Tehran has marched out strongly in support of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria. But the opposition there has only grown larger as Assad has grown tougher. More bloodshed has not cowed the Syrian opposition, only made it even angrier.
If Assad survives, it will be a huge feather in the Islamic Republic’s cap, since Assad has no public support now from any government other than Iran’s.
But if Assad falls and a new government comes to power, that new government is likely to be assertively anti-Iran for just that very reason. The best Iran can reasonably hope for in a post-Assad world is that Syria ignores the Islamic Republic.
Even that would be a huge defeat for Iran, which has no ally in the Islamic world now apart from Assad. Furthermore, and perhaps more crucially, Syria is Iran’s access to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The loss of that access would make it much harder—if not impossible—for Iran to continue arming Hezbollah and building it up as a challenge to Israel.
There are signs from Tehran that some figures in the regime are concerned the authorities have gone too far and too publicly with Iran’s backing for Assad. The website IranianDip-lomacy has been running articles questioning Iran’s policy and complaining that Iran is too close to a regime that is using excessive force that Iran should not be defending. The website is run by former diplomats who lean to the reformist side of the political system but who have not cut their ties to the current establishment.
It is also quite logical that many professionals in the Foreign Ministry would question the policy of unadulterated support for Assad and may be speaking out inside the regime.
The entire Arab spring may be a net loss for the Islamic Republic.
The government says it opposes Moammar Qadhdhafi’s rule in Libya. But most of its public rhetoric has been an attack on NATO for providing air support for the rebels. That air support was requested by the rebels and is backed by most people in the Arab world. If Qadhdhafi falls, few in Libya are likely to thank Iran for its opposition to NATO help. The rebels have been advancing in recent weeks. They are moving slowly, but the trend is against Qadhdhafi.
In the Persian Gulf, Iran has been most vocal in supporting the Bahraini Shias, who form about two-thirds of the population of Bahrain and have long been repressed by the ruling Sunnis. The Sunnis are clearly in control today. But many analysts think the outcome on Bahrain, whichever way it goes, will be bad for Iran.
If things stay as they are, Iran has burned its bridges with the Arab countries around the Persian Gulf. They now see Iran as a clear threat, and they see their Shias as subversive, and they view the United States as more important in confronting Iran.
If Bahrain falls to Shia control, Iran will likely have an ally in the Persian Gulf. But its ally will be the smallest Arab state, and the rest of the Arab world will more likely rise in unison against the Islamic Republic, which will be viewed as even more threatening than now. The United States would lose its naval base on Bahrain—of which many in Iran write with glee—but a dozen alternative options would likely be offered by nervous Arab governments.
Writers in Iran are filling commentaries with visions of a new Iran-Egypt alliance, which some seem to think could replace the Iran-Syria alliance. This is based on the assumption that the new Egyptian government wants an alliance, as shown by its proclaimed desire to open full diplomatic relations with Iran. But Egyptian diplomats have made very clear to Arabs around the Persian Gulf that they are not seeking an alliance, just a normal diplomatic relationship with Iran. They have said repeatedly that they are not proposing to do anything to harm the interests of the Persian Gulf Arabs.
Egyptian diplomats have indicated that their overriding goal is to re-establish Egypt as the leader of the Arab world. To do that, they need to be able to talk to all countries of the region. The purpose of establishing normal diplomatic relations with Iran is so that Egypt can take Arab gripes directly to Tehran and stand up for Arab causes there, hardly a boon for the Islamic Republic.
Tehran has been expending much of its rhetoric in recent days assailing an American plot to invade Syria in order to topple Assad. Indeed, its appears to some analysts that the Islamic Republic hopes the Americans do just that, thereby causing an explosion of anti-Americanism that would likely be to Iran’s benefit.
But contrary to Iran’s rhetoric, there is no sign of any American plan to send troops into Syria. The US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, recently told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that wherever he goes in Syria he asks people what they want the United States and the outside world to do. “They were very clear, Christiane. They did not want American military intervention. I want to underline that. They did not want American military intervention.” Syria, he said, was “very different” from Libya, where the rebels have sought outside intervention.
Wherever one looks out from Tehran—whether to Syria, Bahrain, Libya or Egypt—the prospects do not look good today. The prospects could change, of course, as politics in the Arab world are very fluid. The elections in Egypt could produce a government friendly to Tehran. Assad could survive and be heavily indebted to Iran. Such things could happen. But that isn’t where the betting money is going today.