The Enduring Middle East Strategic Framework Begins to Emerge as Iran Surges, and the US Resiles
The lingering impact of August 3, 2010, clash on the Israeli-Lebanese border lies in the greater context of, and wider strategic dynamics in, the Middle East. These aspects were highlighted by HizbAllah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in his speech later that day.
Overall, the issue dominating the overall situation in the Middle East is the reaction by the local powers to the emerging new grand strategic reality: namely, the demise of the United States as the dominant regional power. This is a dramatic reversal of a concentrated US policy of more than half a century.
Back in the Autumn of 1956, the US intentionally undermined the strategic posture of two of its closest Cold War allies, Britain and France. In the late-1960s, the US capitalized on the British unilateral withdrawal from the Persian Gulf and the active Soviet interceding in the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to consolidate the US role as the dominant Western, and later global, power in the Middle East.
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