Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad review an honor guard at Al-Shaab presidential palace in Damascus, Syria. Louai Beshara / AFP / GettyFrom Time Magazine:
U.S. officials ought not to have been surprised by the smiling solidarity between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad in Damascus on Tuesday — but they may, nonetheless, have been disappointed. Sure, Iran is Syria's closest ally, and the two countries form the core of what's sometimes called the "Rejectionist Crescent" — the arc of countries and groups from Tehran to Gaza that stand against American and Israeli power — but the Obama Administration hopes to change that. It has launched a diplomatic outreach to Damascus aimed at weakening its ties to Tehran and its support for militant groups in Lebanon and the Palestinians, but there was no sign of progress on that front in Thursday's Assad-Ahmadinead press conference, where the two leaders beamingly reaffirmed support for one another, and for the likes of Hamas and Hizballah.
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My Comment: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Baath Party that rules Syria are members of a minority Shiite community. The rest of the country are hostile to this group and its political power. If it wasn't for their intelligence services and military forces, the Syrian Government would have been thrown out a long time ago.
For President Assad and his government, it is all about holding onto power. He knows that Presdient Obama may not be a "sure thing" when it comes to helping him keep his government in power .... but the Iranians are a "sure thing". It is only when these dynamics will change .... that Syria may then look at the U.S. and its Arab allies.