
The Syrian revolution has yet another casualty: long-warm relations between Iran and Hamas have frozen over the latter’s renunciation of Bashar al-Assad. It began a year ago or so when Khaled Meshal was faced with a momentous decision about whether to remain true to his long-time ally or throw in his lot with the largely Sunni opposition (and tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees resident in Syria). Hamas’ leader had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the violent response to the peaceful opposition and felt Hamas could not side with a tyrant. Though he eventually renounced Assad , he did so quietly. Subsequently, most of Hamas’ personnel left their long-term refuge in Damascus, eventually finding a new home in Qatar.
This hadn’t sat well with some in Hamas’ leadership and for a time it appeared that Meshal’s star had waned. But internally, the split was resolved, the leader retained his job and the Sunni Islamist group never turned back from its decision to back away from Assad.
But in the past weeks, both Iran and Hezbollah have gone in exactly the opposite direction. They’ve gone ‘all-in’ for Assad. If this were poker, we’d say they’d bet the house on him. Hezbollah has committed thousands of its fighters to bolster Assad’s rule. They’re currently fighting an all-out battle for the strategic border town of Qusayr. With the rebels announcing that 1,000 new reinforcements have arrived to bolster defense of the town, it appears to be a fight to the end. Hezbollah losses appear to have been serious, with scores of funerals reported in the movement’s Lebanese Bekaa stronghold. The Shiite Islamist group has sent up to 4,000 fighters to Aleppo where they will try to retake the country’s second largest city for Assad.
It’s a curious position for Iran, normally known for its cold, calculation when important issues are at stake. I’d have thought it would be far more advisable for them to pressure Assad into negotiation and compromise with the opposition or, barring that, finding a group among the opposition that could be its proxy. That would ensure it might retain some level of access in a future Syria and guarantee arms transshipment for its Hezbollah ally. Instead, they appear to be playing a losing hand. But no matter how bad the hand, you have to play the cards you’re dealt.
In the poker game that is the Middle East, desperate nations make for dangerous enemies. Not because they may necessarily defeat you. But because you can’t account for how they’ll act. Any small mistake or miscalculation could blow this tinder box apart and start a conflagration. Those who remember Israel’s disastrous Carmel fire of several years ago, might liken it to what could happen in the region as a whole.
Now, Iran has made another momentous decision. It is forcing Hamas to pay the price for abandoning Assad. The $250-million yearly subsidy it offered the Gaza Islamist movement has dried up. Shipments of arms have stopped.
This means that the Syrian crisis has caused a massive realignment. Former allies are now enemies. Those who formerly found little interest in common have been thrown together for better or worse. This too has caused a new instability in the region. When your world is turned upside down and you aren’t sure where to turn, that’s when you are your most vulnerable and there is great danger.
Hamas leaders say they have other allies who will take up the slack. Qatar has stepped forward with a promise of $400-million in aid and a plan to create a $1-billion development fund composed of contributions from other Arab states. It’s not clear where Egypt stands in all this. The Muslim Brotherhood has always been an ally. But the tenuous political situation in Egypt now, along with Al-Qaeda terror cells operating in Sinai and killing army and police personnel, have raised questions about the relationship between the two former allies.
But we have to assume that Hamas, an ever-resourceful movement in even its darkest moments, will find substitutes for Iran. Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan is scheduled to visit Gaza for the first time in two weeks. Though in the past two days he has developed political headaches of his own that might change his plans. But Turkey could become an important strategic ally of Hamas, just as that nation’s relations with Israel further worsen. It could more than take up the slack from the loss of Iran and Syria.
There is one party that, though it faces uncertainties, is delighted with Syria’s bloodbath: Israel. When its enemies are disheartened, it sits pretty. A weak, divided Syria, though posing a danger from a potential political vacuum, means there is no powerful champion for Syrian territorial claims in the Golan. No champion for Hezbollah. No arms corridor for Iran. A pretty good deal for Israel.
