Iran Is Part of the Problem in Syria, Not Part of the Solution
Terror Is Terror Is Terror
Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall,
Publication: Jerusalem Issue Briefs
Vol. 15, No. 36 November 23, 2015
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
http://jcpa.org/article/terror-is-terror-is-terror/

Iranian cartoon
“Islamic State Boomerang.” Iranian cartoon suggesting that ISIS was a
Western tool used by French President Hollande that came back to attack
France.1 (Tasnim News)

-Iran keeps promoting its long-term strategic policy in Syria; it views the
country as an integral component of its national security.
-Russia, which has moved urgently to help Assad’s regime survive, has paid a
heavy price with the downing of a Russian passenger plane by the Islamic
State.
-Iran is encouraged by several key regional and international developments,
including Russia’s involvement in Syria, the beginning of the JCPOA nuclear
agreement’s implementation, the first breaches in the sanctions, and by
being cast as a regional actor that can help settle the region’s problems.
-Iran is exploiting the West’s weakness, especially the United States’
fecklessness and lack of a clear policy on the Middle East’s future in
general and on Assad’s in particular.
-If terror is to be fought and soundly defeated, the struggle must be waged
against all the terror organizations and the states that support them. Iran
has already headed the list of terror-supporting states for years. It is now
awarded the status of a partner in trying to settle the Syrian crisis.
-The United States and the West continue to take an approach to terror that
is unfocused, selective, and indulgent. They are no longer prepared to pay
the price that is entailed in a resolute, hands-on struggle against terror.



Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was scheduled to make an official visit to
France on November 14, 2015. Then, a short time before his arrival, terror
struck Paris, and the Iranian foreign minister hastened to announce the
visit’s postponement. In a letter of condolences to his French counterpart,
the Iranian president said:


I, on behalf of the great Iranian nation which has been a victim of scourge
of terrorism [sic], strongly condemn the anti-human crimes…the most
important message following these kinds of incidents is more serious resolve
and determination in all-out combat against terrorist groups.2

Iran Exploits the West’s Weakness and Vulnerability

The terror attack in France has again concentrated the minds of the Western
states on the crisis in Syria, from which at least some of the attackers
came, some of whom disguised as refugees. The Syrian crisis is beginning to
radiate outward and directly affect the character and security of Europe.
The fighting in Syria, in which global-jihad elements are involved (mainly
the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, which are waging both battles on the ground
and battles of prestige over who is the global jihad’s standard-bearer), is
also affecting the moderate Arab states. These states have not yet
disintegrated as an outcome of the Arab Spring – particularly Tunisia and
Egypt, which constitute a secondary arena for Al-Qaeda and Islamic State
activity.

The attack in Paris occurred between rounds of the Vienna talks on a
solution to the Syrian crisis. The 17 countries participating in these talks
include the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. It
appears that Oman, which has been a key facilitator of the U.S.-Iranian
talks on the nuclear issue, is also playing a central role in the Syrian
talks, particularly regarding the attempts to bridge the profound gap
between Iran, which supports the “legitimate” regime of Bashar Assad, and
Saudi Arabia, which backs some of the rebel organizations.3

The first round of talks was held on October 30, 2015, the second on
November 14. It is mainly Russia that is setting the tone, and its proposal
for a solution involving elections that would leave Assad in the picture is
the topic under discussion.

Cartoon in the Iranian Fars News, affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard
Corps; on the box is written “Elections in Syria,” and on the bear…“Russia.”
The caption says: “Russia’s proposal: early elections in Syria.”

The West, beset by waves of refugees and terror and in growing distress, has
paradoxically adopted the line of Syria and its patron Iran. The two say
that the Assad regime is grappling with the terror problem and that finding
a solution and combatting the terrorists require solving the Syrian crisis.
Iran has, indeed, been pushing the public-diplomacy line that Assad is
struggling with a wave of terror supported by the West and the Gulf States
headed by Saudi Arabia. Keyhan, Iran’s conservative newspaper which usually
reflects the leader’s policy, ran this headline following the Paris attack:
“The IS rabid dog bit his master’s the leg.”4 At the reconciliation
conference in Vienna, the Iranian and Saudi representatives exchanged harsh
words.

