By: Edward Carney
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that an Iraqi military
delegation had traveled to Iran to discuss future strategic cooperation between
the two countries. It was the latest in a long line of indicators of entrenched
and deepening Iranian influence on the broader Middle East. The meetings
between Iraqi and Iranian officials were apparently motivated by Monday’s
independence referendum in the northern, Kurdish region of Iraq. That vote
appears to be helping to tighten the connections not only between Iraq and Iran
but also between those two countries and Turkey, which has traditionally had
strained relations with the Islamic Republic.
The Reuters report made note of the trilateral
developments taking place alongside the Iraqi delegations visit. Following the
referendum vote, Turkey has reportedly carried out joint military drills with
both Iraq and Iran, on the borders of the Kurdistan region, which spans parts
of all three countries. Al Jazeera adds that Tehran has vowed to stand by
Turkey in its confrontational response to the referendum. The Iranian military
has also reportedly installed missile batteries near the Kurdish region. This,
however, is nothing new, as there are periodic reports of violent clashes
between Iranian armed forces and Kurdish separatist groups.
Still, Iran’s new escalation of these tensions may be
intended to reinforce the regime’s message to Turkey, which has separately
threatened sanctions that could potentially cut off the flow of upwards of 70
percent of the goods that Turkish Kurdistan relies upon. In addition to helping
back this threat up militarily, Iran could somewhat mitigate the negative
effects of Turkey ending economic transactions with the oil-rich Kurdish
region.
Subsequent to the 2015 nuclear deal with six world
powers, Tehran has already used its newly expanded oil supplies and revenue
streams to expand its influence in the region. Particularly notable is the
diplomatic crisis between Qatar and some of its Gulf Arab neighbors, which was
evidently sparked by a lack of Qatari commitment to the Saudi Arabian-led
strategy for opposing the expansion of Iranian regional influence. Subsequent
to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain cutting off
political and trade ties with the nation of Qatar, the Iranians took the
opportunity to deepen that influence by sending food supplies and giving Qatar
further incentive to stand by its position favoring reconciliation with the
Islamic Republic.
That situation goes to show that the boundary lines of
regional conflicts are apparently in flux, and Iranian-Turkish relations are
arguably evidence of the same. This was the feature of an article that appeared
in the Christian Science Monitor on Tuesday and questioned the extent to which
Turkey – a longstanding NATO ally – is strategically pivoting toward Iran and,
by extension, Russia.
The article notes that the issue of Kurdish separatism,
as well as drawing Turkey and Iran closer together, is also driving a further
wedge between Turkey and the US. As Syrian rebel groups began to deteriorate
that had been supported by both the US and Turkey, American policy surrounding
that country’s civil war began to focus on arming and supporting a Kurdish
fighting force, instead. This shifted Turkey’s priorities away from pushing for
the removal of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and toward constraining the
growth of Kurdish power, which the Turks feared could fuel the separatist
movement.
Furthermore, the CS Monitor article points out that the
government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is upset that the US
withdrew an arms deal with Erdogan’s presidential security detail after 15
members were indicted for assaulting protestors during a visit to Washington in
May. This has helped to fuel the growth of anti-Americanism, pushing Turkey to
turn east, for instance by pursuing an agreement to purchase the advanced S-400
missile defense system from Russia.
The article notes that that deal could still falter, and
regarding the general Turkish shift, it argues that the recent actions may be
purely tactical and thus short-lived, because Ankara’s interests diverge
sharply from those of Tehran and Moscow. It bears noting, however, that much
the same argument was made by numerous analysts about the past two years of
growth in military and political cooperation between Iran and Russia.
Since Russia became involved in the Syrian Civil War, it
was speculated that Moscow could be persuaded to rein in or act against its
Iranian allies, because the Russians had less incentive to support the Assad
regime, provided that they could keep their military bases in Syria. But
whether because of firmer-than-realized Iranian-Russian commitments or because
of lack of relevant strategy from the US and its partners, these supposedly
divergent interests never fully manifested, and Russia continued to support
Iranian activities in Syria throughout the height of the war. Both nations are
now working together to establish and enforce ceasefire agreements, along with
former local adversary, Turkey.
There is little doubt that the United States still sees
great incentive to try to exploit divergent interests between Iran and both
Turkey and Russia. Indeed, this may be necessary in order to curtail the growth
of Iranian influence there, while the US also tries to reassert its influence
in places like Iraq. The Iranian regime is reportedly striving to use
recaptured areas of Syria as links in a chain leading from Tehran to Damascus
and to Lebanon, where the Iran-backed paramilitary Hezbollah is based.
On the other hand, an article that was published in the
Washington Post on Wednesday suggested that Iran may already be entrenched in
Syria, where the Syrian armed forces are increasingly organized under the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and a planned US-led buildup of coalition
forces did not come to fruition in the strategically important region of Deir
el-Zour. The article points to these factors in order to criticize the Donald
Trump presidency for an apparent lack of established policy in Syria, but it
also conveys National Security Advisor HR McMaster’s observation that “the Assad-Iranian-Russian
push into southeast Syria” is “hugely problematic in the long term” and must be
addressed.
But pending a coordinated, strategic response from the US
and its allies, it seems clear that the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue
to bolster its own presence in Syria and to use this as a focus of propaganda
as it pursues a broader sphere of influence in the Middle East as a whole. The
propaganda element of this situation was made clear once again in an
International Business Times report that described a gathering that took place
on Wednesday to commemorate Mohsen Hojaji, an IRGC soldier who was beheaded by
Islamic State militants in Syria in August.
The ceremony was attended by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
himself, who described Hojaji as a “dear martyr” and an example of “numerous
young people” who are willing to fight and die on behalf of the Iranian
theocracy’s vision for Islam and the Middle East region.
While this sort of propaganda serves the general purpose
of boasting of Iranian influence, it also comes in the midst of other
propaganda that is clearly aimed at presenting that influence specifically as a
bulwark against Western influence in the same region. The ceremony came just
days after Tehran falsely claimed to have tested a newly developed ballistic
missile capable of traveling more than 1,200 miles. The missile was also put on
public display in Tehran as part of Defense Week, which ostensibly commemorates
the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War but also serves as an outlet for hardliners’ anti-American
rhetoric.
On Wednesday, Newsweek reported that Tehran further
expanded upon the missile claims by saying that the country’s armed forces were
planning to construct nuclear submarines and a new, advance naval destroyer.
The report also notes that these threats come in the midst of increased
tensions between Iran and the US. For the White House, at least, those tensions
remain focused on the 2015 nuclear agreement, as evidenced by President Trump’s
speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week. But that speech also
made clear reference to Iran’s overall contribution to regional instability,
suggesting an American commitment to curtailing Iranian influence in Syria,
Iraq, and elsewhere.
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