News Analysis: Iran's position on Syria influences gains of nuclear deal: experts

While Iran is still economically struggling despite significant relief of Western sanctions, the Islamic Republic's position on the Syrian issue and its support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad government cast shadow over the economic and political gains it could get out of the nuclear deal with world powers, said Egyptian political experts.

RESTRICTIONS REMAIN

In April 2015, Iran and six world powers, including the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, reached an initial agreement to limit Iran's nuclear activities for a specific period in return for relieving the economic sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program.

In mid-January 216, the first phase of anti-Iran sections relief is implemented as the Shiite state showed compliance with its obligations under a conditional nuclear deal reached in mid-July 2015 and adopted later in October 2015 between Iran and the six world powers in addition to the European Union (EU).

Over 100 days have passed and the Iranians still do not feel the relief and there is growing frustration among ordinary people in Iran over the slow pace of economic and political results of the deal.

Although the deal results in significant EU and U.S. sanctions relief and the release of Iranian frozen assets and funds worth tens of billions of U.S. dollars, some nuclear-related and rights-related sanctions remain in place and still discourage Western investors from doing business with Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the Americans should assure other countries that they could do business in Iran.

Kerry disclosed that Iran had so far received only three billion dollars after the deal, which is far less than many Iranians anticipated.

POSITION ON SYRIA

Iran wholeheartedly supports the Syrian regime and Assad and blesses the recent Russian assitance to the Syrian army although the West in general and the United States in particular sought some Iranian flexibility in the issue after the nuclear deal and the partial sanctions relief.

"The United States and Europe might have been convinced that showing flexibility with Iran's nuclear activities and recognizing Iran's right of about 3.5-percent of uranium enrichment will push Iran for more flexible positions on the Syria issue and others," said Medhat Hammad, professor of Iranian and Gulf studies at Egypt's Tanta University.

The professor said that the "complicated" Syrian issue has replaced the Palestinian one in terms of the Iranian-U.S. conflict or the Iranian-Western conflict in general.

He explained that when the Iranian foreign minister urges the United States to encourage investments in Iran, it is like a conditional message to show flexibility on Syria. On the other hand, the United States gives a message that it will not allow investments in Iran unless it sees a change of Iranian position regarding Assad.

"In my opinion, it is a psychological war between the two sides whose core is the Syrian issue rather than the Iranian nuclear program," Professor Hammad told Xinhua.

GULF, WEST PRESSURES

U.S. President Barack Obama has recently paid a visit to Saudi Arabia whose purpose is believed to reassure the oil-rich, anti-Assad Gulf partner about Iranian regional expansion after the U.S.-sponsored Western-Iranian deal that partly relieves the Islamic Republic from sanctions and conditionally allows its nuclear activities.

The United States uses the Iranian frozen funds as a pressure card regarding the Syrian issue to reassure its Gulf allies topped by Riyadh, a huge economic partner with Washington.

"It's as if the United States exercises political pressures on Iran via the frozen funds and the investment ban in order to force the Persian country to be neutral or at least more flexible on the Syria issue," said the Egyptian professor of Iranian and Gulf affairs.

In turn, according to the professor, Iran's alliance with Russia in Syria turned the Iranian-Western nuclear-related conflict into a geostrategic conflict in the Middle East region. "Thus, each party returned to the pressure cards they have to exercise on the other."

However, Mohamed Mohsen Abul-Nour, Egyptian researcher on Iranian affairs, expressed belief that the Gulf pressure on Washington over Iran is not that influential due to the U.S. new policy based on gradual withdrawal from the Middle East.

"The U.S. approved a principle of giving up security protection of the Gulf region due to planned gradual U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East to turn to the Southeast Asia region in preparation for a confrontation with China," the expert told Xinhua.

GRADUAL GAINS

"I believe it is too early to evaluate the results of a huge agreement like the Iranian nuclear deal in less than five months after its implementation," said Abul-Nour.

"Such a deal is supposed to wipe out the aftermath of 35 years of accumulated sanctions imposed on Iran, so it will surely take some time to bear fruits," the expert told Xinhua, stressing that some extremist political currents in Iran try to make little of the deal results.

Abul-Nour argued that the United States was really dissatisfied with Iran's rejection to join the U.S.-led international alliance against the Islamic State terrorist group in the region and its persistence in Assad as part of Syria's future.

"However, it's all political maneuvers from both sides to get the best out of the deal," he said, expecting the deal to positively reflect on the Iranian economy in the future.

"I believe the deal will gradually have great sociopolitical results and in time will turn the Iranian economy into a Western-like neoliberal one and make a significant change to the structure of the Iranian society," the researcher told Xinhua. Endit