Bloomberg quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Senior Fellow Frederic C. Hof on Iran’s likely reluctance to support a plan ending with the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad:
Iran, which will be participating in multinational talks on Syria for the first time, won’t tolerate the idea of jettisoning Assad, said Fred Hof, a former State Department official who’s now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. His regime allows Iran access to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which it uses to control that country and to strike at Israel as needed.
“From Tehran’s perspective, if Bashar leaves, the rest of the family-based regime collapses,” Hof said.While Obama said this month that Syria’s state structures and military can be kept intact after Assad departs, others question whether that’s even possible.