Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said that the Arab world would have to be “aggressive” as it counters Iran in “Yemen and beyond,” Al Arabiya reported Monday. In his comments to journalists in Washington, Hariri sketched out an ambitious plan to target Syria, which he called “the joint” of Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

While airstrikes in Yemen are a “game changer” in Arab action in the region, Hariri does not expect an exact blueprint of this in targeting Iran’s other spheres of influence. He tells Al-Arabiya News that “we might find it in different forms against Iranian influence, in Africa, in Sudan, in Nigeria, and in Syria.” The fate of the Assad regime is “the joint” of Iranian regional influence Hariri says, and what happens in that conflict over the next few months “will have a domino effect on Iranian influence in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and even inside Iran raising question marks over billion they spent on Assad”.

Establishing safe zones, or at the very least providing “air cover” in the areas where the Syrian rebels are advancing in the North and South, are “inevitable” says Hariri, warning that “they have to go into parallel with uniting the opposition, and organizing the non-ISIS rebels.” This sentiment is echoed by Turkish officials who have recently visited Washington and requested according to Western sources an “air cover” to be added to the U.S.’ “train and equip program” for Syrian rebels.

For Hariri, however, such action in Syria could come regardless of Washington’s position or whether it strikes a nuclear deal with Iran or doesn’t by the end of June. The main Arab objective as Hariri spells it out, is “restoring Arab will after years of Iran trying to break it.” As for ISIS, he says “we are against ISIS and we will get rid of ISIS but without national reconciliation in Iraq between Sunnis and Shias and Kurds, and If Assad stays, we will keep getting ISIS with a different name or something worse. “

Ghaith Al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al Arabiya that Hariri’s plan was a reaction to “a feeling that the U.S. has abandoned its [Arab] allies” in the Middle East. Al-Omari warned that in the event of a nuclear deal with Iran, there will be increased “pro-active local Arab action.”

Though Al-Omari did not state it explicitly, it could be a reference to nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, which is one of the consequences of a nuclear deal with Iran that experts have warned about.

Hariri’s father, Rafiq, was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut ten years ago. The Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah is widely suspected of having committed the crime.

[Photo: Saad Hariri / YouTube ]