Between Iranian revolution Guide Sayyed Ali Khamenei's belief that the Arab revolutions were all influenced by the Islamic revolution in Iran, and the talk of spokespersons for the regime in Damascus about the fact that these same revolutions were made up by Israel and the United States to target and undermine Syria, the scope of fabrications and patch-ups is quite wide. The Iranian ambassador to Syria stated that the events witnessed in Daraa, Latakia, Douma and Al-Sanamayn among other Syrian cities and towns, merely echoed what happened in Iran in June 2009 following the elections in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad renewed his presidential term. We are not too concerned about mending the rip in the ideological cloaks of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, or about filling the gaps in the crumbling structure of their logics. We are even less concerned about the questions related to the “cognitive tools” with which they view the world, its transformations and the movement of history in it. One of the samples of the “epistemology” of the rule in Syria was the use of some who said the wide action in Syria was due to “divine wrath” over the airing of a television series. The two regimes can continue casting accusations to the Iranians and Syrians who took to the streets to demand dignity, freedom and basic rights and can keep claiming they are agents, mercenaries and traitors as long as God allows them to do so. But only the two peoples are entitled to judge the authorities that are supporting one another in these difficult times in both Damascus and Tehran. What is important is that through the recognition of the Syrian citizenship of around 100,000 people, the reinstatement of the teachers wearing the niqab to their posts and the implementation of other measures, the regime seems to have been shaken by the popular demonstrations which it was neither able to oppress nor contain. The steps designed to appease the domestic anger, thwart any attempts to deepen the action, distance it from any political dimensions and limit it to the problems of corruption at its lowest levels, are proceeding in parallel to an Arab and regional diplomatic and political action aiming at renewing the alliances on which Damascus relied in the past decades. Ever since Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem announced in an interview during a visit to Tehran that his government supported the entry of the Peninsula Shield Force to Bahrain, it appeared that Syria was not about to risk losing the Arab support points. And despite the appearance of some who are “more kingly than the king” on Syrian television channels to accuse Arab states and specific figures of backing and financing the turmoil witnessed in Syria, the authorities in Damascus know very well that this talk is nonsense. Indeed, these dispatched messages are mere “local concoctions,” just like the story of the “Egyptian spy” who was released a few days after he was arrested against the backdrop of charges that could have secured his hanging, especially after he enhanced them with his televised “confession.” As for the recognition of the Syrian nationality of hundreds of thousands of Kurds who had been deprived of it for around fifty years, it is partly directed toward Turkey, from which signs of restlessness emerged in regard to the methods with which Damascus was handling its growing problems that might move to the Turkish domestic scene. In the end, the search abroad for pillars to support the legitimacy of the rule in Syria is ongoing and undeniably successful amid the fear of many governments in the region over the eruption of uncalculated changes and the surrender of the authority to unknown and inexperienced people. This comes at a time when the limits of this process are delineated by the Syrian citizens themselves. Still, the lesson that could be drawn from this Syrian momentum is that the exaggerated talk about successes at the level of foreign policy does not exclude actual and deep reform.
