Analysis: Al-Assad’s fall is Iran and Russia’s loss, but are there any winners? , syrian war news

After being in power for 54 years, the rule of the al-Assad family in Syria has ended. On December 8, Bashar al-Assad fled the country and sought asylum in Russia. The fall of one of the most brutal regimes in the modern history of the Middle East came after just 12 days of fighting between the Syrian army and a coalition of opposition forces, ending the 13-year Syrian civil war.

The Syrian conflict has killed more than 350,000 Syrians and displaced at least 13 million. Brutal repression by the al-Assad regime turned a peaceful revolution into an international civil war, in which Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the United States were key players.

Its collapse would inevitably rearrange the geopolitical map of the region.

Syria’s decades-old alliance

Syria established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1944 and a decade later became the first Arab country to purchase Soviet-made weapons. As other Arab countries such as Egypt began to move away from the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the regime of Hafez al-Assad in Syria remained a staunch Soviet ally.

Relations remained strong even after the collapse of the USSR as Russia retained its naval military base in Tartus. In 2004, Bashar al-Assad made his first state visit to Moscow in an effort to revive Cold War-era ties and asked for Russian aid to modernize his military.

Similarly, Syria’s strong relations with Iran are decades old. In 1979, the two countries established a lasting alliance, motivated by a shared hostility toward the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 gave both countries another reason to come closer to each other to stop US attempts to destabilize them.

The devastation left by the US in Iraq and the 2006 Lebanon War resulted in Iran’s favor. The so-called “Shia Crescent” stretching from western Afghanistan to the Mediterranean Sea began to take shape, with Syria at its center.

When the Arab Spring invaded Syria in 2011, Iran rushed to support its ally. Tehran interpreted the Syrian revolution as an attempt by Turkey and the Gulf states to reduce its regional influence. Pro-Iranian fighters, including members of Hezbollah, were sent to fight on al-Assad’s side, whose army was plagued by desertions.

Iran also provided billions of dollars of financial aid and loans to support the Syrian regime. When al-Assad was on the verge of collapse in 2015, Iran went the extra mile and requested Russian support.

Moscow’s intervention helped turn the tide in al-Assad’s favor as he battles opposition groups backed by the US, Turkey and Gulf countries. It also helped establish a Russian military and diplomatic base, allowing the Kremlin to project its power throughout the Arab world. Various state and non-state actors approached Russia, seeing it as a potential source of counterweight or leverage to American dominance.

As al-Assad’s story of comparing the opposition to “terrorists” generally succeeded in changing public opinion in the US and the West, Western support for the opposition waned. Turkiye remained the only foreign supporter and in 2017, it was forced to join the Russian-sponsored Astana format to negotiate a political solution to the conflict.

In the following years, al-Assad, supported by his Russian and Iranian allies, insisted on recapturing more territory from the opposition, breaking various “de-escalation” agreements and ceasefires. By 2024, it seemed that Iran and Russia had succeeded in stabilizing its regime and strengthening its position in the region. Arab and European states began to normalize relations with Damascus.

But an opposition attack overturned this regional balance of power within 12 days.

A changing geopolitical map

Russia and Iran were stunned by the rapid collapse of the Syrian army and could do little to help the collapsing al-Assad regime. During a meeting in Astana format in Doha on 7 December, Iranian and Russian representatives resigned after accepting that the Syrian battle had been lost to Turkiye.

With the fall of the al-Assad regime, Iran has lost a key pillar of its “Shia Crescent”. The land corridor it used to supply arms to Hezbollah and project its influence across Lebanon and the entire Levant has been cut off. Iran’s role in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict is likely to diminish, as it has lost important bargaining chips. It will now be forced to step back and look inward or it may choose to intensify its efforts to build nuclear weapons to compensate for its declining regional power.

Russia has also been weakened by the fall of al-Assad, as it viewed the Syrian fight as part of its conflict with “Western imperialism”. Losing its only Arab ally has dealt a blow to its reputation as a global power – one that can have a say in regional affairs in the Middle East.

Although Moscow is likely to retain its air force base in Hmeimim and its naval base in Tartus for now, its continued presence in Syria is untenable.

In contrast, the Turks have emerged victorious from the 14-year-old Syrian civil war. It managed to weaken the positions of its two rivals and is now able to exert influence over a regional corridor that links Europe and the Gulf through Syria.

The US and the European Union have welcomed the fall of the al-Assad regime. Both consider this a major blow to their rivals Russia and Iran. European countries hope this development could help solve their refugee crisis by preventing Syrians from voluntarily returning to their country.

News of al-Assad’s fall was received with mixed emotions in Israel. On the one hand, Israel was thrilled to see the Iran-led coalition weaken after the fall of al-Assad because it would strengthen Israel’s dominance over the Levant.

Still, the Israeli government does not seem comfortable with its replacement. The new political force in Damascus is likely to show greater solidarity with the Palestinians. This explains why the Israeli military launched a massive aerial bombardment of all of Syria in an attempt to destroy Syria’s strategic weapons stockpile. He fears it could be used against him in future confrontations with the new government in Damascus.

The fall of al-Assad and the new regional realignment that followed is likely to dramatically alter the balance of power in the Middle East, and we will not be able to fully understand its implications for years to come.