Iran's Plans to Take Over Syria

Iran’s Plans to Take Over Syria
By: Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira, May 2, 2013  Vol. 13, No. 10 5 May 2013

In mid-April, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah paid a secret visit to Tehran where he met with the top Iranian officials headed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Qasem Suleimani, who is in charge of Iranian policy in Lebanon and Syria. The visit was clandestine and no details were divulged on an official level – except for the exclusive posting on Hizbullah’s official website of a photograph of Khamenei with Nasrallah beside him in the former’s private library, with a picture of Ayatollah Khomeini above them.1

Suleimani’s involvement in the meeting with Nasrallah was significant. He has been the spearhead of Iranian military activism in the Middle East. In January 2012, he declared that the Islamic Republic controlled “one way or another” Iraq and South Lebanon.2 He now appeared to be prepared to extend Iran’s control to all of Syria.

A media source normally hostile to Iran and Hizbullah but which nonetheless contains accurate information, reported that Iran has formulated an operational plan for assisting Syria. The plan has been named for Gen. Suleimani. It includes three elements: 1) the establishment of a popular sectarian army made up of Shiites and Alawites, to be backed by forces from Iran, Iraq, Hizbullah, and symbolic contingents from the Persian Gulf. 2) This force will reach 150,000 fighters. 3) The plan will give preference to importing forces from Iran, Iraq, and, only afterwards, other Shiite elements. This regional force will be integrated with the Syrian army. Suleimani, himself, visited Syria in late February-early March to prepare the implementation of this plan.3

In the past, senior Iranian officers, like Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards who is an adviser to Khamenei, have said that Lebanon and Syria gave Iran “strategic depth.”4 Now it appears that Tehran is taking this a step further, preparing for a “Plan B” in the event Assad falls.

Nasrallah rarely makes such trips. The last time he went on a visit outside Lebanon was in February 2010 when he met in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Nasrallah has taken great care not to appear in public since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and even more so since the assassination of the head of Hizbullah’s military wing, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus in February 2008. Even in Iran itself Nasrallah maintained total secrecy for fear of becoming an assassination target there. After the visit, he gave a speech in Lebanon on April 30, but did not say anything about his visit to Iran. He did remark that Syria “has real friends” that wouldn’t let it fall, implying that, if necessary, he would redouble his efforts to defend Iranian interests, which has always been one of the missions of Hizbullah.

It appears that Hizbullah’s ongoing involvement in Syria, and the extent of this involvement, formed the main issue on the agenda during Nasrallah’s visit to Tehran. The more time passes, the more Iran appears to regard Syria as a lynchpin of its Middle Eastern policy, in general, and of leading the jihad and the Islamic resistance to Israel, in particular. Hizbullah’s inclusion in the armed struggle in Syria is intended first and foremost to serve the Iranian strategy, which has been setting new goals apart from military assistance to the Syrian regime. Iran already seems to be looking beyond the regime’s survivability and preparing for a reality where it will have to operate in Syria even if Assad falls. Even before recent events in Syria, observers in the Arab world have been warning for years about growing evidence of “Iranian expansionism.”5

An important expression of Syria’s centrality in Iranian strategy was voiced by Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamenei’s think tank. He recently stated that “Syria is the 35th district of Iran and it has greater strategic importance for Iran than Khuzestan [an Arab-populated district inside Iran]. By preserving Syria we will be able to get back Khuzestan, but if we lose Syria we will not even be able to keep Tehran.”6 Significantly, Taaib was drawing a comparison between Syria and a district that is under full Iranian sovereignty. What was also clear from his remarks was that Iran cannot afford to lose Syria.

Syria as a Shiite State
All in all, then, Iran will have to step up its military involvement in Syria. Khamenei’s representative in Lebanon will have to take part in building the new strategy in Syria, acting in tandem with Iran against the Sunni Islamic groups that threaten Iran’s interests in Syria.

