| Description |
Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Syria and Iran have maintained a strategic alliance. Syria supported Iran throughout the Iran-Iraq war and Iran has been one of Syria's strongest supporters in the conflict with Israel. Throughout this period, the alliance has endured attempts by other Arab states, Israel, and the US to delink Syria from Iran. The purpose of this research is to examine the Syrian-Iranian alliance in an effort to understand its strength and the failure of efforts to draw Syria away from Iran. It explores the nature and strength of the alliance within a neorealist framework of alliance formation and continuation, emphasizing the complexity of the international system and the importance of actors' perceptions of external and domestic threats. The study identifies several factors that played a role in the formation of the alliance and that have contributed to its continuation, and discusses each of them in detail. It also examines the specific efforts that have been made to delink Syria from Iran, and discusses why these efforts have been insufficient. This research concludes that the strength of their relationship is largely the product of their dependence on one another to meet their security objectives, and demonstrates that even during times of economic weakness when defection seemed most likely, Syria was able to overlook its economic needs in order to continue cooperating with Iran on security issues. This study also demonstrates that Syria's relationship with Iran and its links to Hezbollah and the Palestinian rejectionist groups are its primary bargaining tools in the conflict with Israel. Thus, it is unlikely that Syria will give up its relationship with Iran as a precondition to peace negotiations. |
