If you liked that, here's a similar piece with Lebanon as the centerpiece, with Syria, Iran, and Israel as satellites, same author, nearly as recent, 7/14/2006:
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060714_lebanese_security.pdf
Something interesting buried in the article that the MSM is ignoring is the number of journalists and others assinated or injured since 2004 -- all people who have been critical of Syria... 30 killed and over 230 injured.