Assad’s narrative is making headway

"Assad did everything to bring about precisely this violent outcome; and had his Hezbollah allies not intervened militarily in the Syrian conflict, it is unlikely that we would have seen car bombs in Lebanon. But as we assess the balance of forces, the Syrian regime and its backers have gained the upper hand, while the Syrian opposition is now viewed with uneasiness because of its association with the jihadists.
Observers warned of this two years ago, when the Americans and Europeans were fiddling over what to do in Syria. They still are and the vacuum they helped perpetuate only facilitated the emergence of jihadist groups that Western governments had feared bolstering."