IRGC dominating Syria’s economy

IRGC dominating Syria’s economy
Many media outlets have reported about the signing of major economic contracts between the Assad regime, and the Mullah regime and companies close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. These news reports are not surprising at all, at least for many Syrians.

The five memorandums of understanding that were signed during a visit by the Assad regime’s prime minister to Tehran on Tuesday include a license for Iran to become a mobile phone service operator in Syria, and phosphate mining contracts.

What makes the so-called economic contracts that hide underneath Iran’s growing domination over Syria’s public wealth an expected result is the Iranian determination to reap lucrative rewards for helping the Assad regime regain control of some parts of Syria from opposition fighters who would have taken over Damascus and toppled the Assad regime within two weeks had both Russia and Iran not intervened at the “right time” as many Russian and Iranian officials stated on many occasions.  

The telecommunications and mining deals signed with Iran give it the upper hand in Syria’s ailing economy and strengthen the role of Iranian militias in bringing about deliberate  demographic change within different parts of Syria.

These two processes are undeniably heavily interrelated in terms of the seizing of Syria’s economic wealth by the Iranians, because the more economically powerful Iran becomes in Syria, the more it is able to force local citizens to leave their houses or sell their properties by threatening to burn their homes. This has happened many times in the historic market of Souk al Alasronia in Damascus, where a large fire erupted on April 23, 2016 and caused the destruction of over 100 shops whose owners had refused to sell their businesses to Iranian businessmen as reports said. 

Many Iranian media outlets demanded that Assad should pay Iran back the price of saving him and keeping him “alive”; this was strongly emphasized when the Iranian newspaper Afarinesh’s editorial a week ago stated: “The Iranian people has lost thousands of fighters and military leaders in Syria and it is high time that Assad expresses his gratitude to Iran.” 

Getting back Iran’s debts on the Assad regime through economic deals that are potentially benefiting the Revolutionary Guards which owns the biggest construction firms in Iran will certainly not pour into the Syrian people’s interests. This is especially after poverty in Syria hit the majority of the population, according to a report published by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The report further states that the percentage of Syrian people below the poverty line has risen from 28% in 2010 to 83.4% in 2015. Extreme poverty has also increased from 14% in 2010 to more than 50% in 2015, and by the last half of 2015, 13.5 million people were in need of humanitarian aid, of whom 12.1 million needed access to water and sanitation. 

So the question, based on these statistics, is who, apart from Iran and Assad’s cronies and entourage, will benefit from those economic deals in Syria? That is, of course, in the event that Assad and his Iranian backers stay in power.

The answer is quite clear for every Syrian citizen, including the poor social incubator of the regime itself. However, both Iran and Russia which are trying to divide the Syrian “cake” into shares will certainly fail, because no economic deals or projects can prosper unless they are fueled by the people’s own willingness to take part and share in rebuilding their country and make it a success. This is unlikely to prevail under dictatorship and occupation.  

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