In its editorial the Khamenei affiliated Kayhan Daily, while emphasizing on Nouri Maliki’s support of the Assad dictatorship, wrote: The Americans have used their maximum capacity in imposing pressure to bring down Bashar Assad from power, yet this wasn’t made possible. There is no doubt that a key factor was Iraq’s aid for the Bashar Assad government. The reason is if the Iraqi government has the longest border with Syria after Turkey, and is especially linked to the sensitive ‘Homs’ Province, if it had opened the borders of its own provinces and cooperated in this regard, these measures would have made matters very difficult for the Syrian government. And maybe the intensity of the pressure… would take control of the country out of the hands of the army and government.