Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey was interviewed by CNN over the weekend and asked to evaluate the trajectory of the conflict in Syria. Describing how the conflict has been polarized along sectarian lines by battling Shiite and Sunni extremists, Dempsey projected that warfighting may last a full decade:

The United States faces “a 10-year issue” in Syria as it weighs how deeply it wants to get involved the country’s civil war, the top U.S. military officer warned in an interview that aired Sunday… “It is related — not exclusively — but related to a competition at best and a conflict at worse between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam”… said Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dempsey also highlighted the risks that the various forces fighting in what is effectively a regional Sunni-Shiite proxy war – with Hezbollah and Iran battling on the side of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Al Qaeda-linked forces siding with the opposition – may export the conflict across Syria’s borders. The violence has alrady spilled over into every neighboring country, including Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Israel.

Analysts commenting on the tactics of regime-linked forces operating on the Israeli-Syrian border are increasingly concerned that the Syrian ruler is slowly but deliberately destabilizing the area with machine-gun fire and rocket launches. Meanwhile the Daily Beast scored rare interviews with Hezbollah officials and published them late last week. Their comments indicate that they are committed, if and when the Syrian conflict, to attacking Israel:

The intervention—Hezbollah’s first full-scale battle to reinforce Assad in Syria—suggests a new direction in the war and has seemingly prompted the U.S. to rush supplies to the rebels. It has also fanned fears that Hezbollah’s involvement will drag Lebanon deeper into the Syrian quagmire and possibly ignite a sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shiites within Lebanon itself.

But the idea that this may be treacherous territory isn’t foremost in the mind of the Hezbollah commander. To him this is opportune training ground. “What we are doing in Syria in some ways is a dress rehearsal for Israel,” he says.

[Photo: FreedomHouse / Flickr]