Iran Spends Billions to Prop Up Assad

[frigidmagi]

bloomberg

Iran is spending billions of dollars a year to prop up the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to the U.N.'s envoy to Syria and other outside experts. These estimates are far higher than what the Barack Obama administration, busy negotiating a nuclear deal with the Tehran government, has implied Iran spends on its policy to destabilize the Middle East.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told me that the envoy estimates Iran spends $6 billion annually on Assad's government. Other experts I spoke to put the number even higher. Nadim Shehadi, the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, said his research shows that Iran spent between $14 and $15 billion in military and economic aid to the Damascus regime in 2012 and 2013, even though Iran's banks and businesses were cut off from the international financial system.

Such figures undermine recent claims from Obama and his top officials suggesting that Iran spends a relative pittance to challenge U.S. interests and allies in the region. While the administration has never disclosed its own estimates on how much Iran spends to back Syria and other allies in the Middle East, Obama himself has played down the financial dimension of the regime's support.

"The great danger that the region has faced from Iran is not because they have so much money. Their budget -- their military budget is $15 billion compared to $150 billion for the Gulf States," he said in an interview last week with Israel's Channel 2.

But experts see it another way. The Christian Science Monitor last month reported that de Mistura told a think tank in Washington that Iran was spending three times its official military budget--$35 billion annually--to support Assad in Syria. When asked about that earlier event, Jessy Chahine, the spokeswoman for de Mistura, e-mailed me: "The Special Envoy has estimated Iran spends $6 billion annually on supporting the Assad regime in Syria. So it's $6 billion not $35 billion."

Either way, that figure is significant. Many members of Congress and close U.S. regional allies have raised concerns that Iran will see a windfall of cash as a condition of any nuclear deal it signs this summer. Obama himself has said there is at least $150 billion worth of Iranian money being held in overseas banks as part of the crippling sanctions. If Iran spends billions of its limited resources today to support its proxies in the Middle East, it would follow that it will spend even more once sanctions are lifted.

The Obama administration disagrees. It says the amount Iran spends on mischief in the region is so low that any future sanctions relief will not make a difference in its behavior. Speaking at a conference this weekend sponsored by the Jerusalem Post, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that even as Iran's economy has suffered from sanctions in recent years, it has been able to maintain its "small" level of assistance to terrorists and other proxies. "The unfortunate truth remains that the cost of this support is sufficiently small, that we will need to remain vigilant with or without a nuclear deal to use our other tools to deter the funding of terror and regional destabilization," he said.

Shehadi and other experts acknowledged that their figures were estimates, because the Tehran regime does not publicize budgets for its Revolutionary Guard Corps or the full subsidies it provides to allies. Nonetheless, Shehadi says, Iranian support to Syria today is substantial, especially when factoring in the line of credit, oil subsidies and other kinds of economic assistance Iran provides the Syrian regime.

Steven Heydemann, who was the vice president for applied research on conflict at the U.S. Institute of Peace until last month, told me earlier this year that the value of Iranian oil transfers, lines of credit, military personnel costs and subsidies for weapons for the Syrian government was likely between $3.5 and $4 billion annually. He said that did not factor in how much Iran spent on supporting Hezbollah and other militias fighting Assad's opponents in Syria. Heydamann said he estimated the total support from Iran for Assad would be between $15 and $20 billion annually.

A Pentagon report released last week was quite clear about what Iran hopes to achieve with its spending: "Iran has not substantively changed its national security and military strategies over the past year. However, Tehran has adjusted its approach to achieve its enduring objectives, by increasing its diplomatic outreach and decreasing its bellicose rhetoric." The report says Iran's strategy is intended to preserve its Islamic system of governance, protect it from outside threats, attain economic prosperity and "establish Iran as the dominant regional power."

If Iran ends up accepting a deal on its nuclear program, it will see an infusion of cash to pursue that regional agenda. Shehadi said this fits a pattern for dictatorships in the Middle East: they preoccupy the international community with proliferation issues while, behind the scene, they continue to commit atrocities.

"In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein was massacring his people and we were worried about the weapons inspectors," Shehadi said. "Bashar al-Assad did that too. He kept us busy with chemical weapons when he massacred his people. Iran is keeping us busy with a nuclear deal and we are giving them carte blanche in Syria and the region."

Honestly, Assad isn't going to get the rest of the country under his control at this point so let the Iranians spend money they can't afford to keep him going if they want. I wish them all the joy of Vietnam and Afghanistan there.

[Lys]

Not like there's much in the way of good options in Syria. The Free Syrian Army is basically irrelevant, the United State's attempts to introduce or prop up other moderate factions are a joke, and we're down to supporting fucking Syrian Al-Qaeda because they're less crazy than Daesh. Fuck, let's just join the Russians in indiscriminately bombing anything that's not Assad or the Kurds so that it can be over already.

[frigidmagi]

Fuck that, Assad forces have raped, tortured and killed more noncombatents then Daesh have. I ain't backing that fuck up.

