Iran Looks For Its Lost Billions In Syria
Mardo Soghom
Iran International
The release of Iran’s $6 billion frozen funds from South Korea has prompted a website in Tehran to ask: What about over $30 billion owed by the Syrian regime?
Iran International
The release of Iran’s $6 billion frozen funds from South Korea has prompted a website in Tehran to ask: What about over $30 billion owed by the Syrian regime?
Aftab News, a website relatively independent of the current rulers and said to be close to other regime insiders, argued in an article published Thursday, that the outlook for Syria to pay Iran back looks bleak. Iran has a small share of Syria’s trade, roughly one-tenth of what Turkey exports to the country. Annual Iranian exports are less than $1.5 billion.
Both Iran and its ally, the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria face serious economic challenges. Iran’s finances have steadily deteriorated since 2018 when the United States imposed sanctions after withdrawing from the JCPOA nuclear accord. Syria has remained in political limbo, insecurity, with various military groups roaming in the country and its other ally Russia weakened by its invasion of Ukraine.
United Nations envoy for Syria sounded the alarm to a worsening economic situation on Wednesday. “Prices are now spiraling out of control for essential goods such as food, medicine, fuel, basic commodities. Every part of Syria, every community, is affected,” said Geir O. Pedersen, adding many are struggling to put food on the table and feed their families.
As it usually happens, a man who is broke remembers what others owe him. So, the story goes for the Islamic Republic that aligned itself with Assad in 2011 as antiregime protests flared in the country. The clerical regime seeing its close ties with Assad as essential for its regional plans, supported Damascus with loans, free oil and tens of thousands of Iranian, Afghan, Lebanese, Iraqi and other fighters.
Now, when Iran suffers from a serious economic crisis some people in Tehran realize that they have spent tens of billions of dollars in Syria – a significant part of their restricted oil revenues – for a dubious outcome.
Estimates range from $30 billion to more than $50 billion material aid provided to the Assad regime. Tehran’s oil revenues in this period averaged from below $20 billion to above $40 billion annually. Therefore, it is safe to estimate that from 2011-2022 oil revenues hardly totaled $400 billion. If Iran spent $50 billion in Syria, that would be more than 10 percent of its total income from oil.
The $50 billion figure was revealed in May when an opposition hactivist group accessed government information. Minutes from a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council showed that Syria’s debt goes back to a long-term agreement signed between the two countries in January 2019, under former president Hassan Rouhani. However, the debt has been building for much longer, with roughly $11bn worth of oil given to Damascus from 2012 to 2021.
A combination of aid in the form of military support and cash, the total amount of debt to Iran is estimated to be about $50 billion, though the document said the final amount is still being calculated.
Aftab News listed an array of potentially profitable industries in Syria that Iran is interested to take under its control as compensation for money the Assad regime owes, but so far there has been no movement toward an agreement. A visit by President Ebrahim Raisi to Damascus in early May did not produce any breakthrough.
Among objects of interest to Iran are Syrian oil fields, new power stations, port facilities and mines. But Aftab News said that these need investments to become profitable, money that Iran does not have.
Former Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani has been making controversial comments about state affairs, primarily through a couple of interviews with online media sources or in meetings with entrepreneurs in Iran during the past few days.
Hardline daily Khorasan explained Larijani’s behavior as a signal to indicate that he is willing to play a part in the upcoming parliamentary elections although it is clear that he is not a candidate for the March 2024 polls.
Khorasan wrote that Larijani ignored the Interior Ministry’s call for pre-registration, a process that is not part of the formal procedure for announcing one’s candidacy. However, he told likeminded politicians to register their candidacy and run for the parliament.
The daily, which is affiliated to the administration of the holy shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad and is funded by Khamenei’s office, opined that Larijani will support the candidacy of several moderate conservative politicians and former lawmakers such as his brother-in-law Ali Motahari, as well as others including Mansoor Haqiqatpoor and Ezattollah Yousefian Molla.
As per Rouydad24, Larijani has recently criticized Iran’s foreign policy by saying that these gentlemen [presumably Iran’s top diplomats, or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who determines the country’s foreign policy] think it is important to have influence in some foreign capitals. However, he emphasized that our paramount objective should be to ensure our citizens lead stable lives and can chart their future with confidence.
