Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged earlier this week in the clearest terms to date that members of his Shiite organization, the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon, are helping President Bashar al-Assad fight the opposition in neighboring Syria.
On Tuesday, in a televised speech, Nasrallah said Hezbollah would stand by the Syrian president and would not allow the country to “fall into the hands” of the United States, Israel or jihadi extremists.
Two experts who spoke with Trend Lines agreed that while the speech broadly reflected the dynamics on the ground, Nasrallah’s characterization of Hezbollah’s role in Syria as a defensive one obscured the full scale of the group’s involvement in the conflict there.