Syria’s epic collapse revolutionizes the geostrategic chessboard. Iran’s military logistics to Hezbollah through Syria will likely be cut off for good, thus further weakening its “Resistance Axis”.

Andrew Korybko (South24 Center)

All observers are shocked at the swiftness with which former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government fell over the past two weeks. The terrorist-designated and reportedly Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept into Aleppo unopposed and then took Hama without a fight. Homs put up minor resistance, but other armed opposition groups in the country took advantage of the erstwhile Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) weakness to rise up, encircle Damascus, and force Assad’s flight to Russia. 

It was hitherto taken for granted that Assad would remain in power after the Russian and Iranian assistance, the latter of which included support from its “Resistance Axis” ally Hezbollah, and prevented the capital’s capture by ISIS in late 2015 during a dramatic intervention. The former Syrian leader was even welcomed back into the Arab League, so sure were his counterparts that he’d remain a fixture of the regional political scene for years to come. It turns out though that Assad’s grip on power was only illusory. 

Strategic Failures and Military Collapse

Syria’s epic collapse in the face of HTS’ and its allies’ latest nationwide offensive proves that its systemic problems were never resolved in the past nearly one decade since Russia’s and Iran’s intervention. The SAA never improved its capabilities despite the funds that were spent on this end, thus hinting that the country’s incorrigible corruption continued during this time. They also didn’t prepare any defenses around Aleppo nor learn from the Ukrainian conflict how to counter the FPV drones (first-person-view ‘kamikaze’ drones) that HTS later used. 

Assad was the head of state so the responsibility for these failings rests with him. In hindsight, he exploited Russian air support and Iranian ground forces in an attempt to remain in power indefinitely without changing his ways, all the while telling his patrons what he thought they wanted to hear to mislead them into thinking that he was improving. All the while, he made no effort to politically resolve the war, which could have brought sanctions relief to his beleaguered and increasingly desperate people. 

UNSC Resolution 2254 obligated him to carry out far-reaching reforms, including promulgating a new constitution and holding UN-supervised elections, the first imperative of which Russia sought to help him with by drafting a constitution that it unveiled during the first Astana Summit in January 2017. Instead of appreciating Russia’s assistance with this difficult process, Assad defied Moscow by declining to implement a single one of its requested provisions, which in retrospect might have further radicalized the opposition. 

He wouldn’t have made this decision had he not presumably been assured by his other patron, Iran, of support in the event that Russia curtailed its own to encourage him to reconsider – thus suggesting that he played those two off against one another to his self-interested political advantage. That was ultimately a fatal mistake, however, since the last two weeks’ events could have been averted had he gone along with Russia’s plans to make peace with the opposition through a phased political transition. 

From Iran’s perspective, Assad’s departure from power would have risked severing its military logistics to neighboring Lebanon’s Hezbollah, ergo why would it have supported him in refusing to comply with Russia’s plans. What neither Assad nor Iran foresaw was the outbreak of the West Asian Wars after Hamas’ infamous sneak attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, which led to Israel tremendously weakening both Hezbollah and Iran. They therefore weren’t able to rescue him during HTS’ latest offensive. 

According to the Financial Times, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Assad as much during his visit to Damascus on December 1, but their sources also claim that Iran had already lost faith in Assad due to his rapprochement with the Arab States and refusal to escalate tensions with Israel in solidarity with the “Resistance Axis”. Araghchi later told local media that Iran had alerted Assad about the impending offensive and had earlier asked him to enter into dialogue with the opposition but Tehran’s advice went unheeded. 

That second point was reaffirmed by Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf shortly after, though such rhetoric should be taken with a grain of salt since Iran might be trying to ingratiate itself with Syria’s new rulers, and thus could just be throwing Assad under the bus for political convenience. In any case, there’s no denying that Israel’s weakening of Iran and Hezbollah combined with Russia’s focus on the Ukrainian conflict created a situation where none of Assad’s allies could save him like last time.  

