When Iranian President Hassan Rouhani assumed office 4 August, he assumed the responsibility — for which he was elected — for reviving the Iranian reform project and rehabilitating the moderate political trend in Iran. Considerable hopes were vested in him on the foreign policy front as well. Would he succeed in rectifying balances for the Iranian regime after eight long years under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who fuelled extremism both at home against moderates and abroad against the Iranian Islamic Republic itself? As formidable as the burdens he shouldered are, Iranian Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed great confidence in him, praising the genius of the Iranian people for electing Rouhani and boasting of the robustness of a political order that could lead this candidate to victory against the widespread expectations that one of the hardliners close to the supreme guide would win. Then, all the excitement, acclaim and optimism surrounding Rouhani's entrance into the presidential palace suddenly subsided. People now waited with bated breath to see how he would act in the face of the war that the US, supported by France and other European parties, as well as by Arab governments — in the Gulf — and other governments in the region (Ankara), intends to wage against Syria. Iran has already declared that the planned US-led military intervention in Syria, which could happen any moment, would constitute a contravention of the UN Charter. However, if/when such an attack becomes a grim reality what, in fact, will Rouhani do? Will he fulfil Iran's commitment to Syria under the strategic cooperation pact between the two countries and enter the war on Bashar Al-Assad's side? Will he settle for a vehement condemnation of the aggression and help the Syrian regime compensate for its military and political losses, as Russia is expected to do? Or will he take a middle course, such as giving the green light to Hizbullah in Lebanon and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and elsewhere to retaliate against the attack, thereby averting a direct Iranian-US clash that Israel has long been yearning for? Domestically, Rouhani would certainly be on the horns of a dilemma. His commitment to the “moderate project” would oblige him to avert embroiling Iran in a war on Syria's side. However, such a course would set him on a collision course with the hardliners and, above all, the Revolutionary Guards Corps, which seeks a speedy demise for the resurgent moderate trend. But to yield to the war hawks risks propelling Iran towards a head-on clash with the US, courting extremism at home and Israel-US extremism against Iran. The likelihood, therefore, is that Rouhani would choose the middle course, thereby not leaving Damascus to face its fate alone while simultaneously averting direct confrontation with the US. Pursuing this option would not preclude continuing to support the Syrian regime with arms and military experts, even if Hizbullah and other pro-Iranian militias are on the ground to do combat in Syria or to deliver strikes against US interests elsewhere in the region so that Washington does not emerge from this war without paying some price for its arrogance and belligerence. A number of more concrete factors give prevalence to this option. The first is the shock that Washington sustained during the G-20 summit in St Petersburg on 5-6 September in which US President Barack Obama hoped to secure support for a limited strike against the Al-Assad regime, purportedly to punish it for the chemical weapons attack against Al-Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, on 21 August. Opinion in the summit was sharply divided, and the most Obama could obtain was a vaguely worded statement, supported by only 11 countries, calling for a “strong international response” to the chemical weapons attack. This was hardly the go-ahead that Obama wanted. More significantly, some major international parties were among those that refused to sign: Russia, China, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. Germany, for its part, declared that it favoured a political solution while the British House of Commons had pre-empted British support by compelling Prime Minister David Cameron to reject involvement in a war in Syria. So the only countries that sided with the US were France, Italy, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which pressed for war as soon as possible and even pledged to foot the bill. Beijing and Moscow's stances were unequivocal. Chinese President Xi Jinping stated that his country was absolutely opposed to the military option. Vladimir Putin went one up and stated that his country would “continue to furnish assistance, inclusive of arms, to Syria”. The Russian president also reminded those present that use of force against a sovereign state is prohibited under international law except in self-defence or in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution, and that the US could hardly claim that it had been attacked by Syria. Iran naturally hopes that Obama's failure to secure a G-20 mandate will curb his administration's mad drive to go to war in Syria. Such hopes have been reinforced by a second factor, which is to be found in the indications of a rehabilitation of the diplomatic option — or at least the deferment of a US strike until the international fact-finding commission produces its official report on chemical weapons use in Al-Ghouta. It is significant that French President François Hollande, who had been at least as gung-ho on a punitive strike against Damascus as Obama, has modified his tone. During the discussions in the G-20 summit, he appeared more in favour of deferring the Syrian question to the Security Council and linking a strike resolution to the results of the findings of the international inspections team. More important, however, are the recent reports of a possible “deal” in accordance with which the Syrian regime would hand over its stores of chemical weapons to international monitors and sign the international convention banning the proliferation of chemical weapons. In a press conference in St Petersburg Friday, Obama expressed interest in such a solution that would give Al-Assad a grace period of 45 days to agree to the deal and sign the international convention. Whether or not Damascus agrees to the proposal and regardless of whether Washington ultimately approves or reveals its true intent towards Syria, which is to destroy the strategic capacities of the Syrian army in deference to Israeli wishes, the very prospect of such a deal signifies a pause in — if not an eventual muting of — the war drums. Thirdly, Iran has not yet publicly committed itself to a military response in the event of a US strike against Syria, even if General Kasem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Al-Quds Corps, declared: “Syria is the forward front of the resistance. No one can deny this. It is our duty to defend Muslims in that country because they are victims of many pressures and injustice.” More telling is the statement on the Syrian question that was released following an important meeting of the Assembly of Experts, which was attended by the president and senior political and military leaders, including Soleimani. The statement confined itself to a warning to the US, Israel and some European governments not to set into motion a new catastrophe in the Middle East. The assembly statement noted that “foreign interventions in the Syrian matter violate international laws and are to be strongly condemned”, calling on “free peoples, defenders of human rights, Islamic nations and countries of the region to prevent the arrogant from weaving their conspiracies”. More significantly yet, Iran has strenuously denied reports, such as that which recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal, claiming that Tehran had issued any directives to pro-Iranian militias in Iraq to target US interests in the region in the event of a US attack against Syria. Describing such a reports as “a groundless fabrication”, the spokesman for the Iranian mission at the UN in New York, Ali Reza Mir-Yousefi, said that their purpose was to “push Congress into approving a mandate for a military strike against Syria”. The abovementioned factors suggest that, in the event of a US strike, Tehran would opt for the middle course, which would entail tactical assistance to Syria but without direct involvement. The latter option, or even open support for a Hizbullah involvement, would accelerate a conflict with Israel, as a likely Syrian response to an attack would be to target Israel. Tehran is unlikely to want to give Israel precisely what Tel Aviv has long been seeking, which is a broader war that would propel Washington to come to Israel's “defence” and — accordingly — enable it to justify a war against Iran. But there is another factor that favours the option of non-engagement. This came in the form of remarks by Jeffrey Feldman, undersecretary-general of the UN (and former US State Department assistant and former US ambassador to Lebanon), during his meetings with Iranian officials in Tehran to discuss the Geneva II conference on Syria. Feldman told his Iranian interlocutors that the success of Geneva II was contingent on a balance of forces between the Syrian regime and the opposition. He stated that Iran had “to understand this for the sake of a greater purpose, which is the realisation of peace in Syria”. The implication was that the purpose of a US strike in Syria was to create such a “balance”. The message that was delivered to the powers-that-be in Tehran was clear: there would be a limited strike against the Syrian regime. It would leave the regime intact, and yet induce all parties to proceed with open minds to Geneva II. It appears that Tehran not only understood the message but also approved it.
