Since that Iraq has lost its national sovereignty by the US occupation on the ninth of April 2003, and promote such loss with the first beneficiary of the occupation, which is the Iranian regime who could by Iraqi allies to control on the whole joints of the Iraqi political system or almost, as Iraq has become in the era of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and to this day, walking in the framework of the policies defined by the Iranian regime , and specifically after the eruption of the Syrian revolution against the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the emergence of ISIS “Daash” in the Iraqi scene at all levels.
And the evidence on this is the management, noting at a time when the United States is training the two military divisions , which have been in Mosul, in the course of the control of ISIS in June 2014, the Iraqi government , at the behest of the Iranian regime, is carrying out the distribution of the employees of those two divisions on different fronts against that organization to invalidate or defer at least the operation of Mosul liberation.
It is worth noting that the Iraqi government did not take in its accounts for the time being the restoration of the province of Mosul, that it is not interested for the receipt of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense Makhmoor camps on the fifteenth of the current February, to store the necessary troops and military equipment to be prepared for the Battle of Mosul, also was not interested in the presence of the commander of Mosul operations in Erbil for consultation and coordination with the Kurdish forces in order to participate in the liberation of the city of Mosul process. But what is concerned for them is precisely the visit of Qassem Soleimani to Iraq between 8 to 10 January , where he met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and also met with Shiite political forces and the crowd popular and all other militias individually, each one separately, explaining to them that the battle for Tehran and Baghdad today is the battle of Syria; to maintain our ally Bashar al-Assad there, and not the battle to liberate Mosul from the state regulation, but in order to achieve this has to provide all forms of support to him and embodied in the creation of passage , corridor , starts from the Iran-Iraq border, passing through the Iraqi lands “of Samarra , Alaalam , Baiji , Sharqat, and Alhadhar , and Tal Afar, “up to the Syrian depth.
But the question that arises in this context why the battle of the Iranian regime in Syria is the most important to it than the battle of Mosul, or fight the organization in general in Iraq, especially since the organization in the field is more dangerous to Iran if we consider that the state regulation has two branches in Iraq and Syria which are working against Iranian interests and not to promote their regional interests in the Arab environment specifically?
The answer to this question falls in two analysis first , it seems that the Iranian regime has an international assurances of its allies such as the Russian union or the biggest” Satan – the United States or from the conviction stemming from the Iranian regime itself that that the United States will not allow state regulation to derail its hindered democratic transition in Iraq, and that there is a limit that organization stands in it in terms of the process of spread on the Iraqi map noting that the fall of the Iraqi capital Baghdad is with its hand which means the failure of the American project in Iraq and this fall is not allowed to this day . The other analysis sees that Iran go to the battle of Syria, and is certain to the front garden – Iraq, due to what is established by the Iran’s influence in Iraq since it has become certain that the organization can not influence it negatively. Another analysis sees that the organization of the State in Iraq is an extension for the Iranian policies through which it seeks to empty Iraq from the Sunni people in general and Arab Sunni in particular so it is confident to its gains in it . Accordingly, what is the importance of the Battle of Syria for the Iranian regime?
Syria is an essential part in its geopolitical project and President Bashar al-Assad is a pillar upon which its influence is based , at least at the current stage, and considering the bad relations with the various Syrian components , even non-Sunni, and the departure of Syria from the circle of Iranian control is a big loss and very difficult to compensate because of its firm repercussions on its influence in the rest of the region, and Syria is frontline that it is considered to secure for Iran an important scope of protection in the face of Arab enemies and others, as well as its symbolic status in the Shiite thought in view of the presence of the holy shrines in it , and form, from the strategic sense, a Square to isolate the external effects on the Iranian regime and the absorption of the internal street energy through its conversion to the support of the military presence in Syria, so the retreat of it may lead to shaking that will influence the internal national security, Iran does not have sufficient flexibility in Syria in view of the limited options and a lack of alternatives.
The Russian military intervention in Syria came ,in one way or another to the service of the battle of Iran in Syria and in order to preserve its project there, as Tehran has sought to invest it to intervene in order to serve its battle in Syria and achieve goals such as: improving the military situation on the ground for Bashar al-Assad, further cementing his negotiating position during diplomatic settlement , the reduction of regional hostility toward Iran and its allies, which aims to hit its influence, to work to stop the Syrian war without delivery Syria to the enemies of Tehran, and thwart the scheme to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad at the hands of its enemies and replace it with a regime hostile to Iran and its allies, to push for a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis is not based on the reference “Geneva -1” that Iran were not part of it, and that its implementation could lead to the loss of its influence in Syria, put initiatives and solutions based on sectarian quotas, as a model for Lebanon and is not Iraq as a model based on the rule of the majority. That Iranian vision and objectives are evident in the Iranian amended initiative of the four points on the settlement in Syria, which included an amendment to the Constitution guarantees the protection of minorities and ethnic groups and elections under international supervision, and ceasefire , to legitimize the militias, and then a sectarian quotas.