Even if any of them wanted to redivert their attention to Syria at the expense of their own interests, it would still have been for naught due to how incompetent the SAA was exposed as being after surrendering entire cities without a fight and even leaving behind lots of equipment for HTS to capture. Assad also did absolutely nothing to rally his nation, instead remaining silent the entire time and not even addressing the country once before he fled. It was clear to Russia and Iran that Syria was a lost cause. 

Nevertheless, the top diplomats of Iran and Russia still tried to broker a political solution up until the very last minute as proven by them meeting with their Turkish counterpart in Doha on Saturday (December 7) on the sidelines of a multilateral event there, yet it was too late to make a difference by then. Had Assad rallied his nation and the SAA stood its ground, then it’s possible that he would have finally been coerced into making the long-overdue political concessions required by the UNSC Resolution 2254 in exchange for a ceasefire. 

That’s all hypothetical though now since it never came to pass, but the point is that Russia’s last-minute diplomatic efforts were focused exclusively on the Astana format, which challenges the speculation that it secretly cut a deal with the US. 

The theory of a Russian-US “deal” over Syria whereby “Washington gets to do what it wants in the Middle East, Russia gets Ukraine” was always sketchy. The arguments against it are several, beginning with the fact that Russia designates HTS as a terrorist group and amplified related messaging before its takeover of Syria, which it warned would be a disaster. 

Its pretext for conventionally intervening in Syria in the first place was to prevent exactly such a scenario so it’s difficult to believe that it would cut a deal with anyone to bring precisely that possibility into being. Rather, what appears to have happened is that Moscow accepted that the situation was now beyond its control to decisively influence and quietly made peace with this outcome. It’s now trying to cultivate cordial relations with some non-terrorist-designated armed opposition groups to retain influence in Syria. 

Another argument for why Russia didn’t cut a deal with the US is that President Vladimir Putin has said many times since the Ukrainian conflict began that he no longer trusts the West. It would therefore be totally unlike him to trust them enough to let terrorist-designated HTS take over Syria for the promise of “getting Ukraine” later. He’s also a very proud man, yet returning US President Donald Trump insulted him twice in his posts about this crisis, which was humiliating and something he’d have never agreed to. 

The third reason is that the US is unlikely to let “Russia get Ukraine”. The West has already invested several hundred billion dollars into its defense for the purpose of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia or at least keeping its troops as far away from NATO’s borders as possible if the first goal doesn’t succeed. Even Trump himself has talked about freezing the conflict, not handing the entire country over to Russia, which would place Russian boots on the Polish border. 

There’s also the fact that leading NATO nations like the US, UK, Poland, and Germany have signed security guarantees with Ukraine that are legally binding documents which can only be terminated after one side gives the other a six-month notice. These agreements institutionalize their existing military, intelligence, and other forms of support for Ukraine, which amount to Article 5 (for just and lasting peace in Ukraine) in principle minus the implied obligation to send troops to its aid. 

They represent significant military-strategic achievements that confirm Ukraine’s de facto membership in NATO even if it never formally joins the bloc and are thus unlikely to be unilaterally rescinded in exchange for a reportedly Turkish-backed group becoming the kingmakers in post-Assad Syria. This actually weakened Russia’s hand vis-à-vis the US since the Kremlin can no longer ask Assad to cut off Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah for Syrian sanctions relief and American concessions in Ukraine. 

It's improbable that Putin would give up such a potentially game-changing diplomatic card by pulling out the rug from under Assad’s feet just for unwritten backroom promises from his American enemies. Russia’s international image has been damaged by its ally Assad, seeing how unreliable he proved himself to be, experiencing such an epic collapse in just two weeks. Moreover, the possibility of losing its bases in Syria could complicate its PMCs (Private Military Companies) military logistics to Africa, which Putin would never give up as part of a deal. 

