The Islamic Republic's financial support for Syria amid the economic problems of the Iranian people
The World Bank said in a report last month that the Syrian economy is in dire straits. The World Bank expressed concern about the situation of the country's people, warning of the devaluation of the Syrian national currency and shortages of food and fuel.
Less than three weeks after the World Bank report was released, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made a surprise visit to Tehran. He met with the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader for a few hours and then held talks with Ebrahim Raisi.
The Syrian president's unannounced trip to Tehran also had a lot of repercussions among media activists. Some users wrote on social media: "Bashar Assad has come to receive his share of Syria's oil."
The Islamic Republic's assistance to what it calls the "axis of resistance" has a long history.
The Leader of the Islamic Republic said in his Friday prayer sermons in Tehran on February 4, 2011: "We intervened in cases of anti-Israeli sentiment. From now on, wherever any nation, any group fights or confronts Israel, we will stand behind it and help it, and we have no hesitation in saying this. This is the truth and reality."
Following Ayatollah Khamenei's remarks, other Islamic Republic officials and officials of Iranian-backed organizations in Arab countries also explicitly announced the sending and receiving of cash and non-cash aid from the Islamic Republic.
Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the parliament at the time, announced in late 2019 that the Islamic Republic had spent about "30 billion dollars" in Syria over the past decade.
On October 7, 2018, the US State Department’s Iran Task Force released a report stating that the Islamic Republic was spending billions of dollars to support Bashar al-Assad and his proxies in Yemen and Iraq. The news of the release of the group’s report was announced by then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Twitter. He wrote: “While the Iranian people live in hardship, the rogue Iranian regime has wasted $16 billion since 2012 to aid Assad and support its other partners in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.”
At the same time, Hossein Alaei, a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told the Jamaran website in response to criticism about why the Islamic Republic provided aid to the government of Bashar al-Assad: "Bashar al-Assad had no one in the world except Iran. The reason for Iran's friendship with Bashar al-Assad was the issue of Israel."
"Iran has always been and is concerned that Israel will dominate Syria and Lebanon. According to Alaei, Iran is concerned that Israel will expand, so it is trying to strengthen the axis of resistance."
This is despite official reports that, despite the Islamic Republic's exorbitant spending in Syria, Iran only controls 3% of the country's market, and Turkey controls 30% of the Syrian economy.
