Karl Vick in Time Magazine:
It might be difficult to discern through the black clouds billowing from bomb craters in Tehran, but Iran has spent most of the 21st century as the region’s rising power.
Until recently, things had really been going its way. In Iraq, the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, then departed, having turned Iran’s largest and most dangerous neighbor from an enemy to a vassal even before Tehran’s militias rescued Baghdad from ISIS, and then stayed. The forces Iran sent to Syria did double duty, rescuing the Assad regime while opening an arms pipeline to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia fighting beside them. Based in Lebanon, Hezbollah was the crown jewel in the “Axis of Resistance” that Iran had arrayed against Israel.
More here.
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