Armin Montazeri, foreign policy editor at Hammihan Daily, an Iranian newspaper, spoke to Middle East Eye on the fast unfolding events in Syria and the view from Tehran:
In 2011, the Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war started and the public in Iran did not have a good opinion of Bashar Assad and his way of dealing with the Syrian protesters.
In the following years, when Iran intervened militarily in Syria, public opinion did not have a positive view either. The Iranian government tried to convince the public by using religious slogans like, “We have to defend the shrine of Zaynab and Ruqayya in Damascus,” but failed.
There were two categories of politicians in Iran at that time, I mean, 2011. A group believed that Bashar Assad should not be helped and that the process in Syria should be supported by Iran through dialogue and understanding between various factions in Syria. This group included some technocrats, pragmatists, and diplomat pragmatists.
The other group believed that Syria was an essential part of Iran’s national security strategy, calling it a “forward defense” in the region. They argued that the fall of the Bashar Assad government could jeopardize Iran’s western borders. They believed that by saving Bashar, they could help Palestinians and Hezbollah very easily.
So, they said helping Bashar Assad was a necessary action. But today, both groups are shocked. Public opinion believes there must have been some kind of conspiracy or a deal behind the scenes. They do not believe that the Syrian army could hand over the battle to the Sunni rebels so easily.
This surprise can also be seen among Iranian politicians. Some of them have complained on TV channels about why the Iranian forces in Syria are not fighting or why the Russians do not intervene. But in general, there is a kind of silence among prominent Iranian officials. A clear position has not yet been made or expressed on this issue.
Of course, apart from the positions that the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has adopted in Doha, the commanders—I mean, the IRGC or Quds Force commanders—have not spoken in this regard yet. It seems there is no good justification. I myself wonder what they’re going to say