Possible Military Confrontation Between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Syria

Following Saudi Arabia's conditional readiness to send ground troops to Syria and the strong reactions from Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, the possibility of an accidental confrontation between Iranian and Saudi military forces in the waters or skies of the Persian Gulf has now turned into the potential for ground forces from both countries to clash in the civil war of a third country (Syria). General Ahmed al-Assiri, spokesperson for the Saudi military, announced on February 4 that "Riyadh is ready to send ground troops to Syria under the command of the US-led coalition forces." Anwar Gargash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the UAE, two days later, announced his country's readiness to send ground troops to Syria, conditional on "US leadership in ground operations." In another seemingly coordinated action, Sheikh Fawaz, the Bahraini ambassador in London, also announced the dispatch of his country's ground troops to Syria in cooperation with Saudi Arabia. Ashton Carter, the US Secretary of Defense, subsequently welcomed Saudi Arabia's announcement of readiness to send ground troops to Syria. Mohammad Ali Jafari responded by stating that "the Al Saud regime does not have the courage to do this, and if they do, they have shot themselves in the head," while Ali Shamkhani remarked that "the dispatch of foreign ground troops to Syria without the consent and request of the legitimate government of that country is interventionist and dangerous, and will have incalculable security repercussions for all countries in the region and Europe." Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, in unprecedented and controversial remarks during a ceremony awarding medals to nuclear negotiators, confirmed the presence of Iranian forces in Syria, stating: "If our brave soldiers had not stood firm in Baghdad, Samarra, Fallujah, Tikrit, and Ramadi, and if they had not helped the Syrian people in Damascus and Aleppo, we would not have had the security to negotiate so well today." The US-led coalition forces are engaged in air operations against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq and provide military training, weapons, and financial assistance to anti-Assad forces. The Russian Air Force, which has been stationed in Syria under the pretext of combating the Islamic State in recent months, according to reports from Western sources and Assad's opponents, has directed most of its airstrikes not against ISIS but against Assad's opponents and their positions, as seen in the recent battle in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. The diminished Syrian government forces are fighting against the opposition with the help of Iran and Iranian-backed military groups. Iranian ground forces, known as the "International Defenders of the Shrine," have been directly involved in the Syrian civil war for the past two years and have suffered significant casualties. Other Iranian-backed groups in Syria include Hezbollah with a force of between 5,000 to 10,000 fighters, the Abu al-Fadl Abbas Brigade with fewer than 3,000 Iraqi Shiites stationed around Damascus, Syrian Hezbollah equipped using the model of Lebanese militias, the Fatemiyoun Brigade composed of Afghans, which is said to have recently increased to over 2,500 fighters, the Pakistani Shiite group known as Zainabiyoun, the Zulfiqar Brigade composed of other Iraqi Shiite groups, and several smaller militia groups that have either left Syria since the fall of Mosul to ISIS or have completely diminished in Syria. If Saudi forces are added, along with some ground forces from the UAE and Bahrain, military confrontation between the two axes during ground battles in Syria will be inevitable. Saudi Arabia's limited history and capabilities differ from Iran's ground forces, many of whom are veterans of the eight-year war with Iraq or have been involved in asymmetric military operations domestically (Kurdistan) or in foreign battlefields (with Hassan Rouhani's recent confirmation). Despite having very advanced equipment, Saudi ground forces have little combat experience. During the 1990 war, parts of the shared border regions between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were attacked by Iraqi forces, and the Saudi armed forces effectively retreated without resistance against Iraqi forces, waiting for a counterattack from American forces. Following the intensification of internal protests in Bahrain and to support the Sunni minority government and the Al Khalifa family, on March 15, 2011, 1,000 Saudi military personnel and 500 Emirati forces were sent to Manama, the capital of Bahrain. These forces, which gradually increased to 5,000, have never been involved in a serious military engagement and have mostly been used as reserve or support forces. During a not-so-successful military operation that began on March 25, 2015, under the pretext of defending the government of former Yemeni President Mansour Hadi against the Houthis, Saudi forces entered a new battlefield. Despite extensive involvement of Saudi air forces (and those of Gulf Cooperation Council member states) in the Yemen war, Saudi ground forces have had limited participation in the conflict, and overall, Saudi intervention in Yemen has not been militarily successful thus far. Considering their limited history and experience in ground operations, and the risk of incurring unpredictable casualties, Saudi forces, who see their strength in air operations and their weakness in ground operations, especially in conflicts similar to the internal battles in Syria, are unlikely to be dispatched to the Syrian battlefronts. Otherwise, the reality of the presence of Saudi ground forces in Syria would make a military confrontation between the neighboring countries of Iran and Saudi Arabia inevitable; an event that would not only confirm the failure of the stalled peace negotiations and prolong the Syrian civil war but would also change Tehran-Riyadh relations from the currently tense situation to a dangerous state of direct military confrontation.