Is Iran behind US and Russia’s rationales in Syria?
As the political process of change known as the Arab Spring began in the Middle East, a global expectation emerged for the democratization of the countries that had been so far ruled by dictators. Especially in the Arab countries themselves, such expectation rang loud and clear. However, the decline of the Arab Spring in Egypt and elsewhere, which concluded with the emergence of new dictatorships and the pseudo-democratic political attitudes of Western powers, confused the minds of pro-democratic international communities. In this respect, the Arab Spring became a decisive test for democracy for the Western world. Since the beginning of the history of modern colonialism, the pioneer colonialist states were supposed to back, for the first time, the democratic forces challenging their former dictator allies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the intellectuals within the democratic forces of the Islamic world have been separated into two main groups – the optimists that read the political motives and interests of Western powers in line with the Arab Spring and the pessimists that question the credibility of Western support for the rising democratic forces in the Arab world.The Syrian civil war began while the Islamic world was striving to understand the spirit of the Arab Spring. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) emerged from the congregation of various oppositional forces, including both moderates and hawks, against the Bashar Assad regime in Syria. It is simply impossible to oppose a long-lived dictatorship in a country solely by democratic means, and thus, the use of violence could turn out to be an imperative to overthrow the dictator. Moreover, the Syrian civil war and the struggle for freedom has never been an internal issue of the country, as the struggle has been under the deep influence of not only the Muslim Brotherhood but also the notorious al-Qaida that has gained invaluable experiences in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore, the Syrian opposition, which is constituted by a wide range of political groups and organizations determined by internal and external influences, could not easily act as a full-fledged state organization.Just like in Egypt, when the U.S. had to choose between the democratic forces representing a vast majority of the public and the ruling dictator as its ally in the Syrian civil war, the main anxiety of the Western forces was the possibility of the radical Islamists' grasping of power after the prospective fall of the Assad regime.The Iranian state has interpreted the Syrian civil war as a threat directly targeting its own regional security and thus equated the continuation of the Assad regime with its own safety by speculating about an upcoming international military intervention into Iran after the fall of the Syrian dictatorship. While Iran's stance on the Syrian civil war is in favor of the continuation of the Assad regime, Ankara's position has been the urgent necessity of its overthrow, and then its replacement with a democratic government. Since both of these states have been well aware of the significance of the Western position for the determination of the final outcome of the ongoing civil war, the orientation and management of Western political rationales has become one of the most crucial strategic dimensions of the given crisis. In this respect, Western anxiety about radical Islamists forces coming to power after the prospective fall of Assad was, in essence, an Iranian idea that was infused by the Iranian state first to its major ally Russia and then to the Western forces concerned more with the threat of global terrorism and their regional interests than the ongoing struggles for democratization. Adopting the aforementioned idea, Western forces have, therefore, fallen into a vicious circle. While they were constantly hesitating to support the FSA, the political influence of their rivals (Iran and Russia) has increased in the process.
Last Update: October 03, 2014 09:36