Of all powers in the Middle East, none did as much as Iran to help President Bashar al-Assad weather the Syrian civil war.
When Assad’s regime fell in late 2024 to a coalition of rebel groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Tehran lost its closest Arab ally, constituting a major crisis and humiliating setback for Iran. The amount of blood and treasure that the Islamic Republic invested in shoring up Assad’s government meant that his overthrow was, as the senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Behrouz Esbati put it, a “very bad defeat” for Iran.
Now, approximately six months into the post-Assad era, Syria and Iran are cautiously re-engaging in limited ways that underscore a pragmatic approach by both Damascus and Tehran.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is intent on strengthening diplomatic and strategic relations with the West, building on his recent fruitful engagements with the U.S. and France. In pursuit of this goal, he is likely to exercise considerable caution in his dealings with Tehran, mindful of the fact that Washington and most European capitals view Iran with deep suspicion and regard the Islamic Republic as a destabilizing force in the Middle East. As such, he will seek to avoid any actions or overtures toward Iran that could jeopardize his efforts to build trust and cooperation with Western powers.
As reported by the National, an Abu Dhabi-based media outlet, on May 20, Iranian officials have acknowledged being in “indirect” communication with Syria’s relatively new government, with Turkey and Qatar acting as intermediaries.
Nevertheless, Tehran has signaled that it is “not in a hurry” to reestablish full diplomatic relations.
Mohammad Sheibani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's special envoy for Syrian affairs, explained that the Islamic Republic is “watching and waiting” to see how Syria’s situation plays out under Sharaa’s HTS-dominated government. According to the National, Tehran is seeking to find ways to possibly engage Syria’s current government and revive Iranian investments previously made in the Syrian economy.
As for direct talks, the Iranian diplomat specified that “appropriate” conditions on political and security grounds would need to take hold prior to direct talks with Sharaa’s government. He voiced his concerns about instability in post-Assad Syria potentially fueling “growth of terrorism and ISIS” — identified by Sheibani as a threat not only to Syria but the entire Middle East. Stability in Syria, he argued, requires “the whole political spectrum” to participate in the country’s political process.
Batu Coşkun, a political analyst at the Sadeq Institute (an independent public policy think tank based in Tripoli, Libya), expects Iran to eventually formalize diplomatic relations with Syria’s post-Ba’ath government.
“Syria is being embraced in the Arab world and Western sanctions are easing,” he told RS. “It’s unthinkable that Iran would not formalize diplomatic ties, particularly as Tehran’s regional rivals, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, have emerged as al-Sharaa’s primary interlocutors. Though at the current stage, Iran remains reliant on the current power brokers in Syria, namely Turkey and the Gulf.”
Balancing the US and Iran
The White House’s shifting stance toward post-Assad Syria is an important factor to consider when assessing Damascus’s perspective on engagement with Iran. At least for now, President Donald Trump’s administration is aligning Washington’s Syria foreign policy more closely with Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, as demonstrated by Trump’s recent face-to-face meeting with Sharaa in Riyadh in mid-May and his administration’s lifting of some U.S. sanctions on Syria.
With Sharaa seeking better ties with the U.S. and other Western powers, he will be careful to avoid moves toward Tehran that might undermine his efforts to establish a positive image of his government in the West’s eyes.
“Sharaa seems to be saying all the right things related to the U.S., and how Trump’s national security elite view the region. This can be tied to his comments related to normalizing ties with Israel, and positioning Syria as a country open for business with the West,” said Coşkun. “Likely, Sharaa will retain his distance [from] Tehran as the new Syria’s goal of cultivating strong ties to Western powers eclipses any need for an urgent rapprochement with Tehran.”
“Both Iran and Syria are testing each other’s boundaries and moving towards an informal, pragmatic relation at a time of radical uncertainty, mainly due to the U.S.’s unpredictable strategy in the region,” said Marina Calculli, assistant professor in International Relations at Leiden University, in an RS interview. “Overall, Tehran sees the Syrian government as subjugated to the influence of the United States, and therefore unable to establish its own foreign relations.”
Nonetheless, Sharaa will probably be careful to avoid making too much of an enemy out of Iran. Although Iran and the “Axis of Resistance” are weaker today as a result of the 2023-24 Israel-Hezbollah conflict and Assad’s fall last year, the Islamic Republic maintains substantial clout in Iraq and Lebanon — two countries on Syria’s borders with which Sharaa wants to establish positive relations.
“Iraq is especially important for trade, water and energy and these deals cannot happen without the green light by pro-Iran Iraqi political factions,” Calculli said. “[Sharaa] may think that in a long-term perspective it is unrealistic and unwise to antagonize Iran. It may also be unwise to do so in a short-term perspective, especially at a time in which Iran is trying to conclude a deal with the U.S.”
The Turkish and Qatari bridges
Turkey and Qatar’s desires for a certain “balance” in Syria largely motivates Ankara and Doha to serve as diplomatic bridges between Damascus and Tehran.
On one hand, Ankara and Doha want to prevent Syria from becoming “a zone of Iranian influence,” said Javad Heiran-Nia, the director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Iran (a primarily self-funded NGO that receives a portion of its funding from the Iranian government). But he also explained that, on the other hand, Turkey and Qatar have interests in bringing Tehran to recognize the relatively new Syrian government “to ensure that Iran is not completely sidelined from Syria’s political landscape.”
Furthermore, as Heiran-Nia observed, Iran, Turkey, and the GCC members have some common cause in post-regime change Syria.
“The disintegration of Syria and the resurgence of terrorist groups in the country are shared concerns for Iran and regional states, including Turkey and Qatar. Aside from Israel, no country in the region benefits from Syria’s fragmentation. Thus, Israeli influence in Syria and the occupation of parts of it are also common concerns for Iran, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf Arab states,” he told RS.
Turkey and Qatar seem to be mostly in the same boat when it comes to questions about post-Assad Syria’s foreign policy. Turkey and Qatar were major winners from Syrian regime change, and as key conduits for other nations looking to reestablish ties with the Islamist rebels-turned-rulers in Damascus, Ankara and Doha have played pivotal roles in facilitating Syria’s reintegration into the international community.
These Turkish and Qatari efforts were instrumental in securing the latest round of sanctions relief. In contrast, the lack of any significant Iranian role in these developments reflects a broader shift in regional power dynamics, marking a relative decline in Tehran’s influence alongside the rising prominence of Ankara and Doha, which have vested interests in shaping Sharaa’s perception of regional actors, including Iran, and how Damascus engages with them.
Ultimately, the transformation in Syria’s foreign relations since the collapse of the Ba’ath regime almost six months ago is remarkable. The very states that once stood as Assad’s fiercest regional adversaries in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising — Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia — now appear to be the closest partners of the “New Syria.” In a striking reversal, Iran, once Assad’s most steadfast regional ally, now finds itself reliant on these Sunni powers as intermediaries simply to maintain dialogue with Syria’s post-regime change leadership.
credit: US Army
