“I don’t think it is faltering. I think it is a sign of success, success at embedding Iran’s Syrian and Hezbolla allies into the Syrian official military organs and Syrian government institutions.”
I agree that they are succeeding at embedding their agents within Syria for a long term subversion effort. They take the long view in that, as evidenced by their long term cultivation of Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is their model.
It being the Middle East however, those Syrians now signing on with Iran, might well shift sides later, if the winds of fortune begin to blow in a different direction. Iran mostly has to buy or rent its friends.
But their more aggressive (and nearer term) heavy Military buildup against Israel, and Turkish-supported Sunni militants, does seem to be taking a step back.
“It being the Middle East however, those Syrians now signing on with Iran, might well shift sides later, if the winds of fortune begin to blow in a different direction. Iran mostly has to buy or rent its friends.”
Truth, yes that is.
The Shia Mullahs of Tehran have been buying Arab-Palestinian support by being anti-Israel. They play on, but do not really care about, Arab-Palestinian opposition to Israel. It is all part of playing the game of “We are ‘better’ Muslim leaders” because we are more anti-Israeli than most major Arab-Sunni (Saudis, Egypt, the Gulf) leaders are”. But, the long game of the Mullahs in Tehran has zero, zip, zilch real care about “Arab-Palestinian rights”. If they - the Mullahs - could complete their utopian Shia messianic dreams, “Palestine” would be no more than a satrapy of a a Shia dominant caliphate. Playing on the Israeli-Arab Palestinian conflict is just a means to an end.