Last week’s round of balloting in Syria – in which Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad reportedly won 88.7% of the vote in the war-torn country – marked a defeat for the West and for Western conspiracies, per Friday remarks issued by Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah:

Assad won a new seven-year term in the country’s first multi-candidate presidential vote on June 3, taking nearly 90 percent in an election dismissed by the opposition and its international backers as a “farce.” US Secretary of State John Kerry called it a “great big zero.”

“This is your zero,” Nasrallah shot back at Kerry on Friday, adding that the Syrian election result was a “political and popular declaration of the failure of the war on Syria.”

The developments came as Syrian fighters loyal to Assad continued what has become a systematic campaign – backed by Hezbollah and Iranian forces – to recover and hold territory inside the country.

Some diplomats have recently gone so far as to suggest that Assad has functionally won his country’s civil war.

Al Arabiya on Friday published an assessment by Iranian-American foreign policy specialist Dr. Majid Rafizadeh suggesting that Assad’s success in consolidating his power was a victory of Iran in general, and more specifically was being used by the Islamic republic to project power across the region:

The Iranian government is attempting to project a picture that it totally and efficiently controls the destiny of, and the war in, Syria. The message from Tehran is clear; Iran is the key player even though the United States, the West, and other Arab countries are putting all their efforts to support the rebels. The message from Iran indicates that the balance of power will not be tipped as long as Tehran is backing the Syrian government.

National Security Adviser Susan Rice hinted on Friday that the Obama administration may be considering sending some lethal assistance to opposition elements.

[Photo: INT / YouTube]