Jonathan Spyer explains how Syrian president Bashar al-Assad may have the upper hand right now in Syria’s two-year-old conflict. “Regime forces have clawed back areas of recent rebel advance,” Spyer writes in the Jerusalem Post. “The government side, evidently under Iranian tutelage, has showed an impressive and unexpected ability to adapt itself to the changing demands of the war.”

Spyer, who recently wrote about Syrian Kurdistan for THE WEEKLY STANDARD, notes that in the ongoing battle for Damascus, Assad’s forces have had help from Hezbollah and Iranian-trained paramilitaries. “But the regime’s rallying has taken place not only on the battlefields,” writes Syper. “Assad has from the outset possessed a clear narrative of the conflict, according to which his regime is facing attack from an alliance of jihadi ‘terrorists.’”