The long relationship primer of Iran and Syria. Raqqa, Syria is the base of operations for Islamic State. While Barack Obama just authorized and additional 560 Marines for deployment to Iraq for a probable Mosul liberation operation, questions need to be answered: 1. Who will lead the government in towns such as Fallujah and Mosul, much less Iraq? 2. Who will lead Syria if Russia and Iran continue to support Bashir al Assad or will sanctions and other actions force Assad to be removed and he flees?

 Mosul  Raqqa

• Support for radical Palestinian groups: Both allies backed Palestinian groups opposed to negotiations with Israel, such as Hamas. Syria has long insisted that any deal between Palestinians and Israel must also resolve the issue of Israeli-occupied Syrian territory (the Golan Heights). Iran’s interests in Palestine are less vital, but Tehran has used its support for Palestinians to boost its reputation among Arabs and in the wider Muslim world, with varying success.
• Support for Hezbollah: Syria acts as a conduit for the flow of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite movement whose armed wing is the strongest military force in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s presence in Lebanon acts as a bulwark against a possible Israeli land invasion of neighboring Syria, whiling equipping Iran with some retaliatory capability in case of an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.
• Iraq: After the US invasion of Iraq, Iran and Syria worked to prevent the emergence of a US-dependent regime in Baghdad that could pose a threat. While Syria’s influence in its traditionally hostile neighbor remained limited, Iran developed a close relationship with Iraq’s Shiite political parties. To counter Saudi Arabia, the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government followed Iran’s lead by opposing calls for regime change in Syria following the outbreak of the anti-government uprising in the country. Read more here.

Iran, Once Quiet About Its Casualties in Syria and Iraq, Now Glorifies Them

TEHRAN — The first news report, to a nation usually kept in the dark about military matters, was shocking: 13 Iranian soldiers, all with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, had been killed in an ambush near the Syrian city of Aleppo. What followed this spring may have been even more surprising. Details about the soldiers appeared extensively in the Iranian news media, which not only gave the names of the dead but lionized them with sweeping life stories. Poster-size portraits were plastered all over their hometowns.

For years, Iran covered up its military activities in Syria and Iraq, so the government could deny any official involvement on the ground. Coffins arrived with the bodies of soldiers who went unidentified, referred to only as “defenders of the shrines” of the Shiite saints. When the bodies began to come home in larger numbers, the state news media began calling them “volunteers.”

No longer. Now every Iranian killed in action is named, his picture published, his valor lauded in elaborate tributes in the hard-line news media and on Instagram accounts dedicated to the fighters. The reason for the change, analysts say, is not some newfound dedication to transparency but a rift between the Iranian establishment’s hard-liners, who control the military, and the moderates.

The hard-liners, they say, want to prevent any decline in Tehran’s absolute support for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and to undermine the moderates, who they fear might be open to a political settlement in which Mr. Assad would step down.

The Revolutionary Guards see publicizing the sacrifices of the fallen as a way to build domestic support for the current Syria policy and squelch any talk of compromise. The Instagram accounts have attracted tens of thousands of followers, most of them supporting the military effort.

Hard-liners are promulgating Iran’s military successes — and even setbacks — in a variety of ways, including news reports and documentaries. An exhibit at the recent Tehran International Book Fair allowed ordinary Iranians to pose as “defenders of the shrines,” photographed sitting on a military motorcycle in front of a billboard showing a pulverized city street in Syria.

The main focus, however, is on social media.

Facebook and Twitter are blocked by the state in Iran, but the photograph-sharing app Instagram is freely accessible. Previously used mostly by middle-class Iranians showing off new puppies or vacations on the Caspian Sea, the app is now suffused with images of “martyrs” and young men proudly wielding machine guns.

One of the more prominent Instagram accounts is run by a reporter for Iranian state television, Hassan Shemshadi, who honors Iranian fighters and Afghans in the Iran-backed Fatemiyoun brigade.

