Aug. 7, 2012: In this photo provided by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, meets with Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in Damascus, Syria.Syrian President Bashar Assad made his first appearance on state TV in nearly three weeks Tuesday in a show of solidarity with a senior Iranian envoy even as the U.S. secretary of state urged stepped up international planning for the regime's collapse.The contrasts couldn't have been more vivid: Assad and Iran's Saeed Jalili vowing to defeat the rebels and their backers, while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton predicted Assad's regime was quickly unraveling, with high-level defections such as his prime minister's switch to the rebel side.It also highlighted Assad's deepening reliance on a shrinking list of allies, led by Tehran.Turkey's nightmares coming true in Syria;
conflict is also poisoning Ankara's sensitive relations with Iran
'We'll take this step.' Erdogan Photo: AFPTurkey's worst nightmares are beginning to come true in Syria - a protracted sectarian civil war on its long southern border with the emergence of a de facto Kurdish-controlled region friendly to its main domestic foe.The Syrian conflict is also poisoning Ankara's sensitive relations with Iran, Syria's vital regional ally, and Iraq and complicating ties with Russia, undermining a declared policy of "zero problems" with the neighbors."Syria has turned Turkey's neighborhood policy on its head," said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Brussels. "Ankara's approach to the Syria conflict has been a radical departure from traditional Turkish caution