Iran's Syria Gamble: Losing the War, Losing the Peace?

To put it in a nutshell, Iran’s Syrian syndrome, so to speak, is unsettling and negating it materially and perceptually on the domestic, regional and international levels. And eventually, if Syrians manage, in their quest for democracy and dignity, to find a way out of their current predicament and build a free future of their own, it will almost undoubtedly be one without Assad and his cohort, most probably rendering Iran the great loser both of the war now and of the peace then. Indeed, how to engage in the Syrian conflict is among many crucial matters the Islamic Republic should fundamentally rethink and devise reasonable policy responses to if it really aspires to stay strategically afloat in the region.