and the real reason emerged, insofar as one can trust reports in Syria: a dispute between Damascus and Tehran over investments in the Latakia area in northwest Syria. Tehran and Iranian businessmen are not confining themselves to military aid to Syria and the dispatching of forces to put down opponents of the regime. They’re also deeply engaged in business and investments in Syria, in changing the demographics of neighborhoods and towns, and in buying up real estate that’s cheap and very available.

Damascus has granted Iranians many incentives for purchasing properties in Syria, and in the past three years special laws have been passed that let Iranians circumvent the cumbersome Syrian bureaucracy and transfer into their names land in areas controlled by the regime. For the most part theof the oil deliveries, which have only just recently been renewed.

To offset its energy deficit, Syria, whose oil production has plummeted this year to 2,300 barrels a day, used to buy petroleum from oil fields where the Islamic State is now in control. But with the stepping up of the war on ISIS and the direct hits on the drilling rigs in the area of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour, the supply from this source has shrunk and Damascus has had to drastically reduce the hours of electricity supply – not only in the provincial areas under its control but also in Damascus.

Now the Syrian regime is hoping that after its occupation of Raqqa, and some time soon the toppling of Islamic State control in the Dir el-Zour area,