Will Syria strengthen ties with West?

By SAMI MUHAMMAD

DAMASCUS, Syria — There are signs, still faint but visible, that the strong ties between Syria and Iran may finally be loosening, as Damascus steps up its efforts to curry favor with the West, while Washington shows new enthusiasm for dealing with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

At the moment, Damascus remains the Islamic Republic’s strongest ally in the region. Assad even traveled to Tehran in August to congratulate Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his controversial re-election. Syria’s state-run agency characterized the meeting as symbolizing “solid, friendly relations” between the two countries.

“As yet, there is no change in Syrian-Iranian relations,” said the Damascus-based political analyst Faeq al-Mir. “They are still strong and deep, especially when it comes to bilateral coordination on regional policies in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine.”

But Mir said it was possible that Iran and Syria will diverge in the near future, with each nation adopting “different policies and making different choices” on several regional issues, including Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

He noted that Tehran, under the leadership of Ahmadinejad, appeared to be heading toward a more confrontational relationship with the West, while Syria was trying to assume a greater role in the region by establishing closer ties with the United States and the European Union.

High-level delegations

The Obama administration in recent months has gone out of its way to encourage such a shift, including sending high-level delegations to Damascus to meet with Syrian leaders.

Some observers took note of how the Syrian and Iranian media described the meeting in Tehran in subtly but significantly different ways.

The Syrian news agency reported that the two leaders discussed continuing “coordination and consultations” between their two nations.

Iranian state media, on the other hand, asserted that Assad had criticized the West and condemned what he called foreign intervention in Iran’s internal affairs.

Not everyone is convinced Syria is ready to sever its ties with Tehran, or would even be allowed to.

“Syria is the weak side in the bilateral relationship and it’s unlikely that Iran would allow it to drift away just like that,” said one analyst in Damascus who asked that his name not be used out of security concerns.

It’s also possible that Assad is attempting to position himself as a mediator between the West and Iran, especially on such issues as Iran’s nuclear program.

Before Assad’s meetings in Tehran, there were several reports that the Syrian president was mediating with Iranian officials on behalf of France to win the release of a French national, who was freed from an Iranian prison shortly before the Syrian president’s arrival.

Under this scenario, the worse relations grow between the West and Iran, the better for Syria, as it attempts to position itself as an effective middleman in the region for the West while remaining a reliable ally to Tehran.

In either case, relationships in the region appear to be slowly, but inevitably, changing.

X Sami Muhammad is a reporter in Syria who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization in London that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.