President Assad’s Victory Lap in Tehran Mirrors US Defeat

By: S. Nawabzadeh

Iran’s ties with Syria are strategic and steeped in history, going back two and-a-half millennia, including the 719 years of Roman-Persian Wars in the Levant that effectively thwarted European attempts to dominate West Asia, and as borne out by the current events, if not for the Islamic Republic’s wise response to the request for help from Damascus in 2011, not just Syria would have succumbed to the satanic onslaught of terrorists of all hue and colour backed by the US, Western Europe, the illegal Zionist regime, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but the peace and security of the Iranian people would have been at stake, in view of the incursions these devilish forces had made in Iraq.

Monday’s visit to Tehran by President Bashar al-Assad and his vital discussions with his hosts, in addition to his expression of gratitude for the timely assistance that saved Syria – and consequently Lebanon and Iraq – once again proved the wisdom of the Islamic Republic’s principled policies and the fact that like the Roman Empire of the past the United States of America cannot dent the iron resolve of the Resistance Front.

Here, we are not discussing the Battle of Carrhae (presently on the SyriaTurkey border) in which the Parthian General Surena inflicted a resounding defeat on the Roman Republic of Julius Caesar in 53 BC; nor the capture of Roman Emperor Valerian by his Sassanid counterpart Shapur I to save Syria; and neither the string of victories by the mostly Persian Muslim armies of the Isfahan-based Seljuqs over the Byzantine Empire in Levant and Anatolia – Manzikert and the capture of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes being the high water mark.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution, while clasping his guest, expressed the heartfelt sentiments of the Iranian nation when he said: "Iran is proud of supporting Syria”.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei rightly pointed out to President Assad that the triumph of the Resistance Front in Syria has made American mischiefmongers angry and prompted them to hatch new plots, saying: "The buffer zones (on the Syria-Turkey and Syria-Iraq borders), which the US is seeking to set up in Syria, are among those dangerous plots that must be categorically rejected and confronted.”

Bashar, whose late father President Hafez al-Assad was a staunch supporter of the Islamic Republic and during the 8-year war imposed in the 1980s by the US on Iran through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad had closed the Iraqi oil pipeline to Syria’s Banias Port on the Mediterranean Sea, was confidant of final victory against the devilish designs of the US, the Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia, in view of the support to his government by all strata of people, including the Kurds and the Arab tribes, whom the Americans have failed to deceive.

It is interesting to note that among other participants at the meeting was Major-General Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) who heads the indomitable liberation unit, the Qods Force, which played vital advisory role in the victory of the Syrian people and army over the US-Zionist backed rebels. 

President Assad also met with his Iranian counterpart President Hassan Rouhani, who recently attended the tripartite summit in Sochi with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Rajab Tayyeb Erdoghan, to discuss ways of resolving the crisis in Syria.

Fortunately, Turkey has realized the futility of turmoil in Syria which might boomerang and is making earnest efforts to defuse the crisis through negotiations that would preserve its interests as well as security in the Kurdish areas.

In view of these facts, Ankara may not agree to Washington’s mischief of a buffer zone on the border with Syria, while Baghdad has already rejected such a notion, saying that outsiders will not be allowed to harm relations with either Damascus or Tehran. 

This warrants the defeated Americans, if they have any sense left, to learn the lessons of history and withdraw their illegal forces from both Syria and Iraq. If not, they will face further humiliation, since the survival for long of the Zionist regime is out of question.

Iran has the determination, the technology, and the Islamic faith to protect its brethren in the region, and there should be no mistake about this.

In conclusion, it would not be out of context to cite a paragraph from Mathew Merighi’s thought-provoking article published in 2014 titled: "Lessons from History: The Parthian Defeat of Rome”, in which he likens Iran’s mastery over ballistic missile technology as the famous Parthian shot of the mounted Iranians of the ancient times that had routed the Roman legions.

He writes: "The cruel lesson for the United States to take from the Roman experience with Parthia is that an adversary with technology designed specifically to defeat its army, combined with stronger political will, is bound to come out on top of any conflict. Defeat does not just come on the battlefield. 

Just like Rome, the United States has a great number of serious threats… Unlike many of these antagonists (and the Parthians before them), the United States does not have the luxury of dedicating its resources to confront them. 

The United States’ political system, after years of war and deep partisanship that conjures images of Caesar’s Rome, is brittle and unable to tackle any of these challenges.