For Iran’s theocratic government, it keeps getting worse.
Its decades-long strategy of building an “Axis of Resistance” supporting militant groups and proxies around the region is falling apart. First came the crushing Israeli campaign in Gaza triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Iranian-backed Hamas.
That war spawned another in Lebanon, where Israel has mauled Iran’s most powerful ally, Hezbollah, even as Israel has launched successful airstrikes openly inside of Iran for the first time.
And now Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, is gone. As dawn broke Sunday, opposition forces completed a lightning offensive by seizing the ancient capital of Damascus and tearing down symbols of more than 50 years of Assad's rule over the Mideast crossroads.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a key adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, once called Assad and Syria “the golden ring of the resistance chain in the region.”
“Without the Syrian government, this chain will break and the resistance against Israel and its supporters will be weakened.”
That break in the chain is literal. Syria was an important geographical link that allowed Iran to move weapons and other supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its loss now further weakens Hezbollah, whose powerful arsenal in southern Lebanon had put Iranian influence directly on the border of its nemesis Israel.
“Iran’s deterrence thinking is really shattered by events in Gaza, by events in Lebanon and definitely by developments in Syria,” a senior diplomat from the United Arab Emirates, Anwar Gargash, said at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Manama Dialogue in Bahrain.
Iran still holds the card of its nuclear program. Though it denies that intention, it can use the potential for building a weapons capability to cast a shadow of influence in the region.
“Iran remains a critical regional player,” Gargash said. “We should use this moment to connect and speak about what’s next in my opinion.”
Dramatic reversal
Only a few years ago, Iran loomed large across the wider Middle East. Its “Axis of Resistance” was at a zenith.
Hezbollah in Lebanon stood up against Israel. Assad appeared to have weathered an “Arab Spring” uprising-turned-civil war. Iraqi insurgents killed US troops with Iranian-designed roadside bombs. Houthi militias in Yemen fought against the legitimate government there.
Syria, at the crossroads, played a vital role.
Early in Syria’s civil war, when it appeared Assad might be overthrown, Iran and its ally, Hezbollah, rushed fighters to support him — in the name of defending Shiite shrines in Syria. Russia later joined with a scorched earth campaign of airstrikes.
The campaign won back territory, even as Syria remained divided into zones of government and opposition control.
But the speed of Assad’s collapse the past week showed just how reliant he was on support from Iran and Russia — which at the crucial moment didn’t come.
“What was surprising was the Syrian’s army’s failure to counter the offensive, and also the speed of the developments," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state television late Sunday night. "That was unexpected.”
Russia remains mired in Ukraine years after launching a full-scale invasion there in 2022. For Iran, international sanctions over its advancing nuclear program have ground down its economy.
For Israel, breaking Iran’s regional network has been a major goal, though it is wary over extremist fighters among the opposition who toppled Assad. Israel on Sunday moved troops into a demilitarized buffer zone with Syria by the Israel-held Golan Heights in what it called a temporary security measure.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Assad's fall a “historic day,” saying it was “the direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad’s main supporters.”
Iran’s theocratic rulers long touted their regional network to Iranians as a show of their country’s strength, and its crumbling could raise repercussions at home — though there is no immediate sign of their hold weakening. Anger over the tens of billions of dollars Iran is believed to have spent propping up Assad was a rallying cry in rounds of nationwide anti-government protests that have broken out over recent years, most recently in 2022.
Iran could respond by revving up its nuclear program
The loss of Syria does not mean the end of Iran’s ability to project power in the Mideast. The Houthis continue to launch attacks on Israel and on ships moving through the Red Sea — though the tempo of their attacks has again fallen without a clear explanation from their leadership.
Iran also maintains its nuclear program. While insisting it enriches uranium for peaceful purposes, Western intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran had an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.
The head of the IAEA also warned Friday that Iran is poised to “quite dramatically” increase its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium as it has started cascades of advanced centrifuges.
“If Iran would develop nuclear weapons, that would be a great blow to the international nonproliferation regime,” said Thanos Dokos, Greece’s national security adviser, in Bahrain.
Whatever happens next, Iran will need to make the decision weighing the problems it faces at both home and abroad.
“Whereas stability is a difficult commodity to export, instability can travel very fast, which is why stability in the Middle East is very important for all of us,” Dokos said.
