Lebanon Plan May End Iran, Syria Affair

Syria and Iran may be parting company over the Taif Agreement, the peace plan for Lebanon reached last month in Saudi Arabia. A split between the two countries would be a development of major regional importance.

Syria has been Iran’s only ally in the Arab world, and the link between Persian Farsi Shia Iran and Semitic Arabic Sunni Muslim Syria was an unusual, perhaps even unnatural, alliance that was nevertheless fairly solidly based on mutual benefit.

For both countries, it brought pincer-like pressure on the common enemy, Iraq. Syrian hostility along Iraq’s southern border, and especially its military assistance to dissident Iraqi Kurds fighting Baghdad in its northern area, was a serious distraction for Iraq during the Gulf War. But the alliance isolated Syria from its Arab brethren and particularly angered Syria’s two paymasters, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--they cut off or reduced their funding. This was offset to some extent by Iran supplying Syria with oil free of charge or at reduced rates.

The Syrian link benefited Iran not only by distracting Iraq but by showing that Iran was not cut off from the Arab and Muslim world. It also helped Iran in an all-important ideological objective, exporting the Islamic Revolution. Syria permitted Iranian Revolutionary Guards to establish a base in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, through which Iran was able to channel money, arms and medical supplies to the devoutly pro-Iranian Shia militia, Hezbollah, in the Beirut area and in southern Lebanon.

The balance of benefits thus clearly did not favor Syria and in the last three or four years Damascus became increasingly aware of this fact. The end of the Gulf War a year ago deprived the alliance of its raison d’etre--there was no longer any reason why Syria should not loosen its links with Iran, unpopular both inside Syria and abroad, and follow Egypt’s example in embracing the Arab family, which could also bring renewed financial assistance. For the past two years the oil deal also lost importance: Syria now produces 400,000 barrels of oil a day, exporting 150,000 while receiving just 20,000 a day from Iran.

When the Arab League decided to push for a negotiated end to the Lebanese civil war, Syria decided that aiding this process would help it regain Arab respectability. Indeed, since March, Syria has been conferring closely with the United States (expanding a long-standing, semicovert working arrangement) on Lebanon, to convince the United States of its sincere desire to pull out its troops.

Syrian concessions and guarantees enabled the three weeks of talks in Taif to come to a satisfactory conclusion, enabling election of a new Lebanese president.

The Iranian regime was displeased, seeing the agreement as leading to a slackening of pressure on Iraq. Hard-liners such as Iran’s spiritual head, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, still a power though out of office, and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei’s son, Ahmed, were especially irate. In the intense power struggle going on since the death of Ayatollah Khomenei, this hard-line group has so far managed to contain and almost neutralize the pragmatists around President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, considered a neutral in the Iranian power struggle, two weeks ago established his headquarters in the Iranian embassy in Damascus and from there orchestrated the Lebanese opposition to the Taif Agreement. After meeting with all Iran’s friends in Lebanon, both Shia and Sunni and with left-wing Palestinian dissidents, he said that it was “the duty of Lebanese Muslims to frustrate the Taif Agreement and Iran will support them in doing so”--all this in clear opposition to Syria’s official position on that agreement.

If there is a peace in Lebanon, then Hezbollah--having denounced the Taif Agreement as “an American plot”--would need to be suppressed, which would almost certainly involve armed conflict. To complicate matters, Hezbollah and its attached groups are the ones holding the Western hostages.

Syria--long wanting to be rid of the hostage embarrassment and claiming to be the upholder of law and order in Lebanon--would have to take firm counteraction against a Hezbollah uprising, which would be joined by Hezbollah’s local Shia competitor, the militia of the Amal movement that is more Lebanese nationalist than pro-Iranian in its loyalties. The fate of the hostages would then become even more perilous.

For now, however, both Syria and Iran are stating but not pushing their different views. But the hard fact is that those differences have an inescapable dynamic of their own.

The future of the shaky Syrian-Iranian connection has been clouded by actions of the secessionist Maronite Gen. Michel Aoun, who has refused to recognize the election last weekend of Rene Mouawad as Lebanon’s new president.

If Aoun continues to maintain his partitionist Christian enclave, Marounistan, because of opposition to the Taif Agreement, Hezbollah will not need to take any anti-Taif action on its own, and will not be seen as acting in concert with its hated Maronite enemy. But if the general is eliminated and a pro-Taif Lebanese regime is consolidated, then Hezbollah, to avoid a show of impotence, will have to take action, political or military, with Iranian support, thus throwing down a challenge to Syria.

The latter seems more likely, because Aoun has been universally rejected, especially after the attack by his forces on the house and person of Nasrallah Sfeir, the patriarch of the Marounite Church.

A Syria-Iran breach would affect the whole region. Iran’s dream of exporting Islamic revolution would become more fantasy-like than ever. And Iran would be far more isolated in the region, either in voluntary withdrawal or with a violent and revengeful act against those isolating it.