Syrian war degrades
The civil war in Syria has degraded further into region-wide sectarian conflict. This follows the Assad government in Syria retaking the town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, in early June, with the help of the Lebanese Shia-Islamist militia Hezbollah. In The Independent on Sunday of 16 June, Robert Fisk reported: “a military decision has been taken in [Shia-Islamist] Iran — even before last week’s presidential election — to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces... Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad...