becoming more evident,” the official said. “Not only do they want to retain their ally but they know that if the rebels in Syria succeed, the opposition in their own country may have a chance to topple them as well.”
The Syrian rebels have tried to signal to Iran that they bear no animosity toward Tehran and suggested they could work with the Iranians once the Assad regime falls.
However, the rebels are holding 48 Iranian hostages they seized in Damascus on Saturday and that has only intensified tensions. Iran insists that the hostages are religious pilgrims. The rebels claim they are Iranian Revolutionary Guards on a reconnaissance mission in Syria.
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
