Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Syria on Thursday in a signal to the world that the two allies, both facing threats of referral to the U.N. Security Council, will not be cowed. The two-day visit, Ahmadinejad's first bilateral foreign trip since taking office in August, comes at a time of intense pressure for Syria and Iran, caught in separate standoffs with the international community, analysts say."This visit comes as part of a series of policy stances Ahmadinejad has made since taking office. Iran has already announced its support for Syria's president. This expresses clear Iranian backing for Syria in times of pressure," said Talal Atrisi, a Lebanese analyst and Iran expert. "Iran also wants to tell the world that pressure from the United States and European Union on the nuclear file will not detract it from its interest in the Syria-Lebanon-Israel front."
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has already made a point of being the first head of a foreign state to visit Iran after Ahmadinejad, a religious conservative, took office. Iran's new president seized that opportunity to vow closer cooperation in the face of U.S. pressure and is returning the visit at a time when Assad finds himself particularly isolated.
The United States and the European Union's three biggest powers, Britain, France and Germany said this month that Iran's resumption of nuclear research meant it should be referred to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions. Iran removed the U.N. seals on its uranium enrichment equipment but says it has no intention of building nuclear arms and seeks only a peaceful programme.
Syria also faces pressure from the Security Council, which passed a resolution in October demanding it cooperate fully with a U.N. inquiry into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri or risk unspecified further action. Syria has denied any involvement in the murder but has said it will not allow investigators to question Assad in the case. Lebanon has been gripped by a political crisis since Hariri's killing which has divided the country between pro-and anti-Syrian factions.
Neither Syria nor Iran face an imminent threat of military action or broad sanctions at the Security Council, but will come under more diplomatic pressure on every front, analysts say. Long fixtures on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, Tehran and Damascus are the main backers of Lebanon's Hizbollah group, itself under pressure to disarm in line with a U.N. resolution that last year forced Syria to pull its troops out of its smaller neighbour after a 29-year military presence. Hizbollah, the only Lebanese group to keep its arms after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, was instrumental in ending Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Both Syria and Iran accuse the United States of seeking to force regional backing for policies that further the interests of their arch foe Israel at the expense of Muslims and Arabs. They defend Hizbollah as resistance against the Jewish state. Allies in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Syria and Iran also face U.S. accusations that they are turning a blind eye to insurgents crossing into Iraq to derail the democratic process. Both say they are doing their utmost to control their long and porous borders with Iraq.
"Iran wants to send a message that it is not too concerned about this international pressure, that its hands are not tied because it is the United States and EU states that are split on how to pursue the threats they have made to Iran," Atrisi said.