The battle of Syria for the Iranian regime came in the context of achieving the Iranian dream through the development of strategy of the military presence in the Arab countries as Iran proceeded to transfer its military activity to some countries, surpassing to recruit customers to the formation of non-Iranian military brigades with local leaders working under its direction to achieve its strategy in the region . He has pointed out, al-Jaafari, the Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Guards, to the existence of a number of military forces of Iran in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, stressing that jihad will continue alongside the allies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, and that the Guard has done to provide material and moral assistance to the r “Islamic resistance ” There.
To win the battle for Syria , Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force , played a serious role in the management of its events , as he established a network of Iranian fighters , proxy bases , throughout the Middle East, and used innovative ways to support the Syrian army in its battle against armed opposition groups. And shaped of fighting cells and groups like Hezbollah, and brought Iraqi Shiite militias under the pretext of defending the holy shrines in Syria, and has also been relying on mercenaries of Afghans who are in Iran, and imported Shi’ite fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries.
And under the pretext of defending the Shiite shrines in various areas of Syria , Hezbollah was called to fight in Syria, after the failure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces to crush the Syrian Revolution, with an attempt of Tehran to form a Syrian copy of it , where Tehran has sought to organize the People’s Committees and turn it into the National Defence Forces, also reproduced the experience of Iranian “Basij” In this regard, Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani says in the Revolutionary Guards and adviser to the Commander in Chief in it, that one of the most important achievements of the Iranian revolution is to create a general mobilization body for reconstruction in Syria under the name “Jihad al-Bina” (struggle for construction) , and works on the same way and objectives of the body to mobilize Reconstruction in Iran, which is the result of the export of the culture of the revolution to the Islamic countries and to move the revolution in this direction outside the border which has led to an “Islamic awakening” in different countries.
Parallel to send advisers and military experts, to provide of human resources, ammunition and weapons, and supervise on the formation of Syrian militias , and its economic crisis did not prevent to open banks in front of the financial assistance, and to provide financial credit lines up to amounts of five billion United States dollars, and send oil derivatives and foodstuffs .
In order to earn the Iranian regime battle in Syria , it did not hesitate at all to employ the sectarian factor in Syria, as it has to attract the largest possible number of the Shiite sect to fight in Syria, through the inensive promotion of what he called “Sunni jihadist infidels groups” as a threat not only to the Syrian Alawi regime “”, but to the Shiite identity in the Middle East environment. This employment the sectarian factor did not stop at this level, but the Iranian regime has sought to bring about demographic changes inside Syria on a sectarian basis , so they suggested the transfer of the Shiite population of the villages of Kefraya and Virulence in Idlib province to the border town of Zabadani, while the proposed to transfer of the Sunni population of Zabadani to the areas predominantly of Sunni such as Hama, as most of them under the control of Sunni Islamist groups while Zabadani on the border with Lebanon, which would help the Iranian regime to consolidate its control over what Iran considered as strongholds of the Syrian regime, which makes its geographical location ways to supply the regime and its allies, as well as the conversion of the inhabitants of this areas to be fanatic loyal to allow the Iranian regime to exercise the kind of influence along the lines of those currently practiced by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
In addition to this data, the Iranian regime is leading the battle to maintain influence and strategic gains in Syria that it seeks through its success in Syria in maintaining regional extend, ” the circle , ” where there is a wide Shiite base, such as Yemen, Bahrain, or Shiite pressure centers, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite presence in Iraq. Not to mention the Shiites Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Based on the above, it can be said that the Iranian presence in the course of the Syrian revolution can be considered as the battle of the Iranian regime in Syria with distinction due to the conviction that the survival of Bashar al-Assad in office is the only guarantor of the continuation of Iranian influence in the Arab environment and that his departure from power mean the end of this existence, as except saying “resistance” noting that the majority of Iranian investments in Syria have not been settled according to international agreements, and did not insist to be converted to fixed assets, but was liquidated in the economy and military support as a result of implied understandings , and are subject to the missing and loss in the event of the departure of Bashar al-Assad, so the margin of maneuver in front of Iranian regime in this case seems closed and alternatives to it even if it is from the cortege of the al-Assad and his community .
In this general context of the importance of the Battle of Syria for the Iranian regime , it does not seem surprising when Qassem Soleimani in the meeting referred to above ordered, the Shiite political forces, including the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi making the battle of Syria is the battle of Iran and its allies in Iraq, which must be fought and not a battle of Mosul liberation , and orders issued by the Tehran , and Baghdad but its implementation.
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies