Sitting at a café in Dahieh, the southern suburb and Hezbollah stronghold of the Lebanese capital, is to witness the decline in Hezbollah’s fortunes. Women gossip and children are oblivious, but look around, and some men are missing fingers or eyes, the legacy of holding a sabotaged beeper.

Hezbollah is still a presence, though. The checkpoints that mark the entrance to Dahieh no longer fly Hezbollah flags nor sport posters of the group’s late secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, but deeper in the labyrinthine neighborhood, the group’s presence is more open. Even in more central neighborhoods, Hezbollah flags remain, dirty and tattered but still flying.

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