Hezbollah, Iran, And The Assad Regime Are Trying To Cash In On The Paris Attacks

France’s pain is an opportunity for others to gain.

Last Friday, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah attacked Sunni jihadists as the gravest threat to Islam and its prophet. Many naïve observers saw Nasrallah’s speech as a courageous, if surprising, criticism of radicalism.

The Hezbollah chief’s comments were indeed noteworthy, but for an entirely different reason. His objective was to steer Western policy toward his camp. Following a well-established pattern, Hezbollah, Iran and the Assad regime are openly seeking to cash in on the attacks in France. 

Nasrallah’s remarks did not come in a vacuum. They are part of a systematic propaganda campaign orchestrated by Iran and Assad, pushing a united line: We told you so. 

We warned you that the real problem is the Sunni jihadists to which the Iranian camp, by contrast, is the solution. The Iranian camp's media didn’t waste time in driving home this message. The day following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, newspapers in Tehran explained that Paris was getting what it deserved for backing the uprising against Assad. Then came “The Ask:” Europe and the US need to “review as quickly as possible” their policy in the region, meaning in Syria. They must revise their position toward Bashar al-Assad and renew security coordination with him. 

Pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian Lebanese media were even more specific. On the same night as the shootings, the evening news editorial of the pro-Assad NBN TV laid out the request explicitly: “practical military and intelligence cooperation with regional armies, with Syria at the forefront.”

This talking point came straight from Damascus. Both Assad and his foreign minister reiterated this week the need for the West to renew intelligence cooperation with the regime. 

Over the decades, when the Assad regime has come under pressure from the West it has typically used intel sharing as a mechanism to break out of the isolation. Last year, when the threat from the Islamic State (ISIS) began to strike fear in the US and Europe, Damascus saw its chance. 

Regime officials began making boastful claims about how helpful Syria could be to European security agencies, which they claimed were lining up to talk to Assad again about foreign fighters in Syria. Indeed, a number of European agencies had reached out to Damascus in late 2013-early 2014. The Germans led the way. Berlin has even maintained open channels to Tehran and Hezbollah. The Spaniards were also very open about resumed contacts with the Syrians. But clearly cooperation with other powers, the US in particular, is not all that Assad and his patrons in Tehran would like it to be. 

The French made tentative contacts in the spring of 2014. Bernard Squarcini, former head of the Directorate-General for Internal Security (DGSI), who has publicly criticized France’s Syria policy and who just came out in favor of resuming communication with the Syrians, was approached to facilitate renewed dialogue between Paris and Damascus. The Syrians, of course, demanded a political price. They expected the French to reopen their embassy in Damascus, and President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to stop public criticism of the regime. 

This is Assad’s standard modus operandi. Recall, for instance, the encounter between the Obama administration’s former Coordinator of Counterterrorism, Daniel Benjamin, and Assad’s intelligence chief, Ali Mamlouk, in 2010.

Mamlouk told the eager visitor that any movement forward on intel cooperation must be accompanied with a political opening. Mamlouk, who remains the lead contact with intelligence delegations from Europe, was rehearsing that same old act on the Europeans.

However, for the Elysee and the Quai D’Orsay, and even the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), this was a non-starter. In August, as the campaign against ISIS was under way, President Hollande was resolute that Assad cannot be a partner in the war on terrorism. This continued French opposition puts the break on how far the rest of Europe — and, to an extent, also the US — can go with Assad. 

The Charlie Hebdo shootings provided Assad with the opening he’s been waiting for.

The Syrians have identified and are looking to exploit the tension between those French officials who share Squarcini’s view and the political leadership — in particular zeroing in on Fabius, whom the Iranians also despise. And so, Assad’s and Iran’s media campaign has highlighted the failure of the French leadership, and its need to be held accountable, for not taking the Assad camp’s offer of cooperation.

Hence, Squarcini has been cast in a highly-favorable light in pro-Assad and Hezbollah media. By contrast, one article from the circles of the Lebanese Army’s pro-Hezbollah Directorate of Intelligence even went as far as floating the sacking of Fabius. The article claimed that sometime before ISIS’s takeover of Mosul this past summer, the Syrians used one of their Lebanese friends to tell the French that Squarcini would be welcome in Damascus unconditionally.

In addition, the Syrians and Hezbollah are dangling the bait, using friendly Lebanese agencies, of offering Paris information about alleged new attacks in the making, meanwhile gloating that the French are supposedly regretful for not having heeded their warnings. An article on Hezbollah’sAl-Manar website summarized the message that the Tehran axis wants disseminated: “The January 7 operation came as a ladder for the French politicians in the Elysee and the Foreign Ministry to climb down from the tree of war against Syria. They must climb down to preserve domestic French security.”

That the Iranian camp is plainly looking to make political gains from the terrorist attacks in France is very much in keeping with their recent history in the 1980’s, as Lee Smith reminds us. Assad and the Iranians have a record of violent extortion with the French, having run operations in and against France both directly and through cut-outs (including Frenchmen of North African origin). 

Historically, political violence — i.e., shedding French blood — is how Middle East actors, namely Syria and Iran, have rattled the tin cup. Violence is how someone asks. The key then is to see who comes to collect. 

Regardless of who has claimed responsibility for the attacks, the only ones lining up to reap political gains are Iran, Assad and Hezbollah. They’re licking their lips. And the coming days will reveal if they will in fact collect, yet again.  

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.