Raisi’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs, Mohammad Jamshidi, told the state-run news agency IRNA prior to departure that the visit was a sign of “the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strategic victory in the region”.A group of Gulf states that had opposed Assad and sent arms to the opposition now want to bring Syria back into the Arab League as part of a wider regional convergence, but the terms of any normalisation are still in dispute. The United Arab Emirates restored diplomatic ties with Damascus in 2018, six years after closing its embassy.