Syrian Crisis

The Syrian civil war, which has been labeled as one of the most significant crises in the Middle East, has turned this region into a scene of cooperation and competition among regional and trans-regional powers. The geographical scope of the conflict, the occurrence of extremely severe violence, and the direct and indirect involvement of international actors in operational battlefields have made this crisis one of the unique examples in the last decade. The nature of international phenomena has shown that regional and major powers, in a multilateral framework, are seeking to stabilize the balance of power in the international environment alongside cooperation and competition. The crisis in Syria has shown signs of such relations between Russia and Iran since 2010. Now, the question that arises here, which this article aims to examine and find an answer to within the framework of realism theory, is: "What impact has the Syrian crisis had on increasing political cooperation between Iran and Russia during the years 2010-2017?" Based on this question, the proposed hypothesis is that "the relatively common perspective of Iran and Russia on regional and international developments, although with sometimes differing foundational goals, provided the groundwork for joint cooperation between the two countries in various dimensions, particularly in the political sphere, within the framework of supporting the established government in Syria."

Iran, one of the powerful players in West Asia, from the beginning of the crisis in Syria, al-ways tried to sensitively take a completely different position from other regional players in supporting the political system of Syria, as one of the important priorities in foreign policy, follow his military and security. Iran's positions in the Syrian crisis were based on the overlap of the national security interests of this country and the Syrian nation-state, because the vic-tory of fundamentalist Salafist groups in Syria could be the biggest security threat to the axis of resistance, Iran's national interests, and Shia geopolitics in the long run. The region should include Shamat and Iraq. These conditions also existed for Russia, which envisions its own interests in the region of West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Due to its energy re-sources and geopolitical location, this region is considered an influential and unforgivable area for actors like Russia. By presenting ISIS as a security concern, Tehran and Moscow succeed-ed in limiting the American effort to have a serious presence in Syria through close coopera-tion in addition to eliminating the threat of ISIS. In this article, an attempt was made to an-swer this question by relying on the theory of realism, how the crisis in Syria has affected the relations between Iran and Russia between 2010 and 2017 by emphasizing military-security cooperation.