Meanwhile, he cautioned the government against embracing the Marxist notion that nations are merely workers requiring governance by the authorities.
Highlighting that liberalism surpasses Marxism as a governing approach, offering citizens an abundance of choices in various scenarios, Larijani noted the presence of a third path – the Islamic approach. In this path, the government facilitates the populace's productive endeavors, an approach he described as empowering the people. According to him, this strategy holds the potential to propel the nation's progress.
Clearly criticizing Khamenei without naming him, Larijani said: "It is not enough to say where we want to be in 20 years. We need to have a reasonable development plan."
Meanwhile, in a meeting with a group of entrepreneurs over the weekend , Larijani said: "Some politicians define social justice as giving cash handouts to the people. But the main responsibility of the government is bringing about sustainable development." He was clearly referring to populist politicians such as President Ebrahim Raisi and his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in the absence of satisfactory economic growth offer small monthly cash payments to all or part of the citizens.
Larijani added that sustainable development also ensures better outcomes for economic, social, political and security issues of the country.
Larijani who started his political career in early 1990s as a hardliner coming from the ranks of the revolutionary guards (IRGC), gradually changed into a moderate conservative politician during the past decade, and aligned his political affiliation with politicians such as former President Hassan Rouhani.
In another development, Aftab News quoted Larijani as saying that "Some people have mistaken political power with the use of force."
According to Aftab News, criticizing the government's harsh treatment of artists with a lifestyle different from what hardliners propagate, Larijani said: "What do artists want? They want a [normal] life and the freedom for artistic creation. The government needs to reach a common understanding with Iranian artists."
The latest statistics from the 'Arbaeen Headquarters' indicate that only 1,335,000 individuals have applied for special passports for the religious ceremony, approximately one-third of the number of participants in the previous year.
Arbaeen (literally meaning fortieth) is a Shiite religious observance that occurs forty days after the Day of Ashura, when according to religious legend Husayn (Hussain) ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad was killed on the 10th day of the month of Muharram in 680 AD.
The number of pilgrims will increase as there are about two weeks until the Arbaeen ceremony, which falls on September 6 this year, but even if the country keeps issuing passports with its maximum capacity, the number will end up significantly lower than previous years.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Sharafi, a police commander in charge of the Arbaeen Headquarters, said Tuesday, “We received approximately 1,335,000 applications for passports, and so far, 640,000 passports have been delivered. We are currently printing 100,000 passports daily after tripling our capacity.”
The Islamic Republic regime views the event as a show of influence in the region, encouraging high participation via numerous perks, including providing free medical services and rest stops along the way, free internet on the road and inside Iraq, offering interest-free loans and granting 200,000 Iraqi dinars ($153) to pilgrim as well as special passports with less bureaucratic requirements. The ration of cheap foreign currency – which used to be dollars or euros until this year – will be paid from Iran's frozen funds in Iraq, about to be released as part of a prisoner swap deal with the United States.
Millions of Shiite Muslims travel to the Iraqi city of Karbala, the site of the Shiite Imam’s shrine for Arbaeen. A large number of the pilgrims start their journey from other religious cities – such as Najaf and Kadhimiya in Iraq -- and walk on foot for days – sometimes hundreds of kilometers -- to reach Karbala. There are no reliable methods for tallying the number of visitors to Iraqi holy Shia sites during Arbaeen. In 2019, before the pandemic, an estimated 15 million people from various countries attended the ceremonies.
The route from Najaf to Karbala is the most popular one and the Islamic Republic has set up dozens of stations providing free food and refreshments as well as rest areas on the way.
Aref Norouzi, a senior official at the Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order’ (Setad), claims that the "largest and most well-equipped mobile hospital in the Middle East" will be established by the organization along the route from Najaf to Karbala.
Despite reports of shortages of medicines and medical staff in a lot of regions across the country, the regime has dispatched 22,000 medical personnel and emergency responders for the event. At least seven field hospitals have been set up and two helicopter ambulances and more than 100 regular ambulances have been stationed just at the Khosravi border crossing, one of several main crossings between Iran and Iraq.
