The round of visits made by Kamenei's representative at the Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, to Iran's direct circles of influence in the region, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, as well as the stern statements that have accompanied them, indicate that a cornered Tehran has begun to “counterattack" on the issue of Syria, in the form of threatening to broaden the confrontation between the regime and the opposition, and to move it to a regional framework in order to force the world to negotiate with it over ensuring its “interests" after the fall of Bashar Al-Assad's regime. Certainly those in power in Iran know that the regime in Damascus is nearing its end and that a new Syria will emerge in the not-so-distant future. This is why they must save what can be saved of the “Axis of Resistance", of which the Palestinian branch has split off and the Syrian branch is broken, no longer able to play the role required of it, nor support the other branches. Tehran has also coupled officially announcing its entrance into the Syrian war with threats directed at NATO's Turkey that its turn would come if Assad falls, and that the war would move to its soil and to its constituents. Tehran sent its Foreign Minister to Ankara to hold it responsible for the fate of Iranian hostages, under the pretext of asking for its help to have them released. This in turn prompted a clear response from Turkey, holding Iran responsible for an essential part of the crimes committed by Assad's regime because of its unlimited support for him. Such escalation by Iran is aimed at neutralizing the Turks in the battle of Aleppo, where the Syrian regime's army began its land assault the moment Jalili left the country, and at dissuading them from establishing safe zones for the protection of Syrian refugees, whose numbers are increasing daily – safe zones that could later turn into no-fly zones and pave the way for direct Western intervention. The confrontation between Iran and Turkey began when the Syrian army turned over areas in the north of Syria bordering Turkey to Kurdish parties well known for their enmity towards Ankara. The latter responded by mobilizing its troops and asserting that it would not allow a hostile entity to be established at its border. It sent its Foreign Minister to Iraqi Kurdistan to inform officials there that any Turkish intervention in Northern Syria would not be directed against the Kurdish people, but rather against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK – Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê) and its allies. In Baghdad, where Tehran saved Nouri Al-Maliki's government by forcing its ally Muqtada Al-Sadr to withdraw from the campaign led by the opposition to remove him, and where the Iranians have asked for facilitating the passage of their convoys to Syria and for Iraq to increase its oil and financial assistance to Damascus, their purpose is also to pressure Turkey, after its relations with Iraq have grown tense and the latter officially complained about Davutoğlu visiting Kurdistan without going through official diplomatic channels. And in Lebanon, the “land of the Resistance" and Jalili's first destination, where Hezbollah controls the government and directs its policies in support of Damascus, pressure on Turkey is increasing by implicating it in the issue of Shiite Lebanese citizens who were kidnapped in Syria, and threatening to kidnap Turkish citizens and soldiers from the UN force (UNIFIL). It was noteworthy that the Secretary-General of Hezbollah adopted, after meeting with Jalili, a “moderate" language on some of the issues of the Lebanese interior. It is a kind of “moderation" which the Lebanese know by experience will not last long – one that Hezbollah will not run out of pretexts to back out of, and one that may well represent nothing more than cover for escalation of some kind. Iran's fragile “prop" for its broken Syrian branch will not last long. It could lead in the best of cases to prolonging the longevity of the regime in Damascus slightly, but it will not succeed to keep it alive, especially as the “health" of Iran itself is the object of serious doubts.
