“Hezbollah will feel pinched,”

"... “You can have a violent and bloody situation at home that creates continued refugee flows into Jordan and Turkey, and instability and sectarian tension in Lebanon,” where the Shiite Hezbollah militia, long backed by Syria and Iran, will face an emboldened Sunni and Christian population.
“Hezbollah will feel pinched,” said Schenker. At least in the short run, that will benefit Israel, which will have a weaker enemy on its northern border, he and other analysts said.
The divisions among sectarian and religious groups make Andrew Tabler, author of “In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington’s Battle with Syria,” worry that “there’s increasingly a chance the country is going to break into pieces.”
That makes it critical, Tabler said in an interview, that the U.S. “lay down some red lines,” making it clear that it will not tolerate mass atrocities or the use of Syria’s chemical weapons, the largest arsenal in the region.
Miller said he doubts Syria will break apart. “The Arab world doesn’t offer up any example of a state that has fragmented,” he said. “It may be more like Lebanon and Iraq -- a nominal state riven by factional, sectarian and political struggles for power.”
If the current struggle continues for another year, Miller said, Saudi Arabia is likely to support the armed Sunni opposition even more actively, while Iran and Hezbollah will try to prop up Assad and the Russians “hedge their bets and try to avoid” an American-determined transition plan.....
In a post-Assad Syria, Russia stands to lose its only presence in the Mediterranean Sea, a naval facility at Tartus, which analysts said is also a key intelligence-gathering operation for Russia in the region. Russia also could lose billions of dollars in arms sales to Syria.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on July 18 that Israel believes “that the removal of the high-ranking Syrian officials will catalyze the fall of the Assad regime. In addition, we are vigilantly watching the developments and the possibility that Hezbollah might attempt to transfer advanced weapons systems or chemical weapons from Syria to Lebanon,” Barak said, according to his office....
The uprising against Assad has positive consequences for Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and other U.S. allies in the region that have seen less interference by Syria and its terrorist proxies while Assad has been consumed by a revolt at home, he said in an interview....
Syria has been a conduit for Iranian influence into Lebanon and as far as the Gaza Strip. Iran “was able to engineer Hezbollah’s takeover of the Lebanese government and turn southern Lebanon into base for potential Hezbollah attacks on Israel, arming Hezbollah with 40,000 rockets via Syria,” said Indyk, co-author of “Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy.”
A collapse in Syria could create blowback as far as the Persian Gulf, analysts said. Iran, angry at losing its key ally, might retaliate against Saudi Arabia’s support for the Syrian opposition by fomenting sectarian trouble in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich and majority Shiite Eastern Province. “The Iranians may decide to play payback,” Indyk said.
The weaker the Syrian regime gets, said Indyk, the more Lebanon, Jordan and Israel may benefit -- so long as whatever comes next isn’t worse for them...."