By Xinhua

TEHRAN, Oct. 19 — A senior Iranian lawmaker said the United States has targeted Syria and is making “desperate” efforts to change the balance of power in the Middle East region that has transformed in favor of the Islamic republic, Press TV reported on Friday.

“Over the past three decades, since the (victory of) Islamic revolution, all the U.S.-Iran challenges and confrontations in the region have ended in the Islamic republic’s favor and these achievements have drastically transformed the balance of power in the region that was previously in Washington’s favor,” Chairman of Iran’s Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi was quoted as saying.

“The United States is doing its best to change the balance of power that it has lost in the Middle East region,” said the Iranian lawmaker.

After the United States lost Egypt, its biggest base in the region, and Cairo turned into the main center of regional developments and “Islamic Awakening,” Washington hatched various plots and adopted different stances in the region, including its involvement with the Syrian issue, Boroujerdi said.

The Iranian legislator noted that the developments in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon during recent years have also entailed the defeat of the United States and endangered the Israeli government’s regional position, which were all to the benefit of Iran, he said.

All these regional developments have changed the balance of power to the detriment of the United States and the Israeli government, Boroujerdi said, adding that so they selected Syria to create a crisis in and make up for their lost power and influence.

Boroujerdi said that during the past 20 months, the United States and Western powers attempted to overthrow the political system in Syria but they failed.

Iran, as the major regional ally to the Syrian government, is against the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s resignation under Western pressure and has supported UN-Arab League’s Joint Special representative to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi’s cease-fire proposal during the upcoming Muslim’s Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice).

Brahimi is expected to arrive in Damascus later this week to broker a brief cease-fire between Syrian troops and oppositions.

The Syrian government guardedly welcomed the proposal, but said any initiative must be respected by both sides.

 

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