Mr. Shemshadi’s more than 90,000 followers are treated to selfies and other shots from the front lines in Syria. There are pictures of him doing a stand-up for state television in front of an armored vehicle, of his passport and boarding pass for a flight to Damascus, and of the star officer of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

But most of Mr. Shemshadi’s posts concern the increasing number of Iranian casualties in Syria and Iraq. Since he started posting news of soldiers’ deaths in 2015, he has published a total of 346 mini-obituaries of Iranians and Iranian-backed Afghans in Syria and Iraq. That is a large majority of the 400 or so Iranian and Afghan soldiers thought to have died so far in the conflicts there.

“In the name of the Lord of the Martyrs and the honest, the defenders of the shrine, Asadollah Ebrahimi and Saheb Nazari both from #Fatemiyoun, Mehdi Asgari from #Karaj, Mehdi Bidi from #Tehran, Mohammad Amin Karimian from #Mazandaran were martyred by takfiri terrorists in Syria,” Mr. Shemshadi wrote a week ago, using an Arabic word for infidels. Over 3,700 people said they liked the post.

Mr. Shemsadi continued, “They died while defending the pure Mohammedan Islam and the holy shrines and also maintaining the national security of our country, and ascended to the heavens.”

More here from the NYT’s.

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1.  Iran vs. Saudi Arabia: Perfect Enemies?

At its core, the Iranian-Saudi rivalry is about power and money: two oil-rich giants, vying for control of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow water passage that accounts for almost 20% of all oil traded worldwide (and 40% of all US crude imports pass).

Iran and Saudi Arabia would always struggle to avoid collision, but ethnic and sectarian tension certainly doesn’t help. Iran is a majority Persian country that belongs to the Shiite branch of Islam. The vast majority of Saudis are Sunni Arabs, with a Shiite Arab minority (about 10%).

The two governments are also ideological rivals:

• Wahabism: Saudi royals have spent vast amounts of money funding the spread of the (Sunni) Wahabi school, an ultra-conservative, literal interpretation of Islam, which is the state religion in Saudi Arabia. The official title of the Saudi King includes the duty of the “Guardian of the Two Holy Places”, Mecca and Medina, suggesting a degree of a divine authority.
• Supreme Leader: The Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other hand, has promoted its version of political Islam, a combination of elected republican institutions under the guidance of a Muslim cleric, the Supreme Leader. The founder of the Iranian regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, condemned the Saudi monarchy as a tyrannical, illegitimate clique that answers to Washington, rather than God.

2.  The Rise of Iran & Sunni-Shiite Sectarian Tension

Cultural and ideological differences aside, the growing tension has more to do with Iran’s growing regional clout that threatens Saudi Arabia’s position in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf.

When the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran brought to power Khomeini’s Shiite Islamists, Saudi Arabia feared that Iran would try to export its revolution into the Gulf Arab monarchies. When Iraq attacked Iran in 1980, Saudi Arabia enthusiastically supported Saddam Hussein’s war effort, and the Iraqi dictator remained a bulwark against Iran’s expansion until he was toppled by the US-led coalition in 2003.

The perceived threat never receded. Although Iran’s distinctly Shiite model of an Islamic state found little traction among Sunnis in the Arab world, Gulf Arab monarchs feared that Iran would incite rebellions among Shiite populations in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

With Saddam’s regime now replaced with a government dominated by Shiite political parties friendly to Iran, Saudis thought that the nightmare scenario was closer than ever. In 2004, Jordanian ruler Abdullah II warned of an emerging “Shiite Crescent” in the Middle East.

Since the peak of the Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq (2006-07), the geopolitical rivalries in the Middle East have been acquiring an increasingly sectarian tone. With Iran firmly embedded among the Shiite Islamists in Lebanon and Iraq, Saudi Arabia poses as the protector of Sunnis. Never before has religious identity in the region been so politicized. Read more here, excellent basis and summary.