http://www.understandingwar.org/sit...nSyria-1MAY.pdf

מחקר מקיף ומצוין ממאי 2013 על המעורבות האירנית בסוריה - נציגות המקומית של שתי זרועות המשמרות המהפכה - כוח קל קודס ו "זרוע היבשה" שלהם - המבנה שלה ותפקידיה (תיאום, הדרכה וכו'), הביקורת של הגנרלים האירניים על תפקוד צבא סוריה, האספקה שזורמת דרך היבשה, האוויר והים (כולל ביקור ספינות המלחמה בשנה שעברה), הלוחמים השיעים האירנים, העירקים והלבנונים שמגינים על האתרים הקדושים בדרום דמשק, מעורבות החיזבאללה כפרוקסי אירני בעיירות הגבול השיעיות (עוד לפני אל קוסייר אחרי פרסום המחקר) ובסוף זום אין על חיסולו של גנרל חסאן שטרי בכיר משמרות המהפכה בפברואר 2013 שהותיר את הארגון כולו בתדהמה.

מחקר משלים מצוין בפני עצמו מאותו בית היוצר ובו מידע רב על הקשרים הכלכליים הענפים בין אירן וסוריה (בתחומי תשתיות, אנרגיה, חינוך, בנקאות ופיננסים, מסחר ומה לא), כמו גם המעורבות האירנית בלבנון, ברצועת עזה ובמדינות ערביות נוספות

The loss of the Alawite regime would nevertheless be a devastating blow to Iran. Syria remains Iran’s main ally, one of its principal conduits to the outside world, its arms-supply route to Hezbollah and others, and its primary Arab partner. If Assad falls to the Sunni-led insurgency, the new government will almost certainly have great antipathy to Iran and Hezbollah, complicating Iranian strategy and operations throughout the Levant. Arms-transfer routes can be replaced (and indeed, are already being supplemented), but the loss of Syria would mean Iran no longer has a serious sovereign ally in the Middle East
upon which it can rely completely. Although a Lebanon under Hezbollah’s control could be a partial replacement for Syria, the implications for the Lebanese state—which remains
divided constitutionally among Sunni, Shi’a, and Christian—would be serious. Lebanese
leaders, possibly including Hezbollah, may be unwilling to take on the burdens of total
partnership with Iran if the price is the loss of European, American, and regional allies
and aid givers. Reports suggest that the armstransfer route between Tehran and Beirut has become problematic for Lebanon. A pro Iranian regime in Baghdad facilitates Iranian movement into the Levant, but it cannot replace Syria as an Iranian forward base in the Levant. Trading Syria for Iraq effectively pushes Iran back toward its own borders when the Islamic Republic had hoped to establish a solid land bridge to the Mediterranean Sea

על ההדרדרות הזמנית בקשר בין המדינות בשנים שלפני האביב הערבי

Then Imad Mughniyah, a senior leader of Lebanese Hezbollah who reported directly to IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani and was suspected of coordinating
with al Qaeda, was assassinated in Damascus. Suspicion naturally fell on Israel, but rumors also circulated of Syrian complicity Shortly after the killing, Iranian deputy foreign minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar announced a joint Syria-Iran investigation, but Syria’s staterun news agency quickly denied the Iranian announcement as “totally baseless.”
The strains were beginning to show

הערוץ הצפון קוריאני המשותף

The Iran–North Korea–Syria relationship also continued apace, providing both Iran and
Syria with advanced missiles and help with their own illicit nuclear programs. In May
2009, Syria reportedly test-fired a Scud-D missile it had developed jointly with Iran and
North Korea. Press reports indicated that while North Korea was developing the engine,
Syria and Iran were cooperating on warheads and guidance systems.North Korea has also reportedly sold midget submarines to Iran and used Iran as an intermediary to transship weaponry including both weapons of mass destruction and missile technology.

Brigadier General Doron Gavish, chief of the Israeli Air Defense Command, reported that
Iran and Syria have converted crude Scud based missiles into more precise weapons
using both GPS (global positioning systems) and Russia’s equivalent, GLONASS (Global
Navigation Satellite System). Another Israeli ballistic missile expert cited the Iranian Fateh-110 rocket, with a range of 300 kilometers, as a formerly unguided rocket now enhanced with targeting and guidance. Labeling the new capabilities “a revolution,” reports describe enhanced Scud-D missiles that could be armed with chemical munitions and strike accurately within a few hundred meters of their intended targets.It is possible that Syria was also continuing its nuclear quest despite the 2007 destruction of the al Kibar reactor. In November 2010, Western press outlets reported that Assad dispatched Major General Bassam Merhej, director of Assad’s security and military bureau, to Pyongyang via Beijing. Allegedly, Colonel Jihad Shehadeh of the Army’s Corps of Engineers, “who has been seconded to the Center for Scientific Study and Research, which is involved in Syria’s nuclear program,” accompanied Merhej. The report added that an Iranian, identified as Ali Zadeh, officially the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Damascus but ‘in reality in charge of logistics for the Iranian nuclear program in Syria’” also accompanied Merhej.

והזווית של ונצואלה

Like Iran, Syria lacks the refining facilities to meet domestic demand, and is a net importer
of petroleum products. A joint Venezuela Iran-Syria-Malaysia refinery project outside
Homs was thus approved in 2006 (in addition to the refinery already operating in Homs). The refinery at Furqlus was supposed to produce 140,000 barrels per day out of crude provided by Syria (70,000 barrels/day), Venezuela (42,000 barrels/day), and Iran (28,000 barrels/day). The four states were to contribute 30 percent of the project’s estimated $2.6 billion cost, with the rest coming from commercial loans. In return, ownership would be divided among the Syrian Ministry of Petroleum and Minerals (15 percent), the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy and Petroleum (33 percent), the National Iranian Oil Company (26 percent), and the al Bukhari Group of Malaysia (26 percent). The fact that Syria was set to be the junior-most partner in a refinery on its soil and for which it was providing half of the crude oil speaks volumes about the relative economic and power relations among the partners. Assad ordered the construction to be completed rapidly in January 2008.Problems had emerged by July 2008,and by January 2011, estimated costs for the project had doubled but little progress had been made.

ועוד ועוד