The Associated Press said Egypt’s initiative is part of the country’s effort to revitalize its lost diplomatic power now that President Hosni Mubarak has been ousted, and aims to offer Iran incentives to end an increasingly bloody civil war that has taken more than 23,000 lives.
The Islamic Republic attacked the Associated Press report of the Egyptian offer. But Tehran waited a full week before doing so, suggesting the report was not so much untrue as embarrassing for the Islamic Republic.
Egyptian President Muham-mad Morsi’s government has put together the “Islamic Quartet”—comprised of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran—to try to find an end to the Syrian crisis. The AP said Morsi is offering three deal sweeteners to convince Iran to give up its hitherto unconditional support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
First, Egypt will restore full diplomatic ties with Iran, which will ease the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic isolation in the wake of sanctions and Canada’s recent decision to sever all ties. Egypt will also mediate a dialogue to improve relations between Iran and the Arab nations of the Persian Gulf that have long viewed the Persian Shiite state with suspicion. Also on the table is a “safe exit” plan for al-Assad should he relinquish power.
The AP filed its report on the offer last Tuesday from Cairo. But Iran was silent on the report until this Tuesday, an unusually long time to remain silent in the face of a falsehood. Egypt has not denied the AP report.
Furthermore, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast did not directly deny the accuracy of the AP report; instead he attacked the AP without actually denying its story. He said: “That a US news agency tries to downplay the presence of world leaders, including Mohammad Morsi, in Tehran [at the Non-Aligned Movement summit last month], marginalize it, and raise irrelevant issues indicates the concerns, anger and reactionary behavior of the Western states and their affiliated media.”
The fact that Mehman-Parast did not actually deny the AP report gave more credibility to it.
Officials tracking Egypt’s diplomatic endeavors said Morsi believes the conflict in Syria is moving toward a stalemate, with neither side able to muster enough strength for a decisive victory; as a result, the conflict will get bloodier than it has been since it began in March 2011.
Iranian diplomats met with their counterparts from the Quartet last Monday and Egypt announced that the four countries’ foreign ministers would meet this week. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi flew to Cairo for the meeting with his Turkish and Egyptian counterparts. However, the Saudis sent no one. An announcement said Foreign Minister Prince Saud was ill. But he has missed other meetings in recent months due to illness, and Riyadh has dispatched his deputy to sub for him. This time, the Saudis sent no one.
Iran’s participation in the talks suggests Iran is beginning to review its unflinching support for Assad.
But there were also clear indications that powerful forces in Tehran do not want any change in Iran’s support for Assad. As Salehi was talking in Cairo, Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari, the commander of the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards), was acknowledging for the first time that the Pasdaran have men stationed in Syria helping the Syrian regime.
Jafari’s comments at a news conference Monday simply confirmed part of what US officials have been telling reporters for a full year about the Iranian role in Syria.
Many Western news accounts made it appear that Jafari said Iran had combat troops in Syria, but he actually denied that. He said Iran was helping Syria with advice and funds, but was not engaged in actual combat.
US officials have said that Iran has been aiding Syria by supplying arms and by providing technical advice on ways to counter the uprising, including help on how to tap into cellphone and email communications to find organizers of the uprising.
Jafari said, “A number of members of the Qods Force are present in Syria but this does not constitute a military presence.” He said the Qods Force officers were providing “intellectual and advisory help.” He said nothing about arms aid.
Brig. Gen. Hossain Ham-edani, an experienced Qods Force commander, is reportedly one of those in Syria. He led the 2009 crackdown on the Green Movement protesters in Tehran. “Hamedani is an expert in how to fuse the operations of regular forces with militias. This is how he succeeded in Tehran,” a US official tracking Syria’s conflict told The Wall Street Journal.
Jafari said a 50,000-strong volunteer plainclothes militia had been trained in Syria with Iranian help. The Jaysh Shaabi, as it is called, is seemingly modeled after Iran’s Basij.
“It is an honor for the Islamic Republic of Iran to share its experience and provide any kind of consultation to help defend Syria,” Jafari said.
Jafari said nothing about providing armaments for Syria. US officials have long accused Iran of sending military aid to prop up the Syrian regime. A New York Times article two weeks ago said planes from Iran use Iraqi airspace to deliver military supplies to Syria.
The Times said flights were stopped before an Arab League meeting a few months ago when the US pressured Iraq. But after a bomb killed several high-profile Syrian officials in July, Iran resumed the flights, which haven’t stopped despite high-level US pressure on Iraq.
“Iraqis are juggling under pressure from both sides. They tell the Americans the same thing, ‘We can’t do this because of the Iranians,’” Joost Hilter-mann, Mideast and North Africa deputy program director for the International Crisis Group, told the Christian Science Monitor.
“Neither side [Iran or the US] is in control. The Iraqis are not in control either; they are weak and under pressure. But they can play out one against the other,… which they’ve been doing all along,” he said.
The timing of Jafari’s acknowledgement of aid for Assad suggested that Jafari wanted to nail down the close relationship with Assad and undercut any effort by Salehi to limit Iranian support for the Syrian government.
Asked if Iran would consider giving direct military aid to Syria, Jafari gave a vague warning: “I say specifically that if Syria came under military attack, Iran would also give military support, but it … totally depends on the circumstances,” he said.
