Iran to tread warily despite victories, say experts
The Weekend Australian/December 23/16
Iran has scored a string of victories across the Middle East, and decades of isolation mean it is well-placed to weather the uncertainties of a Trump presidency.
But fears that it could dominate the region are overblown, experts say. Having rarely commented on its role in the Syrian conflict, Tehran has been suddenly full of self-congratulation at the imminent defeat of rebel forces in Aleppo.
“The liberation of Aleppo … reinforces the political strength of Islamic Republic of Iran. The new US president must accept the reality that Iran is the leading power in the region,” Yahya Safavi, top foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said last week.
The dominoes appear to have fallen in Iranian President Hasan Rowhani’s favour in recent weeks. His government’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is paying off, and Iran’s mortal enemy, Islamic State, could soon be ousted from Mosul in Iraq.
In Lebanon, the protracted debate over who should be president ended in success for former general Michel Aoun, who is allied to the Iran-backed Shia movement Hezbollah.
Iran has also seen billions of dollars in assets and oil sales unfrozen by last year’s nuclear deal with world powers, and its allies in Yemen, the Shia Huthi rebels, have held on despite a year of crippling bombardment by a Saudi-led coalition.
And then there’s the imminent arrival of Donald Trump.
The US president-elect has surrounded himself with fiercely anti-Iran advisers, but has also criticised Iran’s main regional rival, Saudi Arabia, for its reliance on US support and spreading fundamentalist Islam.
After decades of isolation, Iran might be the best-placed to deal with the uncertainty
of Mr Trump, said Adnan Tabatabai, Iran analyst and CEO of Germany-based think tank CARPO. “For Iran, it’s much easier not to rely on the US because they haven’t been doing that for the past three decades, whereas it’s a major change for Saudi Arabia and other regional rivals of Iran to stop counting on the US.”
The Saudis have been facing a host of setbacks. Their economy has been battered by low oil prices, the rebels they support in Syria are on the run, and their Western allies are disturbed by the Yemen bombing campaign.
But fears that Iran could dominate the Middle East are unfounded, analysts say.
“A lot of Iran’s successes in the region are really to do with the failures of others. We shouldn’t overestimate its capacities,” Mr Tabatabai said.
Foad Izadi, a conservative professor of world politics at Tehran University, said support for Assad’s bloody offensive was a necessary evil, and ultimately defensive in nature.
“If Syria falls, you’ll either get a pro-Israeli government there, or you get the Islamic State, or you get Libya. Those are not good options for us,” he said.
“If Syria breaks up, then Iraq breaks up, and that’s right next door. This isn’t about dominating the region — it’s about preventing permanent war.”
Iran also faces limits to expanding its power. “Iran is a Shia power in a Sunni-majority region,” said Aram Nerguizian of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Neither side wants all-out war. At some point they have to accept some degree of influence for the other side.”
Mr Nerguizian said the Saudis still had major advantages, not least the billions of dollars in military hardware purchased from Western allies. “Folks have been projecting the collapse of the House of Saud for 60 years and it hasn’t happened,” he said. “For all their instability, the Gulf countries are far more integrated into the global economy than Iran and still have the support of key Western allies.”AFP
