Official diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Syrian Arab Republic are currently frozen following the fall of the Assad regime, formerly one of Iran's closest allies in the world. The new Syrian government and the Iranian government have left their respective ambassadorial posts vacant.
Syria established diplomatic relations with Pahlavi Iran after independence, but it was not until the Iranian revolution that Alawite-led Syria established close ties with Iran. Despite several attempts between the two leaders at cooperation during the Cold War, after the shah failed to secure Syrian help in ending Palestinian support for opponents of his pro-Western government, Hafez al-Assad put "his full weight behind" Ruhollah Khomeini, then exiled in France. Under Ba'athist rule, Syria was usually called Iran's "closest ally".Nada Bakri, "Iran Calls on Syria to Recognize Citizens' Demands", The New York Times, 8 August 2011 Iran and Syria had a strategic alliance ever since the Iran–Iraq War, when Syria sided with non-Arab Iran against neighbouring Ba'ath-ruled Iraq. The two countries shared a common animosity towards then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and coordination against the United States and Israel until the fall of the Assad regime after the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives were completed on 8 December 2024.
During the Syrian Civil War, Iran conducted, alongside Russia, "an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power." In September 2022, Iranian state media reported that high-level officials from Iran and Syria discussed the prospects of "mutual cooperation in the field of oil and gas," suggesting that the two countries were considering forming a joint oil and gas company.
With the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024, the Iranian embassy was ransacked, and Iranian diplomats and Quds Force commanders fled the country. This event has been described as a significant blow to Iran's Axis of Resistance.
History and overview Ancient history In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great, King of Achaemenid Persians, took Syria as part of his empire, to become known as Eber-Nari. The Persian rule lasted until Alexander the Great conquered the region in 333–332 BCE. Later on, Khosrow II of the Sasanian Empire managed to control the region including Syria from 609 to 628 AD during their war against the Byzantine Empire.Syria: History Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 22 October 2008.
Medieval history Buyid Iran and the Hamdanid Emirate of Syria and Jazira vied for dominance in the Middle East. The Iranians were able to expel the Hamdanids from Baghdad. By the end of the 10th century, Syria and Jazira were under Fatimid, Iranian, or Eastern Roman influence.
Iran under the Aq Qoyunlu and Syria under the Mamluk Sultanate continued to compete for Upper Mesoptamia until the Ottoman Empire took over.
Prior to 1979 Following the independence of Syria in 1946, Iran established a consulate there. Both countries established diplomatic relations on 12 November 1946 when has been accredited Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran to Syria with residence in Beirut Mr. Zein-el-Abdine Rahnema.
In 1953, Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and Syrian President Fawzi Selou signed the Syria-Iran Friendship Treaty, but the agreement soon fell apart after both leaders were overthrown.
During the Pahlavi dynasty, especially since the establishment of the Ba'athist Iraq which was considered an enemy by both countries, the two countries had overall mixed relations, due to the shah's close ties with the United States and other Western powers, and Hafez al-Assad's general alignment with the Soviet Union. Examples of some overtures included Pahlavi Iran supported United Nations Security Council Resolution 316 urging Israel to free five Syrian officers captured in Lebanon, and Hafez al-Assad's four-day trip to Tehran in 1975 and the signing of cooperation agreements between the two countries, and the president tried to talk the shah into distancing himself from Israel. Nevertheless, after Reza sought and failed to secure Syria's role in ending Palestinian support for the opponents of his monarchy, Hafez al-Assad "put his full weight behind" the France-based Ruhollah Khomeini, who later returned to Iran after the fall of the Pahlavi government. The Assad government provided Khomeini's entourage with passports to move around Europe freely prior to the revolution.
However, after the improvement of Iran–Iraq relations in late 1970s, Hafiz al-Assad voiced support for Iranian dissidents, contacting opposition groups via their contacts abroad such as Mostafa Chamran and Musa al-Sadr and undertaking to train Iranian guerrillas.
1979–1990s
Iran–Syria relations improved after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Syria's strategic alliance with Egypt ended around the same time due to Egypt's treaty with Israel. Post-Revolution Iran represented an opportunity for Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to find a new counterweight to Israel and Iraq, Syria's regional foes. Meanwhile, the new Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini saw Syria as a conduit to the Shia community in Lebanon. Mostafa Chamran, a close adviser to Khomeini, had experience fighting in Lebanon and advocated an Iranian alliance with Assad to increase their influence in southern Lebanon.Milani, p. 80. As the grip of Alawite echelons in the Syrian Baath party tightened; Assad also pursued a close alliance with the Khomeinist theocracy of Iran during the 1980s.
