Assad's Fall Would Create Shockwaves from Tehran to Tel Aviv
THE OBSERVER: Unrest in Syria has greater potential consequences than any other event in the Arab Spring so far

As decades-old dictatorial regimes crumbled around him in January, Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, denied that revolution would spread to his country. Balhermep, the Ba'athist concept of "the ruling of the people", would keep his country together.

But as demonstrations in towns and villages across Syria seemed only to be spreading last week, even as the regime intensified its crackdown, that notion appeared to be unravelling.

The international consequences of regime change in Syria are many and complex. The fallout will be particularly marked in Lebanon and Palestine, and there will also be impacts on the country's alliances with Iran, Turkey, and Iraq, and, perhaps most importantly, on its relationship with Israel.

Damascus's influence has always been strong in these areas. Syria is vital to Hezbollah, which leads a Lebanese coalition supporting Assad. Lebanon has no land borders except with Syria on the east and north, and with Israel to the south. To the west is the Mediterranean, swimming with battleships and an international force to prevent the smuggling of weapons. Hezbollah's links with Syria are, in turn, the linchpin of the alliance between Tehran and Damascus, for the party's first loyalty is to Iran and the supreme leader of its Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The fall of the Assad regime would mean the loss of Iran's only ally in the region and thus a weakening of the clerical regime. This could boost the enthusiasm of Iranian reformers, who have been sidelined and repressed since the disputed presidential elections in Iran in 2009. » | Zaki Chehab, The Observer | Sunday, May 01, 2011