Syria's alignment with Iran and efforts to encourage Syrian defection

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Title Syria's alignment with Iran and efforts to encourage Syrian defection
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Humanities
Department World Languages & Cultures
Author Rasmussen, Zachary Bret
Date 2011-05
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.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Asad; Iran; Israel; Syria
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Master of Arts
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Zachary Bret Rasmussen 2011
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 184,165 bytes
Identifier us-etd3,14616
Source original in Marriott Library Special Collections ; DS3.5 2011 .R37
ARK ark:/87278/s64t7031
Setname ir_etd
ID 194417
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s64t7031
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