Unless of course, the victor in Syria is an Islamist extremist group like the al Nusra Front. It would mean a Shiite threat in Lebanon in the form of Hezbollah and a Sunni threat in Syria in the form of Al Qaeda. Add to that Hamas in Gaza and you have almost a perfect storm of Arab resistance. And unpredictable Arab resistance at that. At least with dictators like Mubarak and Assad you had an enemy you knew. Someone, in Margaret Thatcher’s inimitable phrase describing Gorbachev,” with whom we can do business.” But after the dictators fall, what follows, le deluge?
I thought Israel (along with Saudi, Qatari and Turkish interests) was always a driver in this reconfiguration of the region into smaller, even more balkanised units for easier micro-management of the global oil-sump…what will emerge when the colluders colloid in the aftermath (post the Iranian disposal sale)seems the question. Interesting times, as they say in China.
Hamas are just doing the Machiavellian transfer..like all good political rats do when the fresh saltwater hits the bilges. Sponsorship flotsam is sure to emerge from the contentions…Tel Aviv itself will sweeten their distress if necessary(loose cannons must be lashed, and leashed, tight) it will not be their first meeting….no better rat-runners.
Or do I misread?
I agree with your analysis, and it is very similar to what most major Israeli analysts say.
In your last paragraph, you could have quoted the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the days of the Iran-Iraq war: “We wish the best of luck to both sides.”
I’m sure after they saw Hamas cosying up to their Muslim Brotherhood benefactors, they assumed it was only a matter of time until they’d turn against Iran for the right price.
Israel’s hubris prevents it from understanding how its actions will inevitably backfire on them. Their strikes on Syria have led to Russia supplying Syria with S-300’s and Yakhonts missiles. It refuses to believe that Assad will never fall without NATO & Israel putting troops into Syria. It fails to take lessons of what happened in 2006 when the Shia shrine in Samarra was attacked. In the eyes of many Shi’ites, Hamas, Qatar, Israel and others who support the rebels that desecrated the Shia shirne in Damascus are all guilty by association. Now its hands are even more tied than before, should Israel or NATO put troops into Syria.
@Pat:
the Yakhont missiles deal was signed between Syrian and Russia before the Syrian civil-war (couldn’t find a better name for it) began.
S-300 missiles were not delivered yet, and from what I’ve read, these are older models of the system which have been in use by the Russian army and are being replaced with newer S-400 systems. In other words, these are not the wonder-weapons which will totally change the balance of power.
As for putting Israeli boots in Syria – not gonna happen. And it doesn’t seems that NATO is keen to support the Jihadists either.
You mention Turkey possibly becoming a more strategic ally of Hamas. Do you think recent events in that country make that more likely or less so?
In some sense, the Islamic Republic seems to be following a trajectory in its regional relations that is similar to the one it’s followed internally in the past few years. The dominant Khamenei-IRGC faction has pushed aside first the reformist camp in the establishment, whom they refer to as “seditionists,” and then the once-darling Ahmadinejad faction, whom they refer to as “deviants.” They see the survival of their regime in neutralizing these different tendencies that were once w/in the establishment and which, in all likelihood, garner more popular sympathy than the dominant faction, rather than accommodating them. Similarly, they feel so invested in the cause of Assad that they’re willing to compromise key alliances in the region. One of the hardliners close to Khamenei recently declared that Syria is Iran’s “35th province” (I guess sort of like Israel is US’s 51st state) and that “defense” of Syria was even more important than defending Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province (which was invaded by Iraq):
http://iranmediaresearch.org/en/blog/227/13/03/08/1288
A certain (more-than-usual) extremist and hardline attitude seems to have taken hold of the ever-narrowing Iranian leadership. But they have to watch internal dissent on this issue. Even though the gov’t seems to consider it crucial, the cause of propping up Assad doesn’t nearly enjoy such popularity in Iran. There are no public opinion polls on that issue, but from various statements that some figures in Iran sometimes dare to make and from slogans in recent street protests, most of the indication is that Assad is not a popular cause in Iran. At 0:45 of this clip, which is from a 10/2012 protest due to the worsening economy, the large crowd is clapping & chanting, “Let go of Syria and pay attention to us!”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2012/10/121003_l42_vid_iran_demo_bazaar.shtml
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