World>Terrorism & Security
posted February 17, 2005, updated 12:00 p.m.

Iran, Syria form 'united front'

Tehran supports its ally as the US turns up the heat. Meanwhile, Russia announces sale of anti-aircraft weapons to Damascus.

By Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com

In the face of increasing US pressure on Syria following Monday's killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, Iran and Syria declared Thursday that they would form a "common front to face threats."

The joint announcement, which came after a meeting in Tehran between Iranian Vice-President Muhammed Reza Aref and Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari, "coincides with a sharp increase in regional tensions following the assassination of [Hariri] by a suicide car-bomber on Monday," reports the Australian.

Though no specific evidence has yet linked Syria to the attack, many in Lebanon, and throughout the region and the world, blame Damascus. As a result, the US withdrew its ambassador to Damascus, Margaret Scobey, on Tuesday for urgent consultations. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to say how long Ms. Scobey would stay away from her post, and said Washington has " an increasing list of problems with Syria," reports CNN.

US Middle East envoy William Burns urged Syria not to play down the significance of Washington's recall of Scobey, reports Agence France-Presse.

Rice has stopped short of blaming Syria for Hariri's death. "We have been very clear that we don't know who is responsible for the bombing," she said.

"But the Syrians – given their position in Lebanon, given their interference in Lebanese affairs, given the fact that their forces are there, given the terrorists that operate in southern Lebanon with Syrian forces in close proximity to them – does put on the Syrians a special responsibility for the kind of destablization there.

Also, The Christian Science Monitor reports, "the United Nations condemned the 'terrorist' killing of Hariri, and called on Syria to fulfill Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands an immediate withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon."

Syria has denied involvement. Hariri's family and French President Jacques Chirac have called for an international investigation.


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"In view of the special conditions faced by Syria, Iran will transfer its experience, especially concerning sanctions, to Syria," Mr. Reza Aref was quoted as saying. "At this sensitive point, the two countries require a united front due to numerous challenges."

Mr. Otari concurred. "The challenges we face in Syria and Iran require us to be in one front to confront all the challenges imposed by others," he said.

Iran and Syria didn't specify what they meant by "challenges", but both countries are under US economic sanctions and the targets of US pressure.

"The Iranian-Syrian axis deepens a pre-existing concord of unlikely friends," writes the Australian, which offers a brief explanation of the relationship between the two countries.

The regime in Tehran is theocratic, absolutist and strongly guided by the precepts of Shiite Islam. The Damascus Government is secular, quasi-socialist in ideology, and led by a small faction of Alawites, with a majority Sunni Muslim population.
Yet they have co-operated closely for the past generation since the Iranian revolution, and their respective intelligence services are intensely active in Lebanon.

Iran funds the Hezbollah movement, which operates with Syrian approval in the south of Lebanon, and both nations support radical Palestinian factions that are based in Damascus.

BBC Monitoring, which "selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages," provides a sampling of editorial opinions from newspapers in the Middle East. The different takes on what the Hariri killing will portend are on display most when comparing Iranian to Israeli sources.

The Iranian daily Hamshahri writes:

The fact that America's leaders ascribe the internal occurrences of Lebanon to Syria proves that they have found a good opportunity to increase the pressure on Syria in order to reach their objectives in Iraq and Palestine.

Iran's Shargh writes:

Hariri's assassination has become the focus of all of the Lebanese and international pressure to eliminate Syria from having an influence in the region.

Israel's Yediot Aharonot, on the other hand, had this to say:

With the assassination of Hariri, Syria has reminded the Lebanese that it was the one who ended the civil war in the country in return for the known price tag [Syrian troops staying in Lebanon]. The Syrians, however, forget that 2005 is not 1976... The definers of strength in the world that have changed the direction of democracy and human rights are liable to turn Lebanon into the graveyard of the regime in Damascus.

Despite the international pressure, however, "Syria is unlikely to quit Lebanon quickly," according to a Reuters analysis piece.

Meanwhile, the Turkish daily Zaman reports that Russia will sell "air defense systems comprised of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria."

The air-defense missiles that Syria will purchase will change the power balance in the region and Israel is insisting that Moscow cancel the project.

Zaman cites sources from the Russian Ministry of Defense as saying that the air defense system to be sold to Syria is a more developed form of Soviet-made missiles called 'Igla', and ends its report with a few interesting notes.

A US F-17 plane was brought down by the 'Igla system' during the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) intervention in former Yugoslavia. The CEO of the Russian state' weapon company Rosoboronexport, Sergei Chemezov, noted that Arab countries have recently become seriously interested in Russian air defense systems.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced Wednesday that he received a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday informing him of the decision, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Senior officials in Jerusalem said the Russians had guaranteed Israel that the shoulder-held missiles would be mounted on vehicles and that it would be impossible to operate them if they were separated from the vehicles. ...
One senior diplomatic official said Israel did not accept the Russian guarantees, and that the technology needed to remove the missiles from the vehicles upon which they are to be mounted is not sophisticated and is very easy to come by.

The Post notes that, "Sharon said he first discussed the issue with Putin two years ago, and was assured that these missiles would not be sold to Damascus because of concern they could fall into the hands of terrorists."

The Moscow News reports that, as recently as Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that Russia was " not planning or negotiating to sell such missiles to Syria."

This raises questions about why Putin announced the controversial deal in the wake of the Hariri killing, when all eyes are on Syria.

Sharon repeated his concerns about the deal and warned again that these missiles could be "obtained by terrorists."