Foreword

In recent times, Muslim peoples have generally lived in ignorance of each other.
Even neighboring peoples, such as the Turks and the Iranians, have known very
little of what transpires on the other side of their common frontier; and remarkably
few Muslims have a detailed and precise understanding of the social, political, and
cultural circumstances of countries other than their own. This lack of mutual
awareness powerfully fostered by the superpowers and their surrogates has
brought about a particularly damaging form of separation among Muslims. Even
Muslims trying to establish an Islamic order in their own homelands have often
failed to appreciate the situation confronting their brethren elsewhere. This book will
help Muslims in other parts of the world understand the Islamic struggle in Syria.
It is particularly imperative that the people and government of the Islamic Republic
of Iran take stock of the current situation in Syria, together with its antecedents,
with a view to revising Iranian policy toward the country. The Islamic Revolution of
Iran has aroused enthusiasm in the Muslim world, and its potential for realizing
Islamic unity is unparalleled by any other event in recent Islamic history. However,
Irans policy of friendship with the regime of Hafiz Asad and hostility to the Islamic
movement of Syria constitutes a serious obstacle to the Islamic Republics efforts to
deepen and extend its support among the Muslims of the world and aids those who
seek to confine the impact of the revolution in Iran.
Close ties with the Nusairi-Bathist regime of Hafiz Asad have been a consistent
element in the Islamic Republics foreign policy since its inception; in this respect,
there is nothing to differentiate from each other such foreign ministers as Ibrahim
Yazdi, Sadiq Qutbzadah, and Ali Akbar Vilayati. In fact, as the political structure of
the Islamic Republic has grown more cohesive, the policy of generous friendship
with Hafiz Asad has become firmer and more emphatic, to the point that an
effective alliance with his regime now appears to be the mainstay of Iranian policy
in the Arab world.
It is enough to review some of the developments that have taken place during the
past year. On October 25, 1981, an Iranian delegation headed by Husain Shaikh alIslam, political undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, set out for Syria and
Lebanon on a journey designed to arouse opposition to the Fahd Plan and reaffirm
links between Tehran and Damascus. 1 On December 4, Prime Minister Musavi said of
the explosion in the Azbakiya quarter of Damascus (which destroyed three centers
of Hafiz Asads state terror) that it was the work of pro-Israeli or rightist elements,
thereby echoing the Asad regimes propaganda. 2 Then, at the end of December,
came another official visit to Damascus, in the course of which Foreign Minister
Vilayati handed Hafiz Asad an invitation to visit Iran. Commenting on the proposed
visit which fortunately has still not taken place- Prime Minister Musavi said that it
would enable Hafiz Asad to become acquainted with the realities of our Islamic

Revolution.3 One week later, the organ of the Islamic Republican party proudly
announced that Syria had declared official support for the Islamic Revolution of
Iran and had one of its reporters inter-.(2 pages missed)

Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, all the delegations he sent to Tehran to plead for a
change in policy returned empty-handed, and they even discovered that their
journeys to Iran had been reported in detail to the Asads regime. 10 According to
officials in the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the Brotherhood ideological and political
positions, with regard to the United States and its surrogates in the Middle East,
were found wanting.
The explanation commonly advanced for the close ties between Damascus and
Tehran is that they rest on a basis of sectarian solidarity, that the Islamic Republic
sees fellow Shiis in the Nusairis the so-called Alawis- of Syria. This explanation is
particularly favored by those who have wished from the outset to present the
Islamic Revolution of Iran as sectarian, although in many cases they have
themselves been motivated by sectarianism. It is true that the Nusairis have in
recent years sought to present themselves as Shii Muslims. 11 Moreover, certain
indirect religious links have existed between Iran and the Nisairis of Syria: Musa
Sadr, the Iranian religious scholar who migrated to Lebanon to assume the
leadership of that countrys Shii community, is said to have had close personal ties
to Hafiz Asad, even acting as his speechwriter on occasion. 12
The sectarian explanation is inadequate, however, for at least two reasons. First, if
the Islamic Revolution were indeed devoted to promotion of Shii Islam, at the
expense of Sunni Muslims, this would presumably be reflected in all its policies,
particularly its internal ones, whereas Shii-Sunni relations are uncommonly cordial
and harmonious within Iran. Indeed, aspirations for Sunni-Shii unity throughout the
Muslim world are deep and sincere in Iran. Second, the case of Syria is not unique,
for Iran also maintains ties with other dubious regimes in the Arab world members
of the so-called Steadfastness Front- that cannot even marginally be identified as
Shii.
This association of Iran with the Steadfastness Front probably explains its close ties
with Hafiz Asad.13 The cause of Palestine has always been dear to the Islamic
movement of Iran, and, even before the revolution, there was a marked tendency to
take at face value progressive Arab leaders who present themselves as militant
foes of Zionism. Despite the numerous ambiguities of Hafiz Asads record on the
Palestine question, he is seen in Tehran as genuinely committed to the major
objective of confrontation with Israel; so his regimes internal policies escape close
scrutiny and all opposed to him must necessarily be traitors or at the very least
misguided. Almost every official communication between Iran and Syria has
included references to the joint struggle against Israel and to Iranian readiness to

