The Syrian War and Iran’s Axis of Resistance

By assembling an axis of resistance (Jabhat al-muqawama) against Israel and the West, the Islamic Republic of Iran, since its formation in 1979, has sought to create an alternative discourse of revolutionary Islam and counter-hegemonic geopolitics. Post-revolution, the  Iranian state in order to deal with isolation from its Persian Gulf neighbours, who all supported  Saddam Hussein during  the eight years long ‘imposed’ war and the American policy of regime change sought to cultivate and expand its independent sphere of influence, within a counter-hegemonic or Islamic revolutionary discourse, which emphasises independence in foreign policy matters, rejects external military presence and interventions in the region and supports the popular Islamic movements, especially those concerned with the Palestinian issue.

While the Middle Eastern countries hostile to Iran are under the security umbrella of NATO or the United States, Iran has survived in a hostile region by forging a frontline against Israel, which works as a deterrent against possible military intervention by United States, which has had a militarily presence in the Persian Gulf since the first Gulf War in 1991. However, it is the state of Israel, as the ‘Zionist occupier’ of Palestinian nation and Jerusalem, against which spiritualised politics of resistance has found its raison de’tre. The strategic significance of this frontline for Iran is underlined by the fact that despite political dispute with Hamas over the latter’s support for Syrian uprising; Iran continued to support Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas.

Iran’s drive of expanding its axis of resistance in the region has a defensive strategic rationale and improves its negotiating position vis-à-vis the West. Gareth Porter remarked in the wake of Iran’s prolonged nuclear crisis that Iran’s influence in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and even its stockpile of enriched uranium are valued bargaining chips in the ultimate negotiations or grand bargain with United States.

In the initial days of uprising against Bashar al-Assad, Iran which had rhetorically supported Arab uprisings as ‘Islamic awakening’ legitimised its support for Syrian regime by arguing that it was preventing from faltering an ‘important front of resistance against Zionist regime.’ Iran echoed Syrian government’s narrative that revolt was a Western subversive plot against the Syrian state and the resistance axis. By seeking to topple Syrian regime, which had provided conduit for Iranian military assistance to Hezbollah and Hamas, allowing Iran an important stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the West was seeking to advance its hegemony in the region by taking out an important Arab ally of Iran.

However, with the emergence of ISIS, the legitimising discourse of Iranian support for Assad regime shifted from the Islamic revolutionary discourse wherein Iran has the responsibility of supporting those who confront oppressive powers to one primarily focused on helping a sovereign state defend itself from terrorists, a strategy which also squared with Iran’s efforts to normalise its relations with the Western world. By equating its support for Bashar al-Assad with clash against Takfiri terrorists, Iran projected resistance axis as a bulwark against Sunni extremism and flag-bearer of anti-terrorism while denouncing Saudi Arabia and allies for arming and financing foreign jihadi elements of Syrian opposition and for their murderous war in Yemen. The military involvement of Hezbollah and Iran in Syria and Hamas’s support for Syrian revolt and departure of its leadership from Syria to Qatar prompted Iran’s detractors to argue that it was leading a Shiite alliance in the region involving Hezbollah, Syrian regime, Iraqi government and Houthi militia in Yemen. Hezbollah countered the allegations of sectarian solidarity by arguing that it was fighting an Israeli proxy in Syria and containing the threat of ISIS. Nasrallah raised the slogan that “the Road to Jerusalem Passes through Jounieh,” emphasizing the geopolitical significance of a friendly regime in Syria for resistance against Israel. The IRGC, which has led Iran’s military role in Syria, projects itself as an anti-terror security force fighting Daesh/ISIS, and defender of the nation and faith. Similarly, partnership with Russia has been cast in terms of anti-terror cooperation. By partnering with Russia and advocating that national unity and territorial integrity be maintained in Syria, Iraq as well as in Yemen, Iran sought to project itself as a force for stability and legitimise its leadership claim by advocating multilateralist approach to security and crisis resolution. But as Hezbollah, Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq and Syrian Arab Army are congratulating themselves as the force that defeated the ISIS and are poised to translate their prestige and influence in political gains, Iran’s regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel are united in overplaying the Iranian threat in terms of a ‘land-corridor’ from Tehran to Beirut via Iraqi and Syrian territory controlled by Iran-backed militias. The land-corridor, they argue could be used for military and trade purposes. To compound their worries, Hamas, under the new leadership of Ishmael Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar is once again returning to the Iranian fold, as the group needs Iran’s military assistance at a time when Palestine is on the verge of another intifada.

However, to the extent post-Arab Uprising regional order is being shaped around shared concerns of maintaining territorial integrity and stability in the face of armed Sunni insurgents or secessionist ethnicities such as Kurds, Iran is gaining traction with former detractors such as Turkey and Egypt.

With the Trump administration doubling down on the policy of pushing back again Iranian influence from Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean by empowering an aggressive Saudi Arabia under Muhammad Bin Salman and putting sanctions on IRGC, Hamas and Hezbollah, and mounting domestic opposition to squandering of Iranian blood and treasure in foreign lands of Syria and Lebanon, as underlined by the return of the Green Movement slogan “Na Gaza, naLebnaan, Jaanamfedaaye Iran” (Neither Gaza, nor Lebanon, will sacrifice my life for Iran) in recent protests, Iranian leadership faces a serious conundrum. In light of an emerging anti-Iranian alliance of America, Saudi Arabia and Israel, Iran has to legitimise the strategic rationale of supporting the resistance axis to the restive Iranian youth who do not relate to revolutionary idealism of resistance and sacrifice at the expense of their own material concerns.

Deepika Saraswat

18.02.18