Meanwhile Iran keeps promoting its long-term strategic policy in Syria; it
views the country as an integral component of its national security. Ali
Akbar Velayati, the Supreme Leader’s adviser on international affairs and
former foreign minister, declared in a recent interview to the Lebanese
daily al Safir that Iran will never abandon Bashar, Hizballah and the
Palestinian organizations (Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad), adding that
Bashar position is stronger than ever. Velayati said that “no one supported
Assad to the extent Iran did…without its support Syria’s fate would be worse
than Libya’s.”5

Assad’s travails since the crisis erupted during the “Arab Spring” have not
led Iran to abandon him but, on the contrary, to deepen its involvement in
the Syrian arena and indeed to get Hizbullah involved as well. Meanwhile
the death toll of senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders
and of Hizbullah fighters keeps rising. The November 12, 2015 terror attack
on Hizbullah’s stronghold in Beirut is also part of the price the
organization is paying for its ongoing activity in Syria.

Russia, too, which has moved urgently to help Assad’s regime survive, has
paid a heavy price with the downing of a Russian passenger plane by the
Islamic State.

In the reconciliation conference, Iran participated as one of the sides
seeking a solution. It did so with the quiet consent of the United States,
which has been temporizing ever since the Syrian crisis began and is now
leaving the arena to Russian and Iranian military and political involvement.
Iran is part of the problem in Syria, but the West now sees it as part of
the solution.

Iran is greatly encouraged by several key regional and international
developments, including Russia’s involvement in Syria, the beginning of the
JCPOA nuclear agreement’s implementation, the first breaches in the
sanctions, and by being cast as a regional actor that can help settle the
region’s problems.

All this has occurred without Iran altering its basic condition for solving
the Syrian crisis (the Assad regime’s survival), ceasing its calls for
Israel’s destruction (Rouhani, a short time before his planned visit to
France, told the French media that “Israel in its current form is not
legitimate”),6 or ending its ongoing efforts at terror and subversion in the
Persian Gulf and in Yemen.

Iran is exploiting the West’s weakness, especially the United States’
fecklessness and lack of a clear policy on the Middle East’s future in
general and on Assad’s in particular. The United States searches for a
definition of terror and how to conduct the struggle against terror. For
example, Secretary of State John Kerry said this after the latest Paris
attack:

There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I
think everybody would feel that. There was a sort of particularized focus
and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of—not a legitimacy, but a rationale
that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really
angry because of this and that. This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate.7

Those words were preceded by, in a similar vein, President Obama’s February
2015 remarks after the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris that
killed four Jews:

…my first job is to protect the American people. It is entirely legitimate
for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of
violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of
folks in a deli in Paris.8

If terror is to be fought and soundly defeated, the struggle must be waged
against all the terror organizations and the states that support them. Iran
has already headed the list of terror-supporting states for years. It is now
awarded the status of a partner in trying to settle the Syrian crisis even
as it continues to support Hizbullah (officially designated a terror
organization by the United States and Europe) and other terror groups in the
Persian Gulf and elsewhere. The West’s agreement to include Iran in seeking
a solution in Syria may help defeat the Islamic State, but it will create a
greater problem in the long term.

The Lesson Not Learned

The United States and the West continue to take an approach to terror that
is unfocused, selective, and indulgent. In actuality, they are no longer
prepared to pay the price (which Russia and Iran are prepared to pay) that
is entailed in a resolute, hands-on struggle against terror. The strategy
they have chosen so far for the anti-Islamic State campaign has collapsed.
No real benefit has accrued from the relatively sparse aerial bombings they
have been carrying out for months. Moreover, they continue to regard Iran as
a legitimate partner in the fight against terror (particularly in Iraq)
without thinking about what this means in light of Iran’s ambitious plans
for regional hegemony. Although those plans – whether pursued in Yemen,
Iraq, or Bahrain – are not hidden from view, the West opts to ignore them
because of the Syrian crisis and its ramifications for Europe. Shiite Iran
(sometimes a terror target itself though still not a high-intensity one in
its own territory) is exploiting the convergence of interests with the West
in the struggle against the Islamic State to make political gains.

