Iran Busy Making Lemonade Out of Assad’s Lemons

Photo Credit: Chatham House / Flickr

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iran has established direct communication with Syria’s new rebel-led leadership following the ouster of its longtime ally President Bashar al-Assad, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a senior Iranian official. The move aims to “prevent a hostile trajectory” in relations between the two nations, the official said.

Facing the loss of a crucial ally in Damascus and the impending return of Donald J. Trump to the White House in January, Iran’s Ayatollahs have signaled a willingness to engage with Syria’s new rebel-led government, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, adding, “This engagement is key to stabilizing ties and avoiding further regional tensions.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said that Iran’s stance had always been to support dialogue between the Syrian government and its opponents, despite the fact that some of the Syrian opposition groups were on the UN list of terrorist groups and some of them hailed from different backgrounds.

Araghchi blamed the fall of Assad’s regime on Assad’s army. “Everything was clear in my opinion, both the analyses and the news coming from Syria about the offensive,” the FM said in a live interview on state television, adding that it was the Syrian army’s duty to counter anti-government groups.

“We also knew that there always existed a behind-the-scenes plot by the United States and the Zionist regime to cause the Axis of Resistance to suffer one after another,” Araghchi noted.

Araghchi said that Iran’s security and intelligence apparatuses were fully aware of the acts of the armed groups in Idlib and other areas and all relevant information had been transferred to the Syrian government and army. “If the Syrian army had resisted, even Aleppo would not have fallen,” he mused.

“The crisis in Syria was a bit natural following the developments in Gaza and Lebanon,” the Iranian FM said, adding. “What was surprising was the inability of the Syrian army to confront the movement of the armed groups, and the second was the speed of the movements.”

Referring to his recent meeting with the toppled Syrian president, Araghchi revealed that even Assad was surprised and complained about the state of his own army.

The Iranian foreign minister acknowledged that the Iranian Axis had been going through a difficult period for more than a year; still, he said that the Axis combatants had displayed “exemplary resilience.”

“There is still resistance in Gaza, and the Zionist regime has not yet been able to get the captives freed,” he argued.

On Hezbollah, Araghchi said that despite the blows it suffered, it was able to quickly reorganize itself. “Why did the Zionist regime agree to a ceasefire? There is no reason other than Hezbollah’s resistance which forced the regime to accept a truce,” Araghchi insisted.

He did not mention the extreme pressures the US and France had applied to Israel, including threats of an embargo, which forced Israel to pause its campaign of killing Hezbollah terrorists.

Araghchi then told Iranian TV viewers, sounding surprisingly like IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari (“Hamas is an idea”): “Resistance is a thought, a school, and it has had many ups and downs,” adding that Hezbollah’s current munitions, equipment and facilities are enough for its resistance over the next one or two years.