My Persian is terribly rusty and I was only able to pick out a few words of his speech. Going off the translated summary, I'd say Rafsanjani is right. Either way, Syria loses. Anyone who gets involved loses, too. This brings me to my next point.

davidfpo, I was poking around your link's website and I found THIS little gem.

Here's the title to whet your attentions: When A Top Diplomat Says Syria’s “Al Qa’eda” Insurgency is “Under Command of Saudi Prince Bandar”

I know what you're all thinking: this is nothing new from Tehran. We're all certainly familiar with their tricks.

Here's the burn. He's not a hardliner, nor has he ever been really affiliated with the more- shall we say vitriolic? parties in Tehran. He's long been advocating direct talks with us. Not that the SL or President at the time would indulge in them.

But why, why would Saudi Arabia be doing this? Well, Mr Lucas found an interesting bit here:

The new plan drawn up by Bandar and the secret service of Saudi Arabia aims to create a so-called “Sunni Hezbollah” as counterbalance to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. The main goal of a meeting that Bandar held with [Lebanese political figures] Samir Geagea, Walid Jumblatt, and Saad Hariri was to form military resistance forces against the Lebanese Hezbollah.
And we all know who backs Hezbollah. Hezbollah grew directly out of the policy of 'Export of Revolution' that has never officially ended. Given Tehran's growing influence and history of meddling, Iran has long been a problem spot for many of their Sunni neighbors.

Since Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and Wahhabism, they view themselves as the keepers of Sunni orthodoxy. Shi'a are an abomination to be wiped from the Earth. They are lower than dhimmi and even kufir. Gee, if only there was a group that thought the same way? Oh snapums. There is! And it was founded by a Saudi, too! How convenient.

I've said this before. Tehran is bat-#### crazy. No doubt about that, but 15 of the 19 Hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

We need to be very careful. What a perfect win for them. They can piss off Tehran and watch a bunch of Americans get killed in the process.