With the sudden downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran, Israel’s arch enemy, appears to have suffered a stunning and seismic strategic defeat.
In one fell stroke, Iran has lost its sway over Syria, one of the most important Arab countries in the Middle East.
According to reports, Iran has withdrawn its military forces in Syria, which had been the only state member of Iran’s Axis of Resistance. Consisting of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis of Yemen and Islamic organizations in Iraq, this loose and informal alliance is dedicated to Israel’s destruction and the removal of U.S. bases and influence in the Middle East.
In a telling development following Assad’s overthrow, supporters of the Islamist rebels who ousted him stormed Iran’s embassy in Damascus, the consular section of which the Israeli Air Force struck last April. This incident set off four rounds of direct armed clashes between Israel and Iran.
Climbing over a fence in front of the embassy, they lowered the Iranian flag, destroyed furniture and burned documents. And in a demonstration of their rage, they tore down posters of Qassem Soleimani and Hassan Nasrallah.
Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force and the central figure in the Axis of Resistance, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad in 2020. Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, was assassinated by Israel in Beirut in September, just days before the Israeli army invaded southern Lebanon in a campaign to destroy Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.
Iran, having received information that the rebels in northwestern Syria under the command of Hayat Tahrir a-Sham were planning an uprising to topple Assad, requested protection for its embassy. Despite assurances that no harm would come to it, the building was ransacked.
Iran, Syria’s closest regional ally, was shocked and disappointed by the unexpected turn of events.
In a frank admission, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that “nobody could believe” that Assad’s totalitarian regime had collapsed so quickly. On December 16, Assad issued a statement from exile in Moscow stating that Russia, his ally, had forced him to leave Syria under duress.
Iran, too, must have been stunned by the recent comments of Ahmed al-Shara, the Hayat Tahrir a-Sham leader whose nom de guerre is Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Speaking of the ills Assad foisted on Syria, he said that the former Syrian president had converted the country into “a farm for Iranian greed.” He added that Iran’s machinations to exploit Syria’s inclusion in the Axis of Resistance had exposed Syria and neighboring nations to danger. “We were able to end the Iranian presence in Syria, but we are not enemies of the Iranian people,” he added.
Since the rapid withdrawal of its military personnel from Syria, Iran been careful not to offend its emerging new leadership and has hoped for the best.
The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he expects Iran’s “friendly” relations with Syria to continue. President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Syrians themselves must decide on their form of governance.
Assad, who succeeded his father in 2000, touched off a lengthy civil war in 2011 by violently cracking down on peaceful protesters who demanded basic democratic reforms.
Iran, along with Russia and Hezbollah, played a critical role in suppressing the rebellion and maintaining the status quo in Syria.
Iran formed a strategic relationship with Syria shortly after Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. Syria, the sole Arab state that rallied behind Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988, developed close political and economic ties with revolutionary Iran.
After Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Iran — the preeminent Shi’a power in the Middle East — was instrumental in the creation of Hezbollah, a Shi’a movement that gradually morphed into the most powerful political force in Lebanon.
Iranian advisors from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps helped Hezbollah fighters drive Israel out of the security zone in southern Lebanon it had established to protect its northern border.
With Iran openly committed to Israel’s destruction, Soleimani worked to create the Axis to Resistance, which was designed to surround Israel with a “ring of fire.”
Syria, under the repressive rule of the Assad family, was essential to its success.
Assad provided Iran with a land corridor to transfer weapons and munitions to Hezbollah, the crown jewel in the Axis of Resistance, and its closest allies: Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians in the West Bank.
In addition, Syria gave Iran access to military bases, arms warehouses, tunnels, airports and missile factories. Syria effectively became Iran’s chief outpost in the Arab world. In exchange, Iran and Hezbollah, along with Russia, propped up Assad, who proceeded to regain territory that various Syrian rebel groups had captured. Iran also sold oil to Syria at bargain basement prices.
Israel attempted to sever Iran’s arms pipeline. From 2013 onward, the Israeli Air Force regularly bombed Hezbollah convoys in Syria en route to Lebanon, Iranian military sites throughout Syria, and Syrian anti-aircraft batteries.
Russia, having signed a deconfliction agreement with Israel in 2015, did not interfere with Israeli air strikes, much to Iran’s and Hezbollah’s chagrin.
Israel’s attacks increased in frequency and scope in 2023, following Hamas’ October 7 attack in southern Israel. Since Assad’s ouster, Israel has seized the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and captured parts of the demilitarized buffer zone inside Syria, which was established in 1974. Israel also has conducted widespread air strikes in Syria to ensure that Syrian weapons do not fall into the wrong hands and to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to smuggle arms into Lebanon.
Several days ago, Hezbollah’s secretary general, Naim Qassem, acknowledged that his organization has lost the vital land bridge through Syria upon which Hezbollah is so dependent. The apparent loss of this corridor is indeed a catastrophic logistical blow to Hezbollah, which recently signed a 60-day ceasefire agreement that requires Israel to pull its troops out of Lebanon by the end of January.
On December 14, Qassem said that Hezbollah will try to find “alternative means” of rearming itself following Israel’s success in decimating its leadership and destroying a substantial part of its military outposts in southern Lebanon.
It remains to be seen whether Hezbollah can reach an agreement with the powers-that-be in Syria. It would be very surprising if Syria’s new leadership decides to help Hezbollah, thereby exposing itself to probable Western sanctions and inevitable Israeli retaliatory air strikes.
Although Iran has suffered a resounding defeat in Syria, Iranian leaders are putting up a brave face.
Khamenei, having blamed the United States, Israel and Turkey for the collapse of Assad’s regime, boasts that Iran and the Axis of Resistance will only grow stronger in the future.
Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, claims that Iran has not been weakened by Assad’s flight from Syria into exile in Russia. In a reference to Israel, he said, “The overthrow of the Zionist regime is not off the table.”
Israel is not intimidated by Iran’s coarse rhetoric, which has been a staple of the Iranian propaganda machine since the Islamic revolution.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledges that the Axis of Resistance is still standing. But he believes that it is “not what it was,” that Israel is “taking it apart step by step,” and that Assad’s fall has opened up a new chapter in the often turbulent annals of the Middle East.
Having probably lost its base in Syria, Iran may push ahead with its budding nuclear program, which Israel vehemently opposes and has threatened to bomb.
A few days ago, the Israeli media reported that the Israel Defence Force believes that this may be an opportune moment to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel would certainly be taking a huge risk by going through with this plan. Iran would most likely retaliate, setting off a full-scale war that would be detrimental to both sides.