ABSTRACT
The Syrian-Iranian alliance has, against all expectations, lasted over a decade and a half. Syria and Iran have been referred to as the ‘odd couple’: to some, an alliance between a Persian Islamic theocracy and a pan-Arab secular republic has appeared bizarre, and therefore a mere temporary ‘marriage of convenience’ (Hirschfeld 1986:105; Hunter 1985). Despite their leaders’ continual affirmation of the ‘strategic’ character of the alliance, the official photographs of periodic meetings between Western-suited Ba’thists and robed-and-turbaned mullahs underline the dissimilarity of the two regimes.
