Like the equivalent resolution passed by the British House of Commons, the French National Assembly’s recognition of a fictive Palestinian state is a purely symbolic gesture. Although passed by the currently dominant left-wing coalition, the law will no doubt be ignored by the reigning left-wing government, which has shown uncharacteristic sympathy for Israel. Above all, writes Michel Gurfinkiel, the vote is a sign of the French left’s pending electoral collapse:

The unraveling of the French left may be the key to an intriguing paradox: why in the world did the parliamentary left insist upon a foreign-policy resolution that the governing left had no intention of implementing? Dogmatism may be at stake: supporting the state of Palestine, whatever that means and even if it might turn into an Islamic State of Palestine, is part of left and far-left mantras worldwide. A further explanation may be that the left’s last hope to survive in the coming election is to garner as much support as possible from the immigrant Muslim community, which will provide an average of 5 to 10 percent of the vote.

Finally, [President François] Hollande and [Prime Minister Manuel] Valls are so unpopular among their own constituency that the entire socialist and left-wing political class needs to distance itself from them on almost all issues, either domestic or international.

[Nicolas] Sarkozy, who was elected on November 30 as the new chairman of the conservative UMP party—an important step for being reelected as president in 2017—campaigned against the Palestine resolution. This point will not be lost on pro-Israel voters in the future, nor on a growing number of voters, both on the right and the left, that are concerned with the rise of jihadism in Europe as well as in the Middle East.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.