Iran strikes moderate tone over Syria conflict

Iran has adopted an uncharacteristically cautious approach to unfolding events in Syria, striking a balance by both condemning the reported use of chemical weapons in Damascus, while warning against military action by western forces.

Analysts see the Syrian crisis as an early test for the centrist government of Iran�s President Hassan Rouhani, who has vowed to put the country back on a more moderate track and is flexing his muscle to regain influence in certain fields of foreign policy.

�Iran as a victim of the chemical weapon cannot in any way tolerate the use of chemical weapons,� Mohammad-Javad Zarif, Iran�s foreign minister said in a live interview with state television on Tuesday. �Iran is [also] not prepared to tolerate a group of countries . . . invading the region under an excuse . . . and drag it into the abyss of violence and conflict,� he warned.

The US, Britain and France are preparing for a possible military attack on selected Syrian military assets because they believe President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran, is behind the Damascus chemical assault that killed more than 300 people.

The majority in the Islamic regime has so far distanced itself from the rhetoric of some lawmakers and the elite Revolutionary Guards who have warned that Iran would directly intervene against any military action in Syria.

In something of a step-change in rhetoric, the new government has made efforts to curb warmongering and has advocated a UN investigation in Syria.

Even the impassioned comments on Wednesday by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran�s supreme leader and a longtime Assad ally, that any US-led attack would be �a disaster for the region� lacked the threatening language that characterised the era of former president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad.

Experts say Iran was reluctant to directly get involved in the Syrian problem and provoke the international community because it has too many problems of its own to tackle.

The economy is saddled with high inflation, which officially stands at 37.5 per cent � a figure believed by economists to be an underestimate � while the youth unemployment is about 28.3 per cent. The national currency, the rial, has also lost about half of its value over the past year.

Sadegh Zibakalam, a reform-minded political analyst said that the reaction to any attack on Syria would be �verbal condemnation� by both political and religious leaders but he did not believe it would resort to any other measure.

�Iran neither directly nor indirectly would intervene unless the Americans want to occupy Syria,� Mr Zibakalam said.

Mr Rouhani is also keen to break the deadlock in talks with the six major powers over the nuclear programme.

On Wednesday, the UN nuclear watchdog announced Iran will hold a new round of talks on September 27 over the disputed atomic programme, the first such meeting since Mr Rouhani took office.

But this was somewhat overshadowed by the release of the IAEA quarterly report that Iran has installed about 1000 advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges and is set to test them.

Envoys accredited to the IAEA, however, cautioned against attaching too much significance to the report as it mainly covered developments before Mr Rouhani took office on August 3.

The toned down rhetoric of Mr Rouhani�s regime does not mean the regime will stop backing Mr Assad. In his first press conference after his victory in the June election, Mr Rouhani kept to the official line on Syria, emphasising that Mr Assad�s fate should be decided in the 2014 presidential election.

Iran is Mr Assad�s closest supporter, providing him with finance and advisers and allowing its Lebanese ally, the militant group Hizbollah, to directly fight on his side. Syria has been the conduit for Hizbollah weapons coming from Iran, and the Assad regime is seen by Tehran as the critical link in its attempts to spread its influence in the Arab world.

Analysts say if any US-led attack changed the balance of power in the region and paved the way for the overthrow of Assad, Iran may indirectly intervene through a combination of Hizbollah, some Palestinian groups and the Quds Force, the international arm of Iran�s Revolutionary Guards.

It is also a widely-held belief in Iran that the chemical weapon attack was a plot organised by regional opponents of Mr Assad, such as Saudi Arabia and their western allies.

�The [western countries] raised a pre-planned scenario to hearten the defeated [Assad�s Syrian] opponents although the results of [the UN] investigation has not become clear,� Hossein Sheikholeslam, a Syrian expert and an international adviser to the parliamentary speaker, told state television on Tuesday.

Such suspicion is shared by ordinary people in Iran, who tend to be more critical of the regime�s support of Mr Assad�s government.

Iranians blame the west � particularly the US � for backing Iraq�s former President Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, despite his use of chemical weapons against Iranian civilians that cost thousands of lives.

�Although I think Bashar [al-Assad] is a dictator, I don�t think he did this to his people as he has already been experiencing so much international pressure. I suspect this was a plot by the Americans and their regional Arab allies to get rid of him,� said Sepideh, a 40-year-old attorney at law.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.