The severity of the blow Iran’s regional and national security policy has suffered from the Assad regime’s collapse has been summarized by frank comments from a senior Iranian military figure, Brigadier General Behrouz Esbati. Speaking at Tehran’s prominent Valiasr mosque on December 31, according to an audio recording published by Geneva-based Abdi Media, Esbati told the audience: “I don’t consider losing Syria something to be proud of…We were defeated, and defeated very badly, we took a very big blow and it’s been very difficult.”
The remarks were significant not only for contradicting senior Iranian political leaders who have sought to downplay Assad’s demise, but also for the high rank of the speaker. Esbati is a top commander of Iran’s joint IRGC-regular military headquarters, with a record of prominent roles, including commanding the Armed Forces’ cyber division. In Syria, he supervised Iran’s military operations and coordinated closely with Syrian leaders as well as Russian generals. He technically outranked the IRGC-QF commander, General Ismail Qaani, who oversees Iran’s efforts to supply and advise Iran’s Axis of Resistance partners throughout the region, most notably Lebanese Hezbollah.
Esbati’s frank assessments reflect the loss of Syria as the major hub through which Iran supplied Hezbollah, its most powerful regional ally. To carry out that mission, the IRGC-QF officers in Syria controlled airports and weapons warehouses and operated missile and drone manufacturing bases. The IRGC-QF also manned Hezbollah bases in Syria, all of which have, since the fall of Assad, been destroyed by Israel or ransacked by the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) rebel forces who now control Damascus.
To help Assad against the rebel forces throughout the Syria civil war, which began in 2011, Iran also recruited and deployed Shia fighters from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it organized Syrian fighters into pro-regime militias fighting alongside the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Yet, perhaps assessing the SAA had been hollowed out by a decade of civil conflict, President Bashar al-Assad refused Iranian requests to open a front with Israel along the disputed Golan Heights border territory following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Assad appeared to calculate that opening a front against Israel would provoke Israel to expand its strikes in Syria to SAA positions and equipment, further weakening the SAA against armed rebels.
By all accounts, Iran’s extensive infrastructure in Syria collapsed along with the Assad regime. Iran has pulled out nearly all of its IRGC-QF personnel from Syria and withdrawn the Pakistani and Afghan militia fighters. The outgoing top State Department official responsible for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who visited Damascus in late December to establish U.S. links to the new rulers there, confirmed to journalists the U.S. assessment that Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria has been dismantled.
Within a broader internal debate over how to respond to the setbacks its Axis of Resistance has experienced in recent months, Iranian leaders differ over whether Iran should or could rebuild its influence in Syria. Esbati’s speech suggested Tehran intended to cultivate its remaining contacts in the country, primarily among the Alawite community – a Shia Muslim community that was the backbone of Assad’s regime. Esbati reportedly said: “We can activate all the networks we have worked with over the years…We can activate the social layers that our guys lived among for years; we can be active in social media and we can form resistance cells.”
Referring to Iran’s ability to exert influence in Iraq despite the decade-long U.S. military presence there, he noted: “Now we can operate there as we do in other international arenas, and we have already started.” Reinforcing that view, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the paramount decision-maker in Tehran, has said in at least two speeches since Assad’s fall that resistance was not dead in Syria, and that Syria’s “youth” would reclaim their country from the ruling HTS rebels. The comments suggest Iran might seek to promote instability in Syria on the grounds that Iran knows how to secure its interests in a turbulent landscape. However, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi – both considered moderates – have said they favor stability in Syria and diplomatic ties with the new government.
The moderate Iranians’ views comport with reported assessments within the IRGC and broader Iranian establishment that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for Iran to rebuild its influence in Syria to the level it was during the rule of the Assad family. The more pessimistic Iranian assessments take into account statements by HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, now the de-facto leader of Syria, that Assad’s collapse has effectively “set the Iranian project in the region back by 40 years.” He has vowed to thwart any Iranian attempt to rebuild supportive networks in Syria. Global officials assess HTS’ deep distrust of Tehran will successfully prevent the IRGC-QF from operating secretly in Syria to try to re-establish its land bridge arms supply lines to Hezbollah. Israel has warned that it would decimate any Iranian efforts it detects on the ground in Syria, adding another layer of difficulty to any Iranian attempt to use Syria to support its allies.
The fall of the Assad regime has also reverberated to Tehran’s detriment throughout the region. Several of Syria’s neighbors have sought divorce from Iran’s Axis of Resistance construct against Israel and the United States. Since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iran has exercised significant influence in its neighbor, both by supporting Iraq’s Shia political leaders as well as advising, training, and arming a network of pro-Iranian militias that operate largely outside the national chain of command. The militias, particularly Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, have for years attacked U.S. forces deployed in Iraq to help Baghdad against the Islamic State organization (ISIS). Since the October 7 Hamas attack, these groups have periodically launched armed drones and missiles against Israel, even as they continued to operate across the border in Syria, contributing to Tehran’s ultimately failed effort to keep Assad in power. Along with other Iran-backed militias, the Iraqi groups fled Syria after the fall of Assad’s regime, along with SAA members who defected and fled the rebel advance on Damascus.
On January 8, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani, visited Iran to discuss, among other issues, his plan to bring the pro-Iranian militia movements firmly under Baghdad’s control, according to regional media outlets. His plan implies that government forces would compel the militias, particularly KH, to cease attacking the U.S. forces in Iraq that Sudani seeks to continue to host in Iraq as a firewall against an ISIS resurgence or any move by Iraqi Sunni Islamists to capitalize on the fall of Assad.
It remained unclear whether Baghdad seeks to insist the Iran-aligned militias disarm, or turn over to the Iraqi military some of their heavier Iran-supplied weaponry such as armed drones and short-range ballistic missiles. However, seeking to avoid a further setback to Iran’s regional strategy, Khamenei appeared to warn Sudani during their meeting not to confront, disarm, or constrain the Iran-backed militias. Iranian state media quoted the Supreme Leader as telling Sudani, “The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, the organization that includes the Iran-aligned militia groups) are a key element of Iraq’s strength, and it is vital to continue efforts to maintain and enhance them.” No matter whether Sudani succeeds in constraining the Iran-aligned militias, it is clear that Iran’s longstanding effort to pressure U.S. forces to leave Iraq has been derailed.
In Lebanon, Tehran is absorbing a further setback beyond the loss of its secure land corridor to Hezbollah, transiting Syria. On January 9, apparently accepting that Israeli operations and the terms of the ceasefire with Israel had diminished its political influence inside Lebanon, Hezbollah joined other Lebanese leaders in electing Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander Joseph Aoun as Lebanon’s president. Hezbollah had, for more than two years, succeeded in blocking parliament’s attempts to select to that post – which had been vacant since late 2022 – a Hezbollah critic. The presidency is, by accord among Lebanon’s major communities, held by a Maronite Christian.
Upon assuming office, Aoun immediately insisted government forces would disarm Hezbollah in areas of south Lebanon that Hezbollah is to evacuate under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement of late November. He also insisted Israel withdraw from south Lebanon, as the ceasefire accord requires. Aoun has furthermore insisted the government should have a “monopoly” of armed force within Lebanon – suggesting he seeks a broader Hezbollah disarmament. However, it is unlikely the LAF would be willing or able to accomplish that objective. Nonetheless, the Lebanon presidential selection process illustrated the high cost to Tehran of Assad’s fall and other recent developments.
Source » thesoufancenter