Iran’s President Sheikh Hasan Rouhani said Monday the ongoing crisis in Syria is merely part of a wider conspiracy plan the West is pursuing in the Middle East.

Iran’s President Sheikh Hasan Rouhani said Monday the ongoing crisis in Syria is merely part of a wider conspiracy plan the West is pursuing in the Middle East, warning of a Western campaign to transform the Arab world to suit the interests of the Zionist entity.

“We are well aware that the disputes are not over one person or one president or the coming to power of a particular faction in Syria; it goes beyond that and it is obvious that the West has plans for the whole region,” Rouhani said in address to top commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.

He said the unrest in Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain, together with the resultant instability, were all "chains of a single plot with one goal."

The aim was to "benefit Israel, to consolidate Israel and its power" while weakening the anti-Western and -Israeli fronts in the region, where Iran and Syria back Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

Rouhani said the West wrongly assumes that Iran seeks military control of the region, adding, however, that the country’s preeminent position in the region today is due to its superior discourse.

“Our discourse is one of fighting terrorism in the whole region,” the Iranian president said.

Describing foreign countries that have a military presence in the region as “uninvited guests,” Rouhani said they must leave, to stop interfering in the regional countries and end their Iranophobia campaign.

Rouhani pointed to Iran's policy regarding Syria and said, “All our efforts are directed at restoring peace and stability to Syria, and we will accept whomever the Syrian citizens choose to run their country.”

Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011. According to regional and international reports, the Western powers and their regional allies - especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.