Don't expect harried Iran to ride to Syria's rescue

Lebanon's Daily star thinks that Syria will be on its own in the event of a U.S. or Israeli confrontration.

Iran will not give Syria wholehearted support this time round precisely because its alliance with Damascus is built around cold calculation rather than ideological fervor. Tehran realizes that it is in its best interest, at present, to keep its head down and ride out the nuclear controversy surrounding it. Sending material support to Syria - or for that matter to Hizbullah now that the Syrians have completed their withdrawal from Lebanon - would over-extend Iran at a time when the U.S. military is camped to its east, west and north, in Afghanistan, Iraq and in several former Soviet republics.