Axis of Resistance: Fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah's embarrassing demise deals major blow to Iran

The rapid fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, coming hard on devastating losses suffered by Hezbollah, has dealt a serious blow to Iran’s “axis of resistance,” a central pillar of Tehran’s foreign policy, forged over decades.

Through Syria’s 13-year civil war, Iran devoted a great deal of blood and treasure to propping up the Assad regime, only to watch its investment fail in a matter of days as city after city fell to Syrian rebels.

But Tehran hasn’t only lost a client; it has seen its ability to project power, key to its own security, upended.

Hezbollah, the militant group whose power once rivalled that of regional armies, suffered a humiliating defeat to Israel last month and was counting on Iranian support to rebuild.

“The resistance front has had a really hard year,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged Sunday in an interview on Iranian state television.

But he said they had outperformed expectations and cited continued Hamas attacks on Israel.

“Nobody could have predicted that the front could be so strong.”

Others were sceptical.

“Without Syria, we could see the entire axis of resistance just unravel,” said a Western diplomat who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive policy.

Inside Iran, news of Assad’s fall prompted sharp criticism of Tehran’s policy. Even supporters questioned the decision to spend billions on a network that fell apart so quickly.

“Iranians can be happy,” Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a former member of parliament, wrote on X. “No one has the right to spend the nation’s dollars to maintain spiderwebs anymore.”

After Hamas launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Axis - a loose alliance of armed groups backed by Tehran from Yemen to Gaza - appeared to be ascendant.

In support of Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and groups in Iraq joined in attacking Israel and U.S. interests in the region.

But Israel has killed Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s leaders and worn down their forces in Gaza and Lebanon. Iran’s direct attacks on Israel, rather than deterring its foe, have only exposed greater weaknesses.

Iran fired about 200 ballistic miles at Israel in October, the largest covert action in their decades-long shadow war. But the barrage, largely intercepted by Israeli, U.S. and allied defences, inflicted little damage. Israel’s retaliation took out some of Iran’s most sophisticated military equipment: its air defences.

“Iran needs to rethink its strategy of proxies,” said Maria Luisa Fantappie, head of the Middle East program at the International Affairs Institute in Rome. “The proxies have become more of a liability than an asset.”

As officials in Tehran spent money on far-flung militias, they told Iranians that the network provided a layer of protection: It allowed them to fight their adversaries abroad, rather than at home.

When the Hamas attack ignited a regional war, that reasoning was put to the test. In Ms Fantappie’s view, it failed.

“The axis is not an effective way to project power,” she said. “On the contrary, it was projecting weakness.”

In the hours after Assad was toppled Sunday, Iran’s most senior officials were silent. When the Foreign Ministry issued a statement, it emphasized a long history of ties between Iran and Syria.

“The relations between the two nations of Iran and Syria have a long history and have always been friendly,” the ministry said. “It is expected that these relations will continue with the wise and far-sighted approach of the two countries.”

When Iran mobilized forces last week to protect Assad, it called on allies to protect the supply lines that link Tehran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Days after the armed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham overran Aleppo, Araghchi, the foreign minister, visited Assad in Damascus. After their meeting at the presidential palace, Iranian media shared images of Araghchi dining at a downtown restaurant with messages of solidarity.

But as the rebels continued to advance, Iran’s concern soon turned to panic. “What was surprising was the inabilities of the Syrian army and the speed of developments in Syria,” Araghchi said in the Iranian state television interview.

Even Assad, he said, “was stunned by the state of his own army.”

Araghchi travelled to Baghdad on Friday to rally support. But by then, regional officials and diplomats were reporting that Assad’s forces had lost the city of Hama and were abandoning the Damascus suburbs.

Iraq refused to commit troops.

“The Iranian foreign minister left Iraq disappointed,” said an Iraqi official with ties to the country’s Shiite militias.

Araghchi assumed Baghdad would support Tehran, as it had earlier in Syria’s civil war, and was “surprised” to hear otherwise, the official said.

By the end of the day, a regional diplomat said, Iran had concluded Assad was “a lost cause” and ordered military personnel and embassy staff to evacuate. After four decades as allies, Tehran was cutting its losses.

Iranian commanders and diplomats scrambled to board flights out of the Damascus airport. Others tried their luck on overland routes to Lebanon and Iraq, according to the diplomat and an Iraqi official.

“The Syrian government, and Mr. Bashar Assad himself, did not have the will to stay in power anymore,” Mohammad Ghaderi, an Iranian analyst, told the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran News Network on Sunday.

He dismissed claims that Iran abandoned its longtime ally. “Iran supported Syria up until the last moment,” he said.

But criticism of Tehran was rampant.

Some called for Iran’s leadership to learn from Assad’s fall.

“The experience of dominoes falling in Syrian cities has an important lesson,” Abdolreza Davari, who was an adviser to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said on X.

“The main ally of every government is its people,” he wrote, “and people’s satisfaction is a necessary condition for its survival against external attacks.”

- - -

Salim reported from Baghdad.

© 2024 , The Washington Post