Inviting Iran to take part in talks over Syria’s future is a highly significant shift for the US and its western and Arab allies, and one that will gladden the heart of President Bashar al-Assad. It will be seen as another sign, following Russia’s military intervention, that things are going his way.
Assuming Tehran accepts the invitation, and it’s hard to see why it would not, it will have a formal role to play in helping decide the outcome of the bloodiest crisis of the Arab spring for the first time in more than four years. As Assad’s staunchest regional ally, it is also reasonable to assume it will be broadly sympathetic to his position.
It certainly has been so far. Unlike the countries that support the anti-Assad rebel groups, Iran has taken an unwaveringly strategic view of the crisis, consistently backing Damascus while pursuing its own interests. It has provided billions of dollars in cash and loans, as well as advice and expertise.
Its military role in Syria has been shadowy but vital, deploying Revolutionary Guards as advisers and overseeing offensives by its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and Shia fighters from as far afield as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has raised its profile slightly in recent weeks as the forces it commands have taken part in Assad’s offensive against Aleppo. It has also suffered casualties that are starting to be noticed at home.
Iran’s formal position is that it backs a political solution to the crisis, but unlike Russia it has never signed up to the idea that it could end with a “Syrian-led political transition” that would almost certainly exclude Assad. That ambiguously-formulated idea lies at the heart of the Geneva conference communique of June 2012 - the basis for all international efforts to find a way out of the impasse.
“In any political process the role played by Bashar al-Assad will be important,” Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, told the Guardian in an interview last week.
“We are not working for Assad to stay in power forever as president, but we are very cognisant of his role in the fight against terrorism and the national unity of that country. The people of Syria will make the final decision and whatever decision they take, we will endorse.”
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