Tehran has had political ambitions with respect to Syria for years and has indeed invested huge resources in making Syria a Shiite state. The process began during the rule of Hafez Assad when a far-reaching network was created of educational, cultural, and religious institutions throughout Syria; it was further expanded during Bashar’s reign. The aim was to promote the Shiization of all regions of the Syrian state. The Syrian regime let Iranian missionaries work freely to strengthen the Shiite faith in Damascus and the cities of the Alawite coast, as well as the smaller towns and villages.7 A field study by the European Union in the first half of 2006 found that the largest percentage of religious conversions to Shiism occurred in areas with an Alawite majority.8

In both urban and rural parts of Syria, Sunnis and others who adopted the Shiite faith received privileges and preferential treatment in the disbursement of Iranian aid money. The heads of the tribes in the Raqqa area were invited by the Iranian ambassador in Damascus to visit Iran cost-free, and the Iranians doled out funds to the poor and financial loans to merchants who were never required to pay them back..9 The dimensions of the Iranian investment in Raqqa, which included elegant public buildings, mosques, and Husayniyys (a Shiite religious institute), were recently revealed by Sunni rebels who took over the remote town and destroyed, plundered, and removed all signs of the Iranian and Shiite presence there.10

As of 2009 there were over 500 Husayniyys in Syria undergoing Iranian renovation work. In Damascus itself the Iranians invested huge sums to control the Shiite holy places including the tomb of Sayyida Zaynab, the shrine of Sayyida Ruqayya, and the shrine of Sayyida Sukayna. These sites attract Iranian tourism, which grew from 27,000 visitors in 1978 to 200,000 in 2003.

Iran also operates a cultural center in Damascus that it considers one of its most important and successful. This center publishes works in Arabic, holds biweekly cultural events, and conducts seminars and conferences aimed at enhancing the Iranian cultural influence in the country. The Iranian cultural center is also responsible for the propagation and study of the Persian language in Syrian universities, including providing teachers of Persian.11

Iran’s Sponsorship of Shiite Forces in Syria
At present, bloody battles are being waged over the centers of Iranian influence in Syria, most of all the mausoleum of Sayyida Zaynab – sister of the Imam Husayn – who in 680 carried his severed head to Damascus after the massacre at Karbala. In Iranian historiography, the great victory over the Sunnis is marked in Damascus in the form of a Shiite renaissance in the capital of the hated Umayyad Empire. The Sunnis, however, are now threatening these Iranian achievements. Hizbullah has been recruited to the cause, with hundreds of its fighters coming to Syria from Lebanon. These fighters try to downplay their Hizbullah affiliation and instead identify themselves as the Abu El Fadl Alabbas Brigade, named after the half-brother of the Imam Husayn.

Iran is also recruiting Shiite forces in Iraq for the warfare in Syria. These are organized in a sister framework of Lebanese Hizbullah. Known as the League of the Righteous People and Kateeb Hizbullah, its mission is to defend the Shiite centers in Damascus.12 Hizbullah fighters are also operating in other areas, some of them beyond the Lebanese border in the Shiite villages in Syrian territory on the way to Homs, thereby creating a sort of territorial continuity for ongoing Alawite control under Iranian influence. This continuity is strategically important to Iran since it links Lebanon and Damascus to the Alawite coast.13 Iran aims to have a network of militias in place inside Syria to protect its vital interests, regardless of what happens to Assad.14

The war in Syria persists with no decisive outcome on the horizon. Hizbullah’s battle losses are growing. Subhi Tufayli, the first head of Hizbullah who was dismissed from its leadership by Iran at the start of the 1990s, has been one of the prominent critics of Hizbullah’s involvement in Syria. Tufayli claimed that 138 Hizbullah fighters had been killed there along with scores of wounded who were brought to hospitals in Lebanon.15 Ceremonies for burial of the dead are frequently held clandestinely, sometimes at night, so as to avoid anger and resentment. These casualties, however, did not disappear from sight, and the families have raised harsh questions about such unnecessary sacrifice that is not in the sacred framework of jihad against Israel, which is Hizbullah’s raison d’être.

Tufayli, for his part, asserted that Hizbullah fighters who are killed in battle in Syria “are not martyrs” and “will go to hell.” Syria, he remarked, “is not Karbala” and the Hizbullah men in Syria “are not fighters of the Imam [Husayn]. The oppressed and innocent Syrian people is Karbala and the members of the Syrian people are the children of Husayn and Zaynab.” Tufayli went on to say that he “lauds the fathers and mothers who prevent their children from going to Syria and says to them that God’s blessing is with them.” Tufayli further pointed out that, legally speaking, no fatwa has been issued that permits Hizbullah’s participation in the war in Syria. He said he had appealed to the supreme religious authority – the sources of emulation (Maraji Taqlid) in Najaf and in Lebanon – not to issue such a fatwa.16

In the Lebanese Shiite community, Tufayli is not alone in leveling severe criticism at Hizbullah’s role as an arm of Iran in Syria. Voices within Hizbullah itself are increasingly casting doubt on the wisdom of involving the movement on Bashar Assad’s side. Others refuse to go and fight in Syria, and there have already been desertions from Hizbullah’s ranks. So far, though, it does not appear that all this is deterring Hizbullah from persisting. At the end of the day, Hizbullah is not a Lebanese national movement but a creation of Iran and subject to its exclusive authority. Nasrallah was summoned to Tehran so as to encourage him and order him to continue as a faithful and obedient soldier of Velayt-e Faqih (literally: the Rule of the Jurisprudent, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei).

It is likely that Tehran will make every effort to recruit additional Shiite elements from Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and even from Pakistan. For the Islamic Republic, this is a war of survival against a radical Sunni uprising that views Iran and the Shiites as infidels to be annihilated. This is the real war being waged today, and it is within Islam. From Iran’s standpoint, if the extreme Sunnis of the al-Qaeda persuasion are not defeated in Syria, they will assert themselves in Iraq and threaten to take over the Persian Gulf, posing a real danger to Iran’s regional hegemony. Khamenei does not intend to give in. Hizbullah’s readiness to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with Iran against the radical Sunnis could shatter the delicate internal order upon which the Lebanese state is based and bring about a Hizbullah take-over of Lebanon in its entirety.

- See more at: http://jcpa.org/article/irans-plans-to-take-over-syria/#sthash.yKTsDW0i.dpuf

Notes
1. On the picture and its significance, see Ali al-Amin, Al-Balad, April 23, 2013, http://www.alahednews.com.lb/essaydetails.php?eid=74383&cid=76.
2. “Chief of Iran’s Quds Force Claims Iraq, South Lebanon under His Control, Al Arabiya News, January 20, 2012, http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/20/189447.html.
3. A-Shiraa, March 15, 2013.
4. Nevvine Abdel Monem Mossad, “Implication of Iran Accepting Military Role in Syria, Lebanon,” The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, October 7, 2012.
5. Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, “Iran and Its Expansionist Tendencies,” Arab News, February 6, 2013, http://www.arabnews.com/iran-and-its-expansionist-tendencies; “US Embassy Cables: Omani Official Wary of Iranian Expansionism,” The Guardian, November 28, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/165127.
6. Ali-al-Amin, Al-Balad, February 17, 2013.
7. On the Shiization of Syria, see Khalid Sindawi, “The Shiite Turn in Syria,” Hudson Institute, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, vol. 8, 82-127, http://www.currenttrends.org/research/detail/the-shiite-turn-in-syria.
8. Ibid., 84.
9. Ibid., 89-90.
10. Martin Kramer, “The Shiite Crescent Eclipsed,” April 16, 2013, http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2013/04/the-shiite-crescent-is-broken.
11. Nadia von Maltzahn, “The Case of Iranian Cultural Diplomacy in Syria,” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 2 (2009): 33-50.
12. Rabbiah Jamal, “Iraq’s Kateeb Hezbollah announces involvement in Syria,” Now Lebanon, April 7, 2013.
13. See the excellent article by Hanin Ghadder, “Hezbollah sacrifices popularity for survival: In Syria, The Party of God is struggling for an un-divine victory,” Now Lebanon, April 10, 2013.
14. Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick, “Iran and Hezbollah Build Militia Networks in Syria in Event that Assad Falls, Officials Say,” The Washington Post, February 10, 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-10/world/37026054_1_syrian-government-forces-iran-and-hezbollah-president-bashar.
15. www.metransparent.com, April 25, 2013.
16. Subhi Tufayli, interview, Al Arabiya, February 26, 2013. - See more at: http://jcpa.org/article/irans-plans-to-take-over-syria/#sthash.yKTsDW0i.dpuf

The Future of Global Diplomacy

Here is my latest op-ed, "The Future of Global Diplomacy", published today by the Canadian International Council at the opening of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland. I discuss the Y8 and Y20 Summits which also open this week and next, which bring together the leading graduate and young professional minds from around the world, for a week-long series of negotiations amongst the global youth. Check it out below. - R.O.
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The Future of Global Diplomacy

Robert Onley | June 17, 2013

Reuters

The leaders of the G8 are convening in Northern Ireland for the 39th G8 Summit. The backdrop for this two-day meeting of the globe’s preeminent economic powers is a world facing multiple global crises, all of which demand that summit participants engage in constructive dialogue that leads to measurable progress. Despite that need, the annual G8 Summits are known more for eliciting empty political promises and saddling host cities with exorbitant costs.

In 2013, this geopolitical lip service simply will not cut it, as the world leaders of tomorrow are demanding results.

The baby boomer generation presidents and prime ministers at the G8 Summit are facing increasingly frustrated populations. With economic instability entrenching in the West, a still teetering world financial order, and escalating tensions in the Middle East, an entire generation of young people is growing up without opportunity, and with few prospects for change. But persistent unemployment, declining standards in health care and education, and environmental degradation are also driving growing numbers of young people to demand sophisticated and coordinated global action.

From this mess, two significant questions arise: are the boomer generation leaders simply incapable of consensus-driven international cooperation, one that sets aside national interests for the collective good of humanity? And if this is the case, are tomorrow’s Facebook generation leaders damned to inherit the quagmire of their political predecessors?

These are the serious, credible questions that today’s brightest 20-something leaders have asked themselves, and which they have actively set out to answer together through their own international diplomacy at the 2013 Y8 and Y20 Summits being held in London, UK (June 24-28) and St. Petersburg, Russia (June 18-20), respectively.

These are not mere “Model U.N.” simulations: the Y8 and Y20 Summits are the world’s premier youth assemblies, bringing together graduate students and young professionals from across the G20 for a week of intensive negotiations, dialogue, and bargaining. Whether or not any of the delegates at the Y8 and Y20 Summits end up in a prominent political office, these young minds have already created space for meaningful change, via the creation of a global network that has the potential to fundamentally reshape the dynamics of international diplomacy and global governance for decades to come.

Unlike their boomer political forebears, the leaders of the Facebook generation are “digital natives”, accustomed to instantaneous communication, and constant updates on the personal, political, and career decisions of their peers. Every day, they exploit social networks to grow and sustain an online community comprised of the most engaged and committed student leaders from across the G20. These new generation leaders are utilizing all available tools and innovations to exchange ideas, think critically and solve problems together, well before entering into positions of power. The Youth Summits are simply the annual physical manifestation of the dynamic online relationships among future leaders.

This year marks the 7th anniversary of the Youth (“Y”) Summits, which are formally sponsored by the presidents and prime ministers of the actual G8 and G20. The 2013 Y8 Summit in London has been organized by the UK-based International Diplomatic Engagement Association (The IDEA), a global network composed of ascending young leaders from all different cultural backgrounds. The 2013 Y20 Summit in Russia is the official G20 youth event, held under the Russian G20 Presidency alongside with G20 Leaders’ Summit.

