Syria on way back to Arab fold as isolation crumbles
They look like unlikely allies, but on Wednesday the besuited, secular Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is warmly welcoming the bearded, turban-wearing Islamist cleric-cum-President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, to Damascus.
It is the first such visit by an Iranian leader since 2010, before the Arab Spring uprisings.
Since then, Tehran has proved the staunchest of allies, helping - along with Moscow - to save the Assad regime during a particularly bloody civil war.
The trip comes amid dramatic shifts in the region. These have also seen the Syrian president and his entourage - long shunned as pariahs in the Arab world - recently being embraced, quite literally on occasion, by their neighbours.
Despite opposition from the US and Europe, it is becoming the norm for Arab states to take steps to normalise ties with Syria. Syria still hopes to be granted observer status at the Arab League summit in Riyadh on 19 May, ahead of its eventual reinstatement.
"The international community outside of the region - Russia aside - has largely washed its hands of responsibility for Syria," comments Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu).
"There is a vacuum and this is where the regional powers have come in. [They see that] if nothing is going to change, if there is not going to be a real political process, then we as a region cannot afford to ignore Syria. It's too big and significant a country."
Warming ties
The turnaround is remarkable. Back in late 2011, many Arab states were clearly planning for a post-Assad era when Syria was censured and suspended by the 22-member Arab League.
I watched hundreds of Syrians waving flags and chanting their support of that move, close to the League's headquarters in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
At that time there had been a brutal crackdown on Syrian pro-democracy protesters and I had reported on waves of refugees fleeing the fighting. But many of the regime's worst atrocities - the indiscriminate barrel bombing and poison gas attacks - were still to come. Read More…
