[Joel Brinkley] Iran’s support of Syria backfiring

As the brutal Syrian uprising stumbles into its seventh month, Iran’s leaders are spinning and darting like a wobbly top. They realize that President Bashar al-Assad’s continuing slaughter of his own people is not only costing thousands of innocent Syrian lives, but also eviscerating Iran’s reputation in the region.

By now, almost every major nation worldwide has condemned Assad’s genocidal behavior ― even the Arab League. Assad is beginning to remind me of Cambodia’s Pol Pot. His troops are opening fire on citizens as they step out the doors of their mosques and dragging protestors they’ve wounded out of hospitals. As Iran continues defending him, no matter what, the gains from its long-term effort to win favor and influence in the Arab world are evaporating. Now, a new poll shows, there’s little if any left.

That’s why Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suddenly spoke up recently, tacitly criticizing Assad, his only true ally in the world. “A military solution is never the right solution,” he averred (having ordered similar brutality to put down massive street demonstrations in his own country two years ago).

I’d bet anything that Ahmadinejad called Assad beforehand and explained why he had to make that disingenuous remark. I’m also sure it was too little, too late.

A new Arab American Institute public-opinion poll shows that Iran’s favorable ratings among Arabs has plummeted ― and not just in rival, neighboring states like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In Morocco five years ago, 82 percent of those surveyed looked favorably at Iran. Now, it’s 14 percent. The same for Jordan, where Iran’s favorable rating has fallen from 75 percent to 23 percent. And in Kuwait, its neighbor, Iran fares even worse: 85 percent favorable in 2006 versus 6 percent now.

Iran’s leaders certainly recognize this. They know they are growing ever more isolated, dangerously alone. But the ayatollahs seem unable to adjust to their region’s new reality. The leaders of both Iran and Syria have been the leading caustic critics of Israel ― “the resistance,” they call themselves ― hoping that would unify their people and insulate themselves from internal criticism. In August, Ahmadinejad declared that “there will be no room” for Israel after Palestinians form a state.

Well, in Syria, as in every other Arab uprising, nobody’s talking about Israel. The same was true during the Iranian protests in 2009. That old trope holds little meaning for the younger generation now. The median age in Iran is 26; in Syria it’s 22. That doesn’t mean these young people like Israel, as the recent riots outside Israel’s embassy in Cairo showed. But “the resistance” is not even close to a primary concern in their lives.

Nonetheless, from the beginning of the Syrian uprising last March, Iran has been shipping weapons to Assad’s military which are used to kill more Syrian citizens ― at least 3,000 so far ― as well as cash to help the government stave off economic collapse, while blaming America and the West for the violence.

In a particularly hypocritical example, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a senior Iranian official, recently urged Egyptians “to help counter U.S. interference” in Syria. A few days before that, Turkey seized an Iranian weapons shipment on its way to Syria. Earlier this year, Turkey seized an Iranian plane en route to Damascus and impounded crates of assault rifles, mortars and ammunition. The manifest described the cargo as “auto parts.”

So who’s really interfering?

Before Ahmadinejad made his fatuous critical comment, his government had writhed and squirmed to justify its undying support for Syria. Iranians protesting in favor of the Syrian revolt were placed under house arrest. The government suspended aid to Hamas, the Palestinian terror group, because its leaders refused to express support for Assad.

Iran made an agreement to build an airport military compound in Syria ― all the while complaining that the U.S. and Israel were trying to a “spark a sectarian war” in Syria and “hindering political reforms.” (Sometimes you have to wonder: In today’s interconnected world, do leaders like Ahmadinejad actually think anyone, anywhere, sees statements like that as anything other than comical?)

Iran is coming unhinged. While playing ― and losing ― a dangerous double game in Syria, Ahmadinejad promised to release two imprisoned American hikers, only to find that the Iranian courts overruled his decision 24 hours later. Then, a few weeks ago, the state faced a crisis at home. The government warned that “dangerous counter-revolutionaries” from abroad were stoking boisterous squirt-gun games among youths in public parks. Gen. Ahmad Radan said his forces have made arrests.

By Joel Brinkley

Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times. ― Ed.

(Tribune Media Services)