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Iranian Diplomats Challenge Support for Syria's Assad
(Wall Street Journal) Farnaz Fassihi - Some diplomats are publicly questioning whether Tehran should continue supporting Syria's regime. "The entire world is against Syria and we are standing here defending Syria, a country accused of crimes against humanity. We are not playing this game very well," Mohamad Ali Sobhani, who has served as Iran's ambassador to Lebanon and Jordan, said in an interview published last week on the semiofficial news website Khabaronline.com. Assad's days are clearly numbered and Iran will lose influence if it doesn't shift course, Sobhani added. In April, Mohamad Shariatai Dehaghan, former cultural attache in Iran's embassy in Damascus for four years, said Syria's uprising was a legitimate popular movement. "We will pay the price if we continue to encourage violent crackdowns on people," Dehaghan said in an interview in "Iranian Diplomacy," a foreign-policy website.