[Lys]

Have they? Because the impression i've got based on what i read is that in terms of awfulness Daesh tops the charts, though not for lack of trying on Assad's part, i'll give you that much. Really, it's too bad that there's no way the Kurds could hope could hold all of Syria, because if it were i'd be all for simply bombing everyone not the Kurds, flooding the Kurds with all the goddamned guns and ammo (we should do that anyway), and letting them take over. Sure it would mean Syria would still be ruled by a minority, but they're much nicer than the Alawites. It's not like i like Assad, i would happily commend him and all his cronies to the firing squad i thought there was a better option.

[Josh]

Problem with tooling up the Kurds is that it'd grievously offend a certain NATO member in the neighborhood.

[Josh]

Essentially, this is one of those real-world problems with no clear, clean solutions and no happy endings. Good intentions vs. bad actions usually comes out that way.

[Lys]

We're already tooling up the Kurds, we're just being very restrained about it because we're trying to make sure the weapons do not go to groups classified as terrorist organizations. Partly because the US tries to avoid doing that as a matter of policy, and partly because yes it would piss off the Turks. The Turks, however, have not exactly been proving their value as allies of late, as they seem less concerned by Daesh than the Kurds. Which makes sense if you think about it, since Daesh would get its teeth kicked in if it tried going up against the Turkish Army on Turkish soil, while Kurdish nationalists enjoy strong support in the south-east of the country.

[frigidmagi]

Have they? Because the impression i've got based on what i read is that in terms of awfulness Daesh tops the charts, though not for lack of trying on Assad's part, i'll give you that much. Really, it's too bad that there's no way the Kurds could hope could hold all of Syria, because if it were i'd be all for simply bombing everyone not the Kurds, flooding the Kurds with all the goddamned guns and ammo (we should do that anyway), and letting them take over. Sure it would mean Syria would still be ruled by a minority, but they're much nicer than the Alawites. It's not like i like Assad, i would happily commend him and all his cronies to the firing squad i thought there was a better option.

They have, remember Daesh is a recent thing and Assad has been at this for what? 3 years now? 4? He has used wide spread torture, rape and murder to try and suppress the rebellion. He has for years now been committed to a policy of bombing noncombatant areas to try and terrorize civilians into submission. He has also carried out a campaign of assassination on Druze communities that declared neutrality in the conflict which frankly seems idiotic on top of being evil. His forces also pioneered the elephant rockets and barrel bombs that have killed a good number of civilians while conveniently missing Daesh forces...

For that matter Assad himself bears a large part of the blame for Deash! He's the one who released a large number of Islamists from jail at the beginning of the rebellion to radicalize the rebellion. He's avoided attacking them, going so far as to attack other rebel forces that are fighting them, basically giving them free time and ground to grow. He does this with the aim of getting everyone to support him because the alternative is those nasty Islamist. To start supporting Assad is to reward the one guy in Syria who

A: Could have stopped them from forming but elected to help them out
B: Did the least humanly possible to fight them, I mean seriously Al-fucking-Nursa has done more fighting against Deash
C: Has acted pretty much like them only hasn't covered his actions in a religious gloss

You're basically rewarding bad behavior and ensuring any future tyrant will find the strategy attractive. I'm going to take the position that's a bad idea and say no.

Lastly I find myself incredibly pole axed that people suggest Assad is somehow a good or least bad option for Syria. He can't give us a stable nation, his responses were what turned this into a disastrous mess in the first place! His operations have been ham fisted at best and I remain deeply unconvinced that he can actually reconqear the Sunni areas without massive on the ground foreign support, which will excite more Jihadi response (I'm an Iraqi War vet, I might have some experience in this area).

Hell the reasons the Iranians and Russians are moving more forces in to prop up Assad is because most of his native support has been bled fucking white following his assine hold all corners plan.

He's incompetent, he's brutal, he's opposed to our interests and is half responsible for the biggest problem in this mess. To pitch in with him would be an act of utter lunacy!

[Lys]

You know it's rather tempting to suggest it would be great if Assad and his command structure suffered some kind of horrible accident that allowed some fresh blood to take over in the Alawite camp. Problem is we've tried that before elsewhere and it doesn't exactly have the best track record. Also if Assad were anything but really difficult to assassinate he would have already been assassinated by one of the very long list of people who want his ass dead. Hell, i'm sure the Russians and Iranians would happily kill him themselves if they could figure out a way to pull it off without collapsing his faction.

[Josh]

We're already tooling up the Kurds, we're just being very restrained about it because we're trying to make sure the weapons do not go to groups classified as terrorist organizations. Partly because the US tries to avoid doing that as a matter of policy, and partly because yes it would piss off the Turks. The Turks, however, have not exactly been proving their value as allies of late, as they seem less concerned by Daesh than the Kurds. Which makes sense if you think about it, since Daesh would get its teeth kicked in if it tried going up against the Turkish Army on Turkish soil, while Kurdish nationalists enjoy strong support in the south-east of the country.

Yeah, exactly that we're doing it in a low-profile way. 'Good' allies or not, we can't openly load up folks who are likely to pass goodies on to folks who get about blowing up Turkish shit.

This shit's going to have to evolve toward its own solution. There isn't an external solution short of going Chechnya on the area, which is not a viable option with representative governments operating under massive glare of media.

[Lys]

Back in 2012, after Assad had fucked up and failed to do anything but make the unrest and rebellion worse, Marina said that Syria would bleed for the next 15 years. Sadly it looks like she might be right.