U Turn?

Perhaps the most daunting maneuver in all of vehicular borne grrl world (sans inclusion of something something parallel parking) is the double back mo fo (also known as U turn in ancient speak).

Can such a delightful xportation meme be applied like 'kini wax to the hoary realm of the diplopolitical?

Yessir!

Ebberdobby knows how Preacher Command of totally gay free Persia has hot flashes and even hotter desires to export craziness and project power as a rising regional puissance.

As best understood, the Persian version of Mullah World before Arab Spring sprung looked sump like this here:

An Iranian crescent from Persia to the Med and Red Sea since Iran is the only true nation state in the ME with a long - and legit history of actually being a nation state.

Despite everyone's best efforts - Iran is truly the only 'stable' nation in that neck of the woods. Not one of the 22 members of the Arab league could claim that.

The 1916 Sykes-Picot makebelieve border map is now fully defunct.

Iraq should be dissolved into 4 bits: Shia Baghdad, Sunni Anbar, independent Kurdistan and a new Iranian province comprising Basra, Najaf, Karbala and Kuwait.

The gulf states of Bahrain (outright annexation by Iran) Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are Persia's any time she wants them.

And Mullahopolis doesn't call their Ayatollah in Chief the "Supreme Leader" for nothing.
Since Saudiland is comparatively weak militarily with Iran, The House of Saud should cut a deal granting Iran the control of Mecca and Medina.

Jordan devolves into the new Palestinian State. Gaza goes to Egypt. West Bank defaults to Little Satan with joint control of Jerusalem

And Bashar and Hiz'B'Allah get all of Lebanon to divy up as the new, improved version of 'Greater Syria' at the same incredible instant Land of the Pure sweetly dissolves into 5 brand new ethnically, dialectically different tiny tiny Tribal areas. 

Only now that kinda preacher paradise plot projection has taken more hits than HMS Indefatigable at Jutland

Supreme Leader and posse have semi sorta freaked the freak out that any chance of fun, free choice - or even a gov more responsive to ppl instead of preachers will require some kinda U turning on l'ship l'etat:

There are those in Tehran who think that Iran has decided to move closer to its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf by distancing itself from the moribund Assad regime, which may experience serious cracks in its political, administrative and military institutions in the immediate future as a result of the growing mass discontent.

In turn, this raises a fundamental question: how valuable is Syria's alliance to Iran today, and is it worth risking a major cognitive dissonance, in light of Iran's overt support for the Arab Spring?

Indeed, the instant result of Iran's new approach toward Syria is that it closes the previous gap, between Iran's support for political transformations in other parts of the Arab world and Iran's non-support for the similar process underway in Syria, thus allowing Tehran to declare that it pursues a consistent and logical policy with respect to the current Middle East upheavals.

Perhaps equally important, the new Tehran policy toward Syria is bound to reward the regime by also bringing Iran and Turkey closer together, in light of Ankara's recent announcement that it has "lost confidence" in the Assad regime.

Iran's primary concern is the vital Persian Gulf, and despite all the talk of "strategic depth" as a result of the alliance with Syria, the principal concern of Iran is to improve its standing in the immediate region that has vast geo-economic value.

No longer menaced by Iraq, as it was during the bloody eight-year war during the 1980s, Iran is fundamentally less beholden to Syria acting as a "vital bridge to the Arab world", particularly since the gates of diplomacy with the Arab world's biggest power, Egypt, have begun to slowly open, given the prospect of normalization between Tehran and Cairo.

In addition, Tehran's leaders have not forgotten recent statements from Damascus of support for Saudi intervention in Bahrain, in the name of Arab nationalism, which truly surprised and even dismayed Tehran.

"There has always been a nagging concern that Assad's regime would sell out Iran in no time if the price was right, but that never happened and Assad we may recall solidly supported Iran during the upheaval of 2009 following the presidential elections," says the Tehran professor.

As a result, Tehran has nuanced itself rather than come out too strongly against Damascus, thus protecting itself from the charge of hypocrisy and double standards, this while harvesting the gained ability to push for reform in neighboring Bahrain, where the simmering protests have met the iron fist of Saudi-backed official repression. Said otherwise, Iran can now have a greater say in Bahraini affairs, by opting to recognize the legitimacy of the Syrian opposition.

But, as with any major policy shift, there are also unintended consequences, such as a cooling in relations with Damascus in the event that Assad survives. Damascus would then look at Iran as a half-loyal friend that cannot be fully trusted.

There is, in other words, an inevitable element of risk in Iran's new policy that could adversely affect its regional fortunes, depending on the dynamic of political change in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East

Pic - "Rivalry, Cooperation, and Implications"