Iran promises to do everything for Assad, but how far can it go?
Caught off guard by the recent rebel offensive in Syria, Iran is campaigning to galvanize regional political support for President Bashar al-Assad in what appears to be a race against time amid the Syrian army's fast-crumbling lines of resistance.
TEHRAN — Iran is intensifying regional diplomacy to try to save Syria's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, whose government has been ceding one strategic territory after another to swiftly advancing rebels in the country's north and west.
"We have to help our neighbors in their fight against terrorism," said Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, at a Baghdad press conference on Friday after a meeting with his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts. He attempted to engage regional countries by arguing that the ongoing offensive in Syria was posing a threat to wider collective security.
In an apparent rebuke to Turkey, which is accused by Iranian hard-liners of supporting the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Araghchi stated that countries that have "remained silent, or are even backing the terrorist groups, should be held responsible."
The Iranian minister promised that Tehran will do "all it takes" to back the Syrian government, while making no direct mention of whether Tehran will militarily intervene.
