The Russians met with leaders of the Syrian opposition in control of eastern Aleppo nearly ten days after the Kremlin announced that the city was exempt from Russian airstrikes. Tehran's attempts to hinder the consensus has confirmed the conflict of interests between Russia and Iran, not only in Aleppo but also in Syria in general despite their bilateral military coordination. Chief of Staff of the Iranian army Mohamed Baqari said on 26 November that Iran needed naval bases abroad and might establish them in Syria. He said that naval bases were “more important than nuclear technology” to Iran. On 23 November, Mohamed Reza Naqdi, commander of the Basij Forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), revealed that the Iranian military had created Syrian Basij forces similar to the Iranian militias known for their terror tactics against the opposition to Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. There was no Russian response to the Iranian declaration. On 13 November, Lebanon's Hizbullah militias, which are allied with Iran, organised a military parade in Syria attended by the chair of the group's Executive Council, Hashem Safieddin, who said Hizbullah was no longer a militia, but instead was an “entire army.” The group also published photographs of militias in possession of heavy military equipment, including field guns, tanks and vehicles carrying heavy missiles. It was the first time Hizbullah had displayed its force in Syria after it had frequently denied its participation in the Syria War. This display is being seen as a message from Hizbullah to Russia and others that it is staying in Syria, embarrassing its ally in the regime led by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus. Again, Russia was silent. Earlier, on 29 October, Ahmed Al-Assadi, spokesman for the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) fighting alongside the Iraqi army and loyal to Iran, said that after liberating Iraqi territories from Islamic State (IS) forces, the Shiite militias would enter into Syria to fight alongside Al-Assad's forces. The Russians did not react then either. In reality, the scope of Iran's military and political influence in Syria has not changed. On 22 November, Tehran admitted that “more than 1,000” armed Iranian militias had been killed in Syria, as revealed by Mohamed Ali Shahidi Mahlati, head of Iran's Veterans and Martyrs Association. Iran did not deny the presence of thousands of mercenaries from Iran and elsewhere in Syria. It is unclear how many combatants are fighting for Iran in Syria. While there are hundreds of commanders from the IRG who are described as “military consultants” in Syria, there are also tens of thousands of fighters recruited in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even Africa to bolster Iranian military influence in the country under the pretext of supporting the Al-Assad regime. Iran calls these the “defenders of the shrines” in reference to the holy Shiite sites in Syria. The most prominent among them are Fatimiyeen Brigade, which includes Afghan fighters sent from Iran, the Zeinabyoun Brigade of Pakistani combatants, the Abul-Fadl Al-Abbas Brigade of Iraqi fighters, and Al-Kharasani Vanguards of mixed origins. In the absence of exact figures of the Shiite militias under Iranian command, there are estimates that Iraqi militias number nearly 20,000 fighters, Hizbullah more than 10,000, some 10,000 Afghans and Pakistanis, and an unknown number of IRG and Basij officers and soldiers. These forces, which Iran has exported and continues to export to Syria, strongly confirm what former Iranian intelligence minister Ali Meselhi said last year to the effect that the Iranian Revolution “knows no borders.” Meanwhile, Ali Younisi, an adviser to Iran's president for minorities, said Iran had once again “become an empire” with Baghdad as its current capital. The Russian strategy since its direct military intervention in Syria has differed from that of Iran. Russia has tried to deal with the Syrian issue on the basis that it is a major power seeking to become a super power with influence in the Middle East, after losing in Libya and Yemen. The Iranian strategy has continued to rely on expansion and silent infiltration, sabotage and slow destruction, killing, displacement and demographic changes, which is a strategy disliked by the Russians because it leaves them with a havoc they do not want. Russia's vision focuses on keeping a tight grip on the Syrian army, and it has exerted efforts to train the army, salvage what it can, and restore discipline after some segments turned into militias in terms of their military performance on the ground. In order to do so, Russia depends on commanders in the Syrian army who are allied to it, and it has succeeded in changing the commander of the Syrian Republican Guard and intervened in the composition of the president's personal guards. The Russians are said to have supported the Syrian Fifth Corps of former soldiers and civilians, most likely out of a desire to reintegrate pro-regime Syrian militias funded by Iran in a form that can be controlled. It also aims to eliminate other Iranian and Afghan militias and create an alternative to the debilitated state of the army. Iran is trying to obstruct this programme in several ways. Eliminating its militias means erasing its plans in Syria, which in turn means the ruin of Iranian schemes for the Middle East. Some believe that Russia's tactics contradict Iran's. Russia decided to exempt Aleppo from its strikes, then decided to negotiate with the armed opposition in Aleppo about a Turkish proposal for a truce followed by “self-administration” in eastern Aleppo. This is because it realises that the Syrian regime does not have enough troops to take control of eastern Aleppo. If eastern Aleppo falls and the armed opposition loses there, it would leave the area open for Iranian and pro-Iran militias to take control. The public Russian-Iranian agreement covers over fundamental disputes between the two sides that are seen clearly in Syria. The Russian-Iranian contradictions there are widening and deepening, and they may surface in the near future. For Moscow, the dispute may be limited to the scope of its influence, which is something Iran is trying to prevent by any and all means.