The relationship between Iranian and Syrian governments has sometimes been described as the Axis of Resistance. Syria was the first Arab state and the third in general, after the Soviet Union and Pakistan, to recognize the Islamic Republic, founded in February 1979. Specifically Syria officially recognized the Islamic Republic on 12 February 1979. However, Assad did not visit Iran while Khomeini was alive, as the Ayatollah did not consider Assad to be a true Muslim. The Syrian leadership, including the current president Bashar Assad himself, belongs predominantly to the Alawite branch of Shi'a Islam. However, the relations between the two countries do not depend on religious causes, because Syria is a secular state, while Iran is an Islamic republic. Instead, their ties are driven by common political and strategic points.
One of the first major fronts of the Iran–Syria alliance was Iraq. During the Iran–Iraq War, Syria sided with non-Arab Iran against Iraq and was isolated by Saudi Arabia and some of the Arab countries, with the exceptions of Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Oman. As one of Iran's few Arab allies during the war, Syria shut down an Iraqi oil pipeline (Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline) to deprive the Iraqis of revenue. Syria also trained Iranians in missile technology and provided Iran with Scud B missiles between 1986 and 1988.Milani, pp. 80–81. In return for Syria's war support, Iran provided Syria with millions of free and discounted barrels of oil throughout the 1980s. In addition, Khomeini was restrained in his condemnation of the 1982 Hama massacre.
The second major area of cooperation between the two countries was in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, with Syrian assistance, established and trained the Hezbollah group to spread Khomeini's ideology and repel the 1982 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. Iran and Syria viewed Hezbollah as a useful lever against Israel and a way to establish greater influence in Lebanese affairs.Milani, p. 81.
Iran and Syria had occasional differences in policy. In the mid-to-late 1980s, Syria maintained support for the non-Islamist Shia Amal Movement in Lebanon, even as Iran tried to maximize Hezbollah's power among Lebanese Shia. Although Iran was deeply ambivalent about the American-led intervention to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, Syria participated in the coalition of nations to fight Iraq. Still, these disagreements never threatened to derail the relationship.Milani, p. 82.
2000s–2011 The alliance deepened in 2000 when Hafez's son Bashar al-Assad took over as President of Syria. Subsequent events like the Iraq War, the "Cedar Revolution", and the 2006 Lebanon War brought the countries closer together. Syria became increasingly dependent on Iran for political and military support, as Assad was unable to maintain positive ties with other Arab powers during this time.
On 16 June 2006, the defense ministers of Iran and Syria signed an agreement for military cooperation against what they called the "common threats" presented by Israel and the United States. Details of the agreement were not specified, however the Iranian defense minister Najjar said "Iran considers Syria's security its own security, and we consider our defense capabilities to be those of Syria." The visit also resulted in the sale of Iranian military hardware to Syria. In addition to receiving military hardware, Iran has consistently invested billions of dollars into the Syrian economy.
Currently, Iran is involved in implementing several industrial projects in Syria, including cement factories, car assembly lines, power plants, and silo construction. Iran also plans to set up a joint Iranian–Syrian bank in the future. On 17 February 2007, Presidents Ahmadinejad and Assad met in Tehran. Ahmadinejad afterwards declared that they would form an alliance to combat U.S. and Israeli conspiracies against the Islamic world.
In February 2010, President Ahmadinejad visited Damascus to sign a bilateral deal to remove travel visas between the two states, amid calls from U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Syria to distance itself from both Iran and Shiite militia Hezbollah.
Syrian Civil War (2011–2024)
Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Iran supported the Assad government in Syria until its fall. The Guardian claimed that in May 2011 the Iranian Revolutionary Guard increased its "level of technical support and personnel support" to strengthen Syria's "ability to deal with protesters," according to one diplomat in Damascus."Iran helping Syrian regime crack down on protesters, say diplomats", Simon Tisdall and foreign staff in Damascus The Guardian, 9 May 2011 Iranian Sr. Foreign Policy Advisor Ali Akbar Velayati declared, "Iran is not prepared to lose this golden counterweight [to Israel]."
Scholars have examined the strategic logic behind this support. In a 2019 study in International Affairs, Hassan Ahmadian and Payam Mohseni argue that deterrence, rather than sectarian or ideological motives, has been the primary driver of Iran's relationship with Syria; they describe Iran's posture in the Levant as "forward deterrence"—the projection of deterrent capacity beyond its own borders through Syria and allied groups such as Hezbollah in order to raise the costs of any confrontation with Israel or the United States. They characterise Iran's escalating wartime involvement as unfolding in four phases—building local militias, regionalising the effort by drawing in Hezbollah and transnational fighters such as the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades, internationalising it by incorporating Russia to balance the United States, and a later phase of balancing against the United States, Turkey and Israel—each undertaken in reaction to the threatened defeat of its ally and the erosion of its deterrent position.