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Analysis: U.S. strike on Syria could derail Iran president's master plan

04 September 2013 18:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. If one thing could scuttle Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's big plan - to fix Iran's economy by winning some relief from Western sanctions - a U.S. strike on Tehran's ally Syria is it.

Rouhani's June election landslide won him the cautious backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to pursue his pledge to engage with Western countries and attempt to ease Iran's isolation over Tehran's nuclear program, APA reports quoting Reuters.

But the hardliners Rouhani defeated at the polls still dominate parliament and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and are poised to return Iran to the familiar posture of defiance if the president's message of moderation falls on deaf ears abroad.

As the president prepares to travel to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly this month, U.S. military strikes on Syria could derail Rouhani's diplomacy before it even starts.

"You can hardly think of a more unlucky situation for a moderate government which wants to relax tensions with the world," wrote columnist Maziar Khosravi in Iran's reformist Sharq newspaper on Monday, referring to the likelihood of U.S. strikes to punish Assad for an apparent chemical weapons attack near Damascus on August 21.

Syria is Iran's sole regional ally, and Western foes say Tehran is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with arms, cash and Revolutionary Guardsmen to train militia to help win the civil war.

A U.S. strike on Syria would spell "the end of a diplomacy aimed at reducing tensions with the West and reconciliation with the world," wrote Sadeq Zibakalam, a professor at Tehran University, in Etemad, another reformist newspaper, last week.

"The atmosphere between Syria's allies and the West, after a Western attack on Syria, will become so cold and dark that there would be practically no space for reducing tensions and improving relations ... Iran will be forced to change its tone towards the West to a hostile one."