Why Tehran Won’t Abandon Assad(ism) – Mohsen Milani

Professor Mohsen Milani of the University of South Florida, has written a superb piece for The Washington Quarterly on Iran’s foreign policy in Syria:  

“When the Arab Spring reached the Mediterranean shores of Syria in early 2011, there was an ephemeral exuberance that Bashar Assad’s dictatorship would be replaced with a democratic order. Today, Syria has descended into an existential civil war among religious sects and ethnic communities. The country has transformed into a battleground for a proxy war among regional and global powers that pursue irreconcilable objectives. Balkanization of Syria appears underway as the government, the Kurds, and the opposition to President Bashar Assad’s regime control different swaths of the country, while the civil war has ominously metastasized to Syria’s neighbors. Alarmingly, a large number of foreign-born jihadists and terrorists with possible links to al-Qaeda have also flooded the country to foment mischief. Amidst all the destruction, the complex civil war has reached a stubborn stalemate with no breakthrough in sight.

One of the key players in the lingering crisis is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Throughout the past 33 years, Iran has been the most stalwart supporter of Assad’s regime. The question is, how far will the Islamic Republic go to protect the repressive house the Assads–Hafez and Bashar–have built?”

To read the entire article by Milani, please click here.

File photo: Mohsen Milani, Professor of Politics and the Executive Director of Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at the University of South Florida. (USF)

On Green Uprising and Shiism

Stanford’s Abbas Milani discusses the intellectual history of the Green uprising in his article titled “The New Democrats” published in The New Republic [15 July 2009]. Milani examines the link between the political battle underway in Iran and the old theological dispute about the nature of Shiism.

Those who voted for Khatami in 1997; the student movement of 1999; the recent struggle of the bus drivers' union for the rights of its workers; the relentlessly defiant but peaceful women's movement, particularly the attempt to solicit one million signatures in favor of reforming discriminatory laws; and, now, the green uprising of 2009--all owe something to the tradition that Na'ini established more than 100 years ago.”