By consolidating its remaining regional assets, Iran may be trying to strengthen its hand in the nuclear poker game it is playing with the international community. At a time when Washington is engineering a rapprochement between Turkey and Israel – respectively Iran’s greatest rival and enemy in the region – it makes sense.
Hizbollah, for all its military might, has been dented by scandals and setbacks, and faces an uncertain future. Its leaders are probably realistic enough to know the Assads cannot win and that they could be left on the wrong side of history. Both Iran and Hizbollah may be reading shifts within the dynamic stalemate of the Syrian conflict itself.
An insightful piece in the FT on the situation in Lebanon and the supposed spillover of the Syrian civil war. The macroeconomic approach is interesting.