After Assad: Iran's path in Syria and the lessons of Libya

By Faramarz Davar

The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria marks the most significant international setback for the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979.

What Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei once proclaimed as the “frontline of resistance against the Zionist regime” has now been relegated to history.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), after years of fighting opposition forces, is now completely excluded from political and military influence in Syria.

The possibility of establishing connections or diplomatic relations with Syria’s new rulers appears highly unlikely.

Iran’s regional landscape has been dramatically reshaped during Khamenei’s leadership. Beyond Syria, Iran has witnessed the collapse or overthrow of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Socialist Romania, two Afghan governments, the Iraqi Ba’ath regime, Yemen’s national government, and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.

Initially, Iran’s strategy in response to these geopolitical transformations was driven by Islamic solidarity and a focus on empowering Shia communities.

However, the approach gradually evolved, with the IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds Force increasingly prioritizing military strategic objectives and ambitions.

Gaddafi did not have warm relations with Iran during the Shah’s reign.

Ardeshir Zahedi, Iran’s Foreign Minister from 1966 to 1971, wrote in his memoirs: “Gaddafi’s rise to power and his chaotic policies - such as aiding all so-called revolutionary (or often terrorist) groups in several countries, some of which some Iranians also benefited from - caused the two nations to view each other negatively. Before the Islamic Conference, Iran recognized Libya de facto but did not establish an embassy there and never sought to deepen relations with the country.”

After the 1979 revolution in Iran, Iran-Libya relations took a different turn.

Several Iranian revolutionaries during the Shah’s reign, including Mohammad Gharazi and Ali Jannati, had been in contact with Gaddafi.

A representative of Gaddafi also established a relationship with Ruhollah Khomeini during his exile in France, which gave Gaddafi an advantage when they came to power in Iran.

Although Khomeini was displeased with Gaddafi over the disappearance of Musa Sadr - a prominent Shia cleric who vanished on a trip from Italy to Libya and was believed to have been abducted - Gaddafi managed to align Khomeini with him through multiple messages of support for the Iranian government.

A year after the Shah’s fall, Gaddafi began efforts to draw closer to the clerical establishment in Iran, saying in an interview: “I have expressed my views on the Iranian revolution many times and have always regarded it not just as the Iranian revolution but as an Islamic revolution for the world.”

The Iran-Iraq War paved the way for closer ties between Iran and Libya. Although Libya’s support was not as reassuring as Syria’s for the Islamic Republic, Gaddafi publicly refrained from supporting Iraq’s attack and even sent weapons - including missiles - to Iran.

This brought him closer to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khomeini’s trusted war commander. Gaddafi remained a close but unreliable religious ally for the Islamic Republic.

In a 2017 interview after Gaddafi’s fall, Rafsanjani described the Libyan leader - killed by enraged opponents - as “brave.”

He said, “He agreed to supply us with Scud and SAM [surface-to-air] missiles, and they were quickly sent. He even sent a team to train our forces. Gaddafi also instructed his officials to send Iran any necessary munitions, which they sent by ship. Mohsen Rafighdoost [then Minister of the IRGC] would write a letter, and they would send it.”

Rafighdoost recalled in his memoirs that getting military equipment from Gaddafi began in the early days of the war, “I traveled to Libya several times from the start of the IRGC and before my ministerial role and received extensive resources for both the IRGC and the army.”

A decade after the revolution and during Iran’s struggles in the Iraq war, Musa Sadr’s case no longer affected Iran’s good relations with Libya.

While Iran sought military supplies from North Korea and China due to Libya’s unreliable arms, political barriers with a country considered the main suspect in Sadr’s disappearance appeared to have been lifted.

The U.S. attack on Libya in 1986 provided the Islamic Republic with an opportunity to repay Gaddafi’s support during the Iran-Iraq War.

Khamenei, then serving his second term as president, addressed Gaddafi in a phone call as “dear brother” and assured him, “We stand with you in your resistance against global arrogance.”

Libya remains one of the few countries Khamenei has visited.

During this period, Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, then the Supreme Leader’s deputy - whose son had longstanding ties with Libya - also condemned the U.S. attack, describing it as an act of aggression against the “Islamic Ummah.”

Ayatollah Khomeini, too, sent a public letter praising Gaddafi, writing: “I thank you for recognizing the truth, condemning the U.S. and Israel, and remaining loyal to Islamic governments committed to the rules of Islam. The government and people of Iran stand alongside your government, people, and other committed Muslims.”

The Split Between the Islamic Republic and Gaddafi

The relationship between the Islamic Republic and Gaddafi during the final months of Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership and early Khamenei leadership grew so close that some accounts suggest the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Britain - blamed on a Libyan national - was retaliation for the downing of Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf in July 1988.

Gaddafi’s concerns about the Islamic Republic’s religious propaganda were the first sparks of a rift between the two revolutionary states.

His rapprochement with the West in the 2000s alarmed Tehran. Gaddafi dismantled Libya’s nuclear program, handing over its components to the United States.

These rapid and unexpected developments coincided with the growing international crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Some Islamic Republic officials have claimed that Gaddafi provided Western governments with information about Iran’s nuclear program.

As Iran’s nuclear issue began to affect both its domestic and international affairs negatively, Gaddafi described Tehran’s defiance in resolving the issue as “arrogance” towards Western powers.

He warned that Iran risked repeating Saddam Hussein’s fate, insisting the nuclear program would bring trouble for the Islamic Republic.

Gaddafi’s prediction was correct, but his approach strained ties with Iran. When a vice president in President Ahmadinejad’s administration visited Libya to improve relations, the issue of Musa Sadr’s disappearance came up again, with Gaddafi being seen as a suspect, making it difficult to strengthen ties.

Disappointment After Gaddafi

During Gaddafi’s final years, the Islamic Republic was pleased with his downfall. This period coincided with a time when Tehran, buoyed by rising oil prices, pursued dreams of expanding its “Resistance Axis” and achieving “strategic depth.”

Iran framed Gaddafi’s fall as part of the “Islamic Awakening” - a term used by Khamenei to describe civil and political uprisings against authoritarian Arab and Islamic leaders, which eventually extended to Assad’s Syria.

After Gaddafi’s ouster, the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign operations arm, envisioned establishing a presence in North Africa.

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s foreign minister from 2010 to 2013, recounted that after Gaddafi’s fall, Qasem Soleimani, the late Quds Force commander, sent military personnel disguised as Red Crescent aid workers to Libya.

“When events unfolded in Libya and the country descended into chaos, I consulted with Soleimani and decided to travel there. This was shortly after Gaddafi had fallen … I saw our Quds Force colleagues setting up prosthetic facilities to aid wounded Libyan revolutionaries with the help of Red Crescent workers. This demonstrated Soleimani’s compassion for the people,” Salehi said.

However, the Quds Force could not maintain its presence in Libya. Security concerns for Iranian political operatives were so severe that the Iranian embassy in Tripoli had to relocate to an unmarked location without any official signage or flags.

While relations between Iran and Libya did not sever entirely after Gaddafi’s fall, they remained so constrained that Iran’s ambassador in Tunisia was also accredited as the ambassador to Libya.

Diplomatic ties remained at the chargé d’affaires level until the Islamic Republic sought to revive lost relationships after the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 and its subsequent loss of international legitimacy.

Libya was among the targeted countries for renewed engagement.

Less than a year later, Najla Mangoush, Libya’s foreign minister, visited Tehran and met her Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

However, upon her return, a secret meeting she had with Israel’s then-foreign minister, Eli Cohen, forced her resignation and exile from Libya.

Iran-Libya relations, too, stalled in the same state, and the anticipated warming of ties after Gaddafi’s fall has yet to materialize.

The relationship between Syria and the Islamic Republic following Assad’s fall would likely be far more complicated than what happened between Iran and Libya after Gaddafi’s ouster.