Related analysis:

Syria Is Now Saudi Arabia's Problem
The battle for a town on the Lebanese border marks the kingdom's first attempt to lead Syria's fractured opposition.
BY HASSAN HASSAN, ForeignPolicy.com, JUNE 6, 2013

 

Hezbollah can finally claim a victory in Syria. The town of Qusayr, adjacent to the Lebanese border, has fallen to the Lebanese militia after nearly a month of fierce battles with Syrian rebels. Dozens of Hezbollah's fighters have been killed, despite air cover and ground support from Bashar al-Assad's regime.

 

The Qusayr battle has been constantly, and wrongly, described as a turning point in the Syrian war. Why has this small town of some 30,000 residents become "strategic," as it is constantly described in the press, all of a sudden? The town had previously been run by its Sunni residents for more than a year, with little mention of its strategic benefits.

Hezbollah's open military intervention in Syria partly explains the publicity the Qusayr battle has received. As a result, the "Party of God" has lost much of its political and ideological capital in the region -- a capital the militia had painstakingly acquired from its three-decade career of "resisting" Israel.

But beyond the supposed military benefits of Qusayr, the battle for the town carried important consequences for the balance of power within the Syrian opposition. Qusayr is arguably the first battle in Syria to be completely sponsored by Saudi Arabia, marking the kingdom's first foray outside its sphere of influence along the Jordanian border [.....]