Iran and Syria, strategic allies

Tehran Times:

(Opinion)

Aug 6, 2005

By Hassan Hanizadeh

Syrian President Bashar Assad is scheduled to arrive in Tehran today for an official visit to Iran in order to hold discussions on Tehran-Damascus bilateral cooperation in all political, economic, and cultural spheres.

Due to their common anti-Zionist stance and their resistance to Zionist expansionism in the region, both Syria and Iran have been targets of U.S. propaganda campaigns for the past 25 years.

Syria, which is located in the heart of the Middle East, has always played a significant role in regional political developments since the late Hafez Assad assumed the presidency in 1970.

Syria’s active role in the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has given it great influence in regional and international decision-making processes.

During his 30-year presidency, Hafez Assad, who was known in the Arab world for his pragmatic and realistic character, tried to convince regional Arab countries to change their attitude toward the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A great number of regional Arab countries adopted a hostile attitude toward Iran after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but Assad always described the Islamic Republic as a strategic ally of the Arab world.

Despite the fact that Baghdad and Damascus had factional and political similarities, the former Syrian president expressed his disapproval of Saddam Hussein’s attack on Iran during the eight years of the Iraqi imposed war and cut off Syria’s diplomatic relations with Iraq.

In the other key regional issue, Hafez Assad always advised Arab countries to never hold bilateral negotiations with Israel, because he believed that Arab countries could defend their position more forcefully if they held collective negotiations with the Zionist regime.

Unfortunately, when Arab countries and the Zionist regime met at the Madrid Conference in 1991, some Arab countries held bilateral negotiations with the Israelis, which led to the conclusion of the Oslo Accord between the Zionist regime and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which resulted in the violation of the Palestinians’ rights.

After the death of Hafez Assad in the year 2000, his son Bashar Assad followed the principled policies of his father and thus was able to maintain Syria’s position in the region.

When the United States and other Western countries noticed Bashar Assad’s opposition to the Zionist regime, they tried to politically isolate Syria by making false accusations against the country.

UN Resolution 1559, which called for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanese territory, was ratified under pressure from the United States and the European Union.

The main aim of the resolution was to weaken the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut alliance of resistance in order to pave the way for the reoccupation of the region by the Zionist regime.

However, the daily increasing pressure not only failed to weaken the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut alliance of resistance but also strengthened the unity of these three countries.

The Syrian president’s visit to Tehran will definitely have a significant impact in both the political and economic arenas for Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, since, in light of the current situation in the region and the world, these three countries are natural allies. The Iraq issue as well as the Zionist threats against the region and Lebanon will definitely be on the top of the agenda in the negotiations between Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his Syrian counterpart, so the two countries should use this issue as a key point of consensus to promote regional cooperation in efforts to help stabilize Iraq.