More than 4,000 physicians, along with approximately 400 tons of medication and equipment, are prepared for Arbaeen pilgrims, Iran’s Red Crescent Society said.
According to Iran’s Customs Administration, more than 30,500 tons of foodstuffs and 800,000 liters of gasoline are to be transferred to Iraq for Arbaeen. This comes as Iran is struggling to supply its daily needs of fuel that has led to long lines of cars at gas stations and a gasoline black market. Providing food is also among the grievances of Iranian households as the prices jumped in the past year.
In addition to medical and healthcare personnel, municipal, road maintenance, and transportation workers have also been deployed, including only 4,000 Tehran municipality employees.
Majid Mirahmadi, a deputy interior minister and the head of Iran's taskforce for Arbaeen pilgrimage, had predicted that this year more than four million Iranian pilgrims will travel to Iraq. The figure is a speculation based on the number of pilgrims in the previous years but this year the annual Shiite mourning ceremonies took an unprecedented anti-regime tone as people chanted religious verses that were critical of the regime and its repressive actions.
Despite government efforts to mitigate economic and other challenges faced by pilgrims it appears that people are becoming more distant from the pilgrimage due to its association with the Islamic Republic and its policies.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul have written to Biden accusing him of breaking a 2015 law by negotiating a secret nuclear “understanding” with Iran and hiding it from Congress.
Any negotiations and agreements with Iran must go through the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which clearly states that within five days after reaching any agreement with Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program, the President must relay to Congress several issues for approval.
These include “the text of the agreement and all related materials and annexes; a related verification assessment report of the Secretary of State; a certification that the agreement includes the appropriate terms, conditions, and duration of the agreement's requirements concerning Iran's nuclear activities, and provisions describing any sanctions to be waived, suspended, or otherwise reduced by the United States and any other nation or entity, including the United Nations”.
The three Republicans wrote to Biden of their “significant concern” that the administration is pursuing a nuclear understanding with Iran alongside a hostage release deal. Earlier this month, five dual US-Iranian citizens held in Iran were released in return for the unfreezing of $6bn of Iranian funds in South Korea, a move which experts said only compound Iran’s policy of hostage taking for gaining leverage against the West.
The letter, dated August 21, stated “any such deal or understanding with Iran that does not permanently and completely halt Iran’s nuclear enrichment raises concerns that your Administration is entrenching an Iranian nuclear program that threatens US national security”, detailing the rapidly increasing levels of uranium enrichment revealed this year.
“Reducing the rate at which Iran is stockpiling 60% enriched uranium does not significantly change this threat, particularly as Iran continues to install advanced centrifuges,” the trio said, reiterating Iran’s cessation to comply with the JCPOA nuclear agreement and its continued refusal to fully cooperate with an ongoing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) investigation.
Referring to last week’s deal, the group stressed that the hostage-taking policy of the regime, which has been going on for years, is the Iranian Republic’s “negotiating tactic and funding mechanism”, all of which puts US security and the security of its citizens at greater risk.
Just last week, Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former White House National Security Council director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction, raised the matter of Biden’s skirting the legal obligations. “Emergency hearings cannot be held. Resolutions of disapproval cannot be fast-tracked. President Biden has successfully evaded the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which requires him to notify Congress of any agreement with Iran related to its nuclear program before lifting sanctions,” he said.
The Republicans warned Biden that if “the Administration continue to ignore US law and flout congressional oversight, we will use all the tools at our disposal to bring transparency and accountability to the American people and return to a policy of maximum pressure that reverses Iran’s nuclear advancements and deters its targeting of American citizens and service members, support for terrorism and other malign activities”.
The controversy continues alongside allegations that the reasons for the suspension of Iran envoy Robert Malley have been hidden from Congress for several months. While the news of his suspension over what was called suspected security breaches was announced in June, it is believed that it had happened as early as April, which was revealed by an Iranian government newspaper.
In spite of multiple investigations going on side by side, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Malley suspected of mishandling confidential security documents, he has landed faculty positions at Yale’s Jackson School and Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.