Syria Moves Away from Iran

by Eyck Freymann

The BBC reports today that President al-Assad of Syria wants to restore full diplomatic ties with the US. Syria, which has been walking a fine line between congeniality with the West and military alliance with Iran, is now officially on the fence. It will be interesting to see how Obama handles it - Iran's financing and support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas depend on Syria (it's where the weapons come through and the insurgents are trained). Syria now seriously seems to be showing signs that it is afraid of Iran becoming the major power player in the region. Perhaps this is indicative of a larger fear, one that Shiite Iran, if and when it obtains nuclear weapons, will try to absorb parts of Iraq.

Iran, which has the second largest reserves (behind Saudi Arabia) wants to annex the Shiite part of Eastern Iraq because that additional oil would give it the world's largest reserves, and therefore control of the oil oligopoly. Maybe this all really is about oil...