Media: Assad regime’s collapse - strategic blow of historic proportions for Iran

Top US intelligence official for Iran from 2008 to 2017 Norman Roule has stated that Iran openly distanced itself from ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after having supported his regime throughout more than a decade of civil war. 

“Israel killed a generation of Hezbollah and IRGC commanders with Syria expertise, for example, and they took bureaucratic networks and coordination capacity to their graves,” Roule said, Caliber.Az reports per foreign media. 

The Assad regime’s collapse, he added, was a “strategic blow of historic proportions” for Iran. 

Iran spent decades and billions of dollars building a network of militias and governments that allowed it to exert political and military influence across the Middle East, as well as deter foreign attacks on its soil. However, within weeks, the foundations of that alliance began to crumble.

The departure of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad marks the latest strategic disaster for Iran, forcing the country to reconsider its long-standing security policies. This comes at a time when Iran is also facing the election of President-elect Donald Trump, whose promises to increase pressure on Tehran further complicate the situation. Assad’s removal is the culmination of a series of events triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year, marking the most significant shift in Iran’s security environment since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

While the fall of Saddam Hussein ultimately opened opportunities for Iran, this time Tehran finds itself at a disadvantage. In over a year of attacks, Israel has decimated Hamas, Iran's primary Palestinian ally. Since September, Israel has killed most of Hezbollah's leadership, the Lebanese militia and one of Iran’s most powerful allies, forcing its surviving commanders into hiding. The fall of Assad now eliminates the last remaining front line of Iran's so-called “forward defence,” according to Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project.

“The Islamic Republic thought that Hamas’ October 7 attack was a turning point in history. That’s true, but in the entirely opposite direction to what it hoped for,” he said. “The dominoes for its western front have fallen one after the other.”

By Naila Huseynova