The Syrian regime’s sudden collapse on Saturday, with the entry of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham into Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fleeing the country, came as no surprise to Moscow or Tehran. Both were quick to evacuate their personnel, and neither one was interested in coming to the regime’s aid. It was not just a matter of Russia being tied up with fighting in Ukraine and Iran’s proxies otherwise being engaged with Israel. There had been rumors circulating in the Gulf and among Syrians abroad going back at least to September that Russia and Iran were in discussions about attempting to replace Bashar with someone more effective and reliable.

In retrospect, we can now point to the Syrian regime’s inability to maintain loyalty and cohesion among a war-weary public and a poorly paid military. Some outside observers were prescient in noting the Syrian government’s urgent need for security sector reform, with its model of prioritizing a small cadre of Alawite fighters as regime protection forces over a fully integrated army with a common mission. In some respects, the writing has been on the wall since 2013. Bashar’s reliance on an outmoded counterinsurgency strategy inherited from his father made as many friends as enemies, ever narrowing down the ranks of committed fighters through attrition and defection. 

The fall of Damascus now leaves Hezbollah’s supply lines in ruins. The status of the Russian port in Tartus is in jeopardy, with the public tearing down statues of the Assad family even in the Alawite stronghold of Latakia. Above all, the impact on Lebanon will be enormous. The loose and fractious coalition of Christian, Druze, and Sunni factions that once styled themselves the “March 14 Alliance” are no better positioned to capitalize on Hezbollah’s failures over the last year than they ever were. However, there will be intense international pressure on the Lebanese political scene. Hezbollah needs to buy time to repurpose its operations, and the militias parading through the streets of Damascus today will likely be training and equipping compatriots in Lebanon tomorrow. March 14 may not have to be competent or organized in order to wring concessions out of Hezbollah, especially on the appointment of a president or the implementation of UNSCR 1701. 

The international community will push for new elections in Syria. Politicians affiliated with Iranian-backed militias, especially in Deir ez-Zor province, will face retaliation and retribution. Turkish forces will probably intervene with a military incursion that occupies even more land in Kurdish-held areas of the semi-autonomous north. Türkiye, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE will seek to support some of the many political actors who will soon emerge out of exile, desperate to burnish their opposition credentials and serve as the conduit for foreign capital to an economically deprived country. Many of these Syrians from abroad abandoned the opposition long ago. Some even collaborated with the Assad regime on economic revitalization in recent years, but their pasts will be largely forgotten. However, the real consequences of the change in Syria will play out in Jerusalem and Tehran. 

Bibi in the Driver’s Seat

Benjamin Netanyahu has achieved far more than anyone in Israel or around the world would have thought possible on October 8, 2023. Israeli forces are destroying Syrian military installations around Mount Hermon to create a buffer zone along the Golan Heights while conducting strikes on Syrian chemical weapons facilities. It is time for Netanyahu to translate battlefield victories into political objectives, and with like-minded allies soon to enter office in Washington, he is in a position to make demands. 

Some items on Bibi’s holiday wish list should be easy to figure out. He clearly wants a corridor splitting Gaza between north and south, thereby making a demilitarized territory easier to monitor and patrol. Similarly, he wants a buffer zone along the Lebanon border with the ability for Israel to enforce it at will. He wants concrete assurances from a wide range of international partners that they will take concerted and decisive action against Iran’s nuclear program. However, that may be a bridge too far. Indeed, he can expect a greater willingness from many countries around the world to participate in a renewed maximum-pressure campaign. He wants a restoration of his international image. That could mean a visit to the White House soon after inauguration day or a photo op with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. If the stars align, it is conceivable that he might even get both at the same time. 

A number of far-right Israeli politicians, particularly Finance Minister Smotrich, have called on the incoming Trump Administration to support Israeli efforts to “apply Israeli sovereignty” to the settlements. That should not be mistaken for outright annexation of the West Bank. Annexation has concerned previous Israeli political and military leaders for the impact it would have on demography. It is, however, a step beyond the current level of Israeli control over Area C, which would remove the administrative body under Defense Ministry authority known as COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) and normalize governance under civilian control. The settler movement would see this as legal and moral justification for expanding settlements without fear of arrest or sanctions enforcement. 

The question is whether Netanyahu wants this increased control over the settlements or whether he simply wants to hold out the hope of doing so in order to preserve his fragile coalition while using it as a bargaining chip for getting concessions from international partners. Washington must recognize that Bibi is now looking beyond mere political survival toward his legacy. He sees no viable future for Palestinian statehood. A permanent legal status for the settlements may be what he views as his lasting contribution to Israeli growth and security. 

Khamenei’s Weak Footing

The last year of fighting in the Middle East has repeatedly ended in public humiliation for Iran and severe setbacks for its proxies in the region. Iranian sources have told Reuters that they are in touch with members of the Syrian opposition now in control in Damascus, and the Iranian government has collaborated with other Sunni extremist organizations in the past. However, it is hard to imagine Iran regaining anything remotely resembling the level of access and control that it possessed under Assad.

The conclusion is inescapable that the leadership in Tehran was not prepared for this eventuality, did not have an alternate strategy or contingency plan, and was incapable of responding with even the simplest of public relations campaigns—just as it was with the Israeli decimation of Hezbollah’s senior leadership and Israel’s effective response to two rounds of Iranian airstrikes. There will inevitably be finger-pointing, not only among Iran’s proxies but also key decision-makers in Tehran.

Mid-level Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers, who had previously experienced two decades of success in extending their influence across the region, have now seen much of that achievement rolled back or constrained. It is not a stretch to imagine that they are looking at their political leadership warily, concerned for their reputation and worried that an elderly generation of clerics who have held onto power for too long will leave them to inherit a weak and dysfunctional state. In that regard, the real danger is not Iran lashing out with another ill-conceived and ineffective attack in the region but rather a soft coup in Tehran that replaces one hard-line regime with an even more hard-line regime.

Moscow and Tehran were not surprised by the fall of Assad, even if the timing and suddenness were unexpected. By contrast, Western capitals have been caught off-guard. Part of this is a consequence of pundits in Washington and elsewhere mistaking their policy prescriptions for actual analytical content as they compete to demonstrate their political relevance. The same situation prevails within the Iran analysis industry. Western experts take their places in one of two camps: either the Islamic Republic is an irredeemable leader of the “Axis of Evil,” or the Iranian state is a nationalist and ultimately pragmatic actor. By resorting to this simplistic dichotomy, Washington may miss the full picture of an Iranian regime that bears greater signs of fragility than at any time since 1979.

Joshua Yaphe is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the National Interest. He previously served as Senior Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Visiting Faculty at the National Intelligence University (NIU), and scholar-in-residence at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. He has a Ph.D. from American University and is the author of Saudi Arabia and Iraq as Friends and Enemies: Borders, Tribes and a History Shared (University of Liverpool Press, 2022). The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.

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