Critically, young Canadian leaders have been a part of this global youth diplomatic network since its inception in 2006. The IDEA’s Canadian partner is YouthCan for International Dialogue (YFID), a federal non-profit, non-partisan, youth-led think tank responsible for recruiting and selecting Canada’s delegates at the Y8 and Y20. YFID seeks to engage Canadian young leaders in diplomacy and meaningful dialogue at an international level, through access to hands-on global initiatives and diplomacy. YFID targets Canadian undergraduate and graduate students, as well as young professionals from all disciplines, focusing on highly accomplished academic and intellectual leaders with experience in negotiation, debate, and advocacy.

Delegates are selected by YFID for portfolio positions that replicate their real-life national counterparts, be it the Prime Minister, or Ministers of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Environment and Health. In the months and weeks leading up to the Summits, delegates from around the globe utilize social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Docs, and Podio to debate and determine their agenda topics for the actual negotiations. The Y8 and Y20 Summits are unique in that delegates are given the freedom to approach global issues using any theory, opinion, or proposal available. The goal of the Youth Summits is not to mimic each nation’s standing policies, but rather to capture the spirit, ideas, and consensus of the globe’s next generation of leaders.

The catch is that all proposals must be achievable (no utopian idealism allowed), tangible (results-based), and more importantly, must be simultaneously agreed to by the rest of the Y8 or Y20 delegates. While skeptics may assume that the end result of these negotiations is series of far-flung “save-the-world” panaceas, past Youth Summits have shown that the negotiations produce hard-fought, comprehensive, genuine solutions to complex world problems.

The final byproduct of a week-long series of negotiations is the Final Communiqué, which is presented to the national president or prime Minister of the respective G8 and G20 (Read the 2011, 2012 communiqués). However, in many respects, more important than this policy paper is the creation of a lasting social and digital network of aspiring young leaders – one that grows in number and depth with each passing Youth Summit. Many youth delegates, like their real-life counter-parts, return year to year, cementing personal relationships with friends and national rivals alike. Empowering all of this, of course, are online social networks.

In recent years the world witnessed the power of these networks to organize protests, spread political messages, and even help topple governments and national leaders. Today, social media is often idolized as a force equalizer, empowering the “people” vis a vis their elected or non-elected “leaders”.

Less well understood is how online social networks may come to impact decision-making processes at the global level: will they change how individual leaders conceive of and approach problems, and the tools they choose to use to deploy? Social networks have yet to positively change how the boomer generation does business, however, as the Y8 and Y20 Summits demonstrate, the next generation of leadership will be composed of twenty-somethings who recognize the power of online relationships in navigating geopolitics, and collaborate in finding solutions to global crises.

Our current leaders are faltering, but there is no small measure of comfort to be found in the skills, determination, and connections among those who will follow them.

You can follow YFID during the Summits at: @YFIDCanada and Facebook.com/CanadaYFID

Obama recognises Syria opposition

Did Obama just implicitly declare war on Assad? - R.O.

Obama recognises Syria opposition
The US has formally recognised Syria's opposition rebel coalition as the "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people, says President Obama.
Speaking to ABC News in the US, Mr Obama said the coalition was now "inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough".

He described the move - already made by the UK and the EU - as "a big step".
Activists say some 40,000 people have died in more than 18 months of battle against President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Obama said the emerging coalition had earned the right to represent the Syrian people, but issued a note of caution as well.

"Obviously, with that recognition comes responsibilities," Mr Obama said.
"To make sure that they organise themselves effectively, that they are representative of all the parties, [and] that they commit themselves to a political transition that respects women's rights and minority rights."

Recognition does not mean the US will begin arming rebel groups, but officials told ABC that might be approved if it was thought to help achieve a political solution in Syria.

The Syrian conflict is the bloodiest and most bitterly fought of the Middle East and north African revolts that have become known as the Arab Spring.
The uprisings began two years ago with a revolt in Tunisia, and saw long-serving leaders in Egypt and Libya toppled from power.
BBC © 2012