fight side by side with the Syrian army against Zionism. The fact that the chief
mission of the Syrian army, like that of the Iranian army under the Shah, is domestic
repression, not external defense, goes unnoticed.
Some slight glimmer of recognition is, however, dawning in Iran that its policy of
friendship with the regime of Hafiz Asad requires justification. The division of the
Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for assessing liberation movements and the
degree to which they merit the support the Islamic Republic of Iran has recently
published a lengthy analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood, paying particular attention
the Brotherhood in Syria. 14 Many points in the analysis are valid, such as the
Brotherhoods frequent inability to secure organizational continuity and ideological
coherence as well as certain Brotherhood leaders collaboration with pro-Western
regimes. But the portions relating to Syria are dubious accuracy and fails to provide
an acceptable rationale for Iranian policy.
It is claimed, for example, that the Muslim Brotherhoods opposition to the Asad
regime is entirely sectarian in motivation and that its members have magnified the
Sunni-Shii division for narrow political reasons. Leaving aside the question of
whether Hafiz Asad and fellow Nusairis qualify as Shii Muslims, it must be noted
that the Brotherhood (and the Islamic Front as a whole) has in fact condemned
sectarianism which is one of the most obvious features of Hafiz Asads rule and
called upon the Nusairi community to participate in a joint national struggle against
the Asad regime.
Still more surprising in the Revolutionary Guard analysis is the implicit parallel
established between the Islamic Front in Syria and the Sazman-I Mujahidin-I Khalq in
Iran. The Asad regime is encouraged to expose the treacherous nature of the
Front to the Syrian people, just as the Islamic Republic of Iran unmasked the true
intentions of the Mujahidin. This equation of the Syrian struggle to overthrow a
militantly anti-Islamic regime with the Mujahidins campaign to destroy the Islamic
Republic is grotesque.
Similarly unconvincing is the Revolutionary Guards attempt to distinguish between
the reactionary positions of the international leadership of the Muslim
Brotherhood and a popular line prevailing among the membership. The
international leadership has, in fact, adopted a positive attitude toward the Islamic
Republic of Iran on a number of occasions, including the confrontation between Iran
and the United States following the detention of the hostages in Iran. 15 The
international leadership also condemned the Iraqi aggression against Iran, a
position that the Syrian Islamic Front repudiated because of the continuing ties
between Tehran and Damscus. 16 The Revolutionary Guard ought to have evaluated
the international leadership more favorably.
The only positive feature in the analysis as it relates to Syria is the admission
probably for the first time in the Iranian press- that innocent Muslims have been

killed in Syria and that Muslim women are being forcibly deprived of their hijab.
However, the blame for these acts is not placed where it clearly belongs with the
Asad regime. It is claimed instead that elements exist in the Syrian government
with pro-Western tendencies who repress them [the members of the Islamic Front]
in such an extensive way that innocent Muslims are also killed. As a remedy, it is
proposed that repression be more discriminating. Likewise, attacks on Muslim
women in the streets of Syrian cities are supposedly the work not of the regime but
of elements and lines opposed to Islam, against which, for some unexplained
reason, the government is unable to take decisive measures. To suggest that
uncontrollable elements, not the regime of Hafiz Asad, are responsible for the
assault on Islam and Muslims in Syria, is nave at best.
A capacity of self-criticism is no doubt difficult to combine with revolutionary fervor,
particularly when a revolution is under sustained and massive attack, as has been
the case with the Islamic Revolution of Iran. The leadership of the Islamic Front has
shown a lack of clarity in some of its positions, failing, for example, to condemn, or
even identify by name, the chief financier and supporter of the Syrian slaughter
the Saudi regime that, with fine impartiality, makes its resources available to the
twin varieties of Bathist evil, the Syrian and the Iraqi. The recent alliance of the
Islamic Front with various secular groups and parties in Syria is also a matter of
concern.
None of this can justify the continued Iranian friendship with the murderous regime
of Hafiz Asad, a friendship that clearly runs counter to the stipulation in the
Constitution of the Islamic Republic that its foreign policy be based upon, inter alia,
the defense of the right of all Muslims. 17 It is time that this principle be
consistently reflected in a sober, reasoned and informed policy that excludes
collaboration with oppressive regimes. It is time, in other words, that Iran cease
disregarding the slaughter of innocents in Syria, the ties of Hafiz Asad to the East
and West, and the repeated complicity of his regime in the destruction of the
Palestinian people.
It is encouraging to note that there are many in Ira who are opposed to the
continuation of friendly ties with Hafiz Asad: a high-ranking official of the Ministry of
Islamic Guidance even went so far in private conversation as to offer the opinion
that Hafiz Asad is a worse enemy of Islam than the Shah himself was. More
significantly, perhaps, the volunteers from the Corps of Revolutionary Guards who
went to Syria at the onset of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon hoping to proceed to
the front have returned to Iran fully enlightened on the true nature of Hafiz Asads
regime and its policies. Foreign minister Vilayati, however, continues to defend with
vigor albeit unconvincingly- Iranian policy toward Syria, 18 and it often seems that
only one of two events could change the policy: a reconciliation between Hafiz Asad
and Saddam Husain or the formal signing of a peace treaty between Syria and
Israel.

The revision of Iranian policy remains, in any event, an urgent necessity, one
enhanced by the fact that Iran has succeeded in expelling Iraqi forces from its
territory and thereby increased its ability to influence the destinies of the Arab
world. The great victories of Iranian arms have come at a time when Israel and its
Maronite allies have been engaged in an unprecedented campaign of massacre in
Lebanon, to which the response of the Arab regimes has been unprecedented
passivity. The dispatch of Iranian volunteers to Syria at the onset of the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon was a welcome gesture, even though it had no practical
consequences, and is a sign that the Islamic Republic alone may prove to possess
the will and the capacity to confront Zionism with the unyielding enmity it deserves.
But for the full potential of the Iranian role to be realized, it is necessary to discard
the alliance with Hafiz Asad and put an end to the loss of moral authority and
political credibility that alliance ahs entailed.
12 Dhul-Hijjah 1402/30 September 1982
Hamid Alagar
Note:
After the completion of this work, it was shown to a person familiar with the Islamic
movement in Syria. His view of events and persons differed somewhat from that of
the author and is recorded in a series of footnotes, where he is identified as source
nine.