and in the process helps the Islamic State flourish. It is clear why Iran wants Bashar al-Assad of Syria to remain in power: In its 2014 report on terrorism, the State Department wrote that Iran views Syria "as a crucial causeway to its weapons supply route to Hezbollah." The report also noted, citing United Nations data, that Iran provided arms, financing and training "to support the Assad regime's brutal crackdown that has resulted in the deaths of at least 191,000 people." The same report for 2012 noted that there was "a marked resurgence of Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism," with Iranian and Hezbollah's terrorist activity "reaching a tempo unseen since the 1990s." In Yemen, Iran's support for the takeover of the country by the Houthi militia helped cause the war that has killed thousands. While Iran claims its top foreign policy priority is friendship, its behavior shows the opposite is true. Iran is the single-most-belligerent-actor in the region, and its actions display both a commitment to regional hegemony and a deeply held view that conciliatory gestures signal weakness either on Iran's part or on the part of its adversaries. In that vein, Iran tested a ballistic missile on Oct. 10, just months after reaching an agreement on its nuclear program, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. In December, an Iranian military ship fired a missile near American and French vessels in international waters. Even since signing the nuclear accord, the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has defended the country's ubiquitous slogan "Death to America." --More 19:52 LOCAL TIME 16:52 GMT تغريد