About that, the opposition-run Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC), which was founded in 2015 under the mandate of the UN to supervise negotiations between Damascus and the opposition, told RT about their envisaged future for Russian-Syrian ties. Commission President Anas Al-Abdah said that “We should aim for good relations with Russia based on the mutual interest of Russian people and Syrian people, the Russian state and the Syrian state.” This suggests a willingness to let Russia retain its bases. 

Its coastal ones, an air and naval base, are still functioning normally according to Russian reports. That said, the new authorities might decide to do away with Assad’s 49-year lease of them to Russia, but they might be incentivized to reconsider if Russia recognizes their government and extends various aid. This could take the form of continuing economic and military assistance, though that would likely require removing HTS’ terrorist designation, unless it clearly separates itself from the rest of the opposition. 

Regional Implications

In any case, the future of these facilities is questionable, but it’s premature at the time of this analysis’ publication to assume that Russia will be requested to depart. Even if that happens, it’s possible that it could be a phased withdrawal, thus giving Russia time to develop alternatives in Libya and/or Sudan. Should Russia leave its bases, however, then it’s possible that the US might replace it. That would lead to uncomfortable optics and obviously isn’t something that Putin would have agreed to as part of a deal. 

There are also the long-term economic consequences of what just happened, in that the proposal to build a Qatari gas pipeline to Europe that would pass through Syria might now be back on track. If any tangible progress is made on this, then it could reduce the chances of an energy-driven Russian-EU rapprochement after the Ukrainian conflict finally ends. The EU still imports approximately 20% of its LNG from Russia despite sanctioning it and this could increase if the sanctions are curtailed or lifted. 

If work was underway to bring lower-cost Qatari pipeline gas into the European market, then there’ll be less interest in the EU to consider the aforesaid scenario for repairing relations with Russia in the coming future, which could also deprive the Kremlin of more budgetary revenue. Once again, this is yet another consequence of the latest events that’s detrimental to Russian interests and which conspiracy theorists want the public to imagine that Putin agreed to in exchange for vague promises on Ukraine. 

On the regional level, Syria’s epic collapse revolutionizes the geostrategic chessboard. Iran’s military logistics to Hezbollah through Syria will likely be cut off for good, thus further weakening its “Resistance Axis”. Ironically, despite the group’s late leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah claiming in 2019 that “Israel is weaker than a spider web”, it turned out that this applies more to the “Resistance Axis”. Israeli and Turkish influence will now fill the void that Tehran leaves in Syria, thus pushing Iran further out of West Asia. 

It's unclear when this might happen, but more pressure could then be placed on the Houthis, which are Iran’s “Resistance Axis” allies in Yemen. They’ve proven themselves to be much stronger than a spider web, though they too might eventually be weakened by the latest regional developments. Interestingly enough, the international community has adapted to their blockade of the Red Sea by accepting higher transport costs and longer transport times, but they might want to eventually reopen that waterway. 

The Houthis might lift their blockade if Hamas agrees to a lasting ceasefire with Israel since they claimed to be blockading the Red Sea and launching occasional strikes against Israel in solidarity with Hamas, though that won’t resolve the Yemeni War, which remains a regional problem that could always worsen. The weaker that Iran and the “Resistance Axis” become, the easier it might be to coerce the Houthis into making the political concessions required for a lasting peace, though it’s too early to speculate on all the details. 

The best-case scenario would be for Yemen to bifurcate back into its Northern and Southern halves, but there’ll be some time to go before that happens, and it’ll require all stakeholders agreeing to it. Trump was known for his bold decisions during his first term, such as recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over what the UN deems to be the illegally occupied Syrian Golan Heights, so it’s possible that he and his team could be convinced to support the restoration of South Yemeni independence. 

The US is back in the driver’s seat in West Asia, after over a decade-long absence since its withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, and with Trump at the helm, he might come to see that this option (restoration of South Yemeni independence) is one of the best ways to contain the Iranian-backed Houthis. If his administration starts flirting with this, even if unofficially and only through unconfirmed reports from reputable media, then it could get other major countries to begin considering the same, and this could set into motion a fast-moving political process.