Furthermore, the West (primarily the United States, as Secretary Kerry’s
comments made evident) persists in refusing to recognize that the war being
waged against it – by Iran as well – in an all-out war that is aimed against
its liberal values and culture. It is very doubtful that the murderous
attack in Paris will prompt a turnabout in the West’s indulgent, selective
approach and in its basic perceptions of radical Islamic terror (Sunni and
Shiite), whether that of Hizbullah or of the Palestinian organizations that
oppose the peace process and are funded and equipped by Iran. Will the U.S.
president acknowledge that Islamic terror exists, that the incitement for
terror attacks comes from mosques, that the perpetrator of the lethal attack
at the Hyper Cacher was a radical Muslim, and that Iran is a
terror-supporting state and hence abhorrent? The answer is apparently no.

Further indications of Europe’s difficulty in fighting terror and the states
that support it are its agreement to host Rouhani (who was behind the murder
of regime opponents in France and behind the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing
that killed 58 French soldiers and 241 U.S. Marines who were serving in the
Multinational Force). Incredibly, French President Françoise Hollande placed
a phone call9 to his Iranian counterpart, Rouhani, to coordinate anti-terror
efforts. A further testament to Europe’s difficulty is the labeling of
products from the Israeli territories, where Europe chooses to label
products of the victims of terror who are under unceasing, daily assaults,
thereby giving a boost to the terrorists, their dispatchers, and the states
that finance them such as Iran.

So long as the West continues with its euphemisms and evasions on the
phenomenon of Islamic terrorism, the terror will continue and so will its
support from states, with Iran at the forefront. Iran regards terror and
support for terror organizations as a key and legitimate means to promote
its foreign policy goals, and in light of the weakness and vagueness of the
West’s stance, it will keep using terror to subvert Western values (the
ethos of individual freedom and freedom of worship) while burning American,
British, and Israeli flags. It will continue to undermine the Western states’
interests and influence in a Middle East that is splintering.

In an article published after the Paris attack, philosopher Bernard-Henri
Lévy termed the terrorists “Fascislamists.” The U.S. president, however, and
meanwhile Europe as well, still avoid using such terms in the name of
freedom, democracy, and political correctness. As Lévy concludes:


What holds us back? Why have we been so stinting in assisting our Kurdish
allies? What is it about this war that the America of Barack Obama, at least
for the moment, seems not to really want to win?
I do not know the answer, but I know where the key lies. And I know the
alternative to using the key: No boots on their ground means more blood on
ours.10

* * *

Notes

1
http://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/media/1394/08/27/920697/%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1%DB%8C%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D9%88%D9%85%D8%B1%D9%86%DA%AF-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4

2 http://www.president.ir/en/90493

3
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151113/1030063131/oman-saudi-iran-vienna-talks.html

4 http://kayhan.ir/fa/news/60703

5 http://assafir.com/Article/1/457496

6
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2015/11/11/01003-20151111ARTFIG00230-hassan-rohani-l-etat-actuel-d-israel-n-est-pas-legitime.php

7 http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/11/249565.htm

8
http://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-foreign-policy-transcript

9 https://twitter.com/HassanRouhani/status/666552410995892224

10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernardhenri-levy/war-thinking-the-unthinka_b_8590406.html

About Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segall, an expert on strategic issues
with a focus on Iran, terrorism, and the Middle East, is a senior analyst at
the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and at Alcyon Risk Advisors.
- See more at:
http://jcpa.org/article/terror-is-terror-is-terror/#sthash.4yAmUYJ8.dpuf