KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Among the central factors that led to the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was Iran’s and Russia’s decisions to not intervene yet again to prop him up. Tehran had long used Syria as vector to project influence in the region and marshalled significant resources and manpower to keep Assad in power when the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. Moscow similarly saw its ties with Assad as a source of regional influence, and its 2015 intervention in Syria was decisive in Assad maintaining his stranglehold on power.
But with Russia bogged down in Ukraine, and Iran — and its allies like Hezbollah — severely weakened by the post-October 7 conflict with Israel, neither patron was willing to rescue Assad once again. While Syria’s trajectory remains highly uncertain, its post-Assad posture is likely to be inimical to Russia’s and Iran’s interests.
USIP’s Garrett Nada and Mary Glantz explain what Assad’s ouster means for Iran and Russia.
Nada: The toppling of the Assad regime is a major loss for Iran, which has not been so isolated or vulnerable in the region since the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Syria was Iran’s only close state ally in the Middle East. It was a frontline against Iran’s archenemy Israel and the linchpin of Tehran’s ability to project power in the Levant. For four decades, Syria was the main conduit for Iran’s supply of weapons and equipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which became the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor.
Iran’s extensive support to Assad during the Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011, reflected the country’s importance for Tehran’s regional strategy. Iran deployed thousands of military advisers and troops, mobilized tens of thousands of foreign Shiite fighters from as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan to bolster regime forces, organized a new Syrian paramilitary and provided billions of dollars in aid. Iran’s efforts, coupled with Russian air support, helped keep Assad in control of much of Syria until late 2024.
Iranian officials quickly accepted the fate of the Assad regime despite all the blood and treasure invested. “It is the Syrian people who must decide on the future of their country and its political and governmental system,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on December 8. Iran’s foreign ministry expressed a willingness to engage with a new government. “The Iranian and Syrian nations have always had long-standing and friendly relationship,” it said on December 8. “It is expected that this relationship will continue with a wise and forward-looking approach by both nations, based on mutual interests and adherence to international legal obligations.” Iran asked HTS to protect Shiite holy sites in Syria, and HTS confirmed that it would protect the Sayyida Zeinab shrine in Damascus.
Many of the players poised to play key roles in Syria’s transition hold Iran responsible for propping up the brutal Assad regime.
Yet Iran’s future relationship with Syria is dubious. Many of the players poised to play key roles in the transition hold Iran responsible for propping up the brutal Assad regime. “This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region, a history fraught with dangers (that left) Syria as a playground for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism, stirring corruption,” Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham, said in his victory speech on December 8. On the same day, Iran’s embassy in Damascus, previously evacuated, was vandalized and looted. Posters of the supreme leader and other Iranians were torn and discarded on the floor.
The fall of Assad may push Iran to reconsider its “forward defense” strategy. For decades, Iran has relied on the “Axis of Resistance,” including Syria and militia allies across region, to pressure Israel and deter strikes on Iranian soil. The goal was to keep conflicts far from Iran’s borders. But the axis already faced severe setbacks before Assad’s departure. Israel significantly weakened both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon during the war that erupted after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. Israeli forces killed senior leaders and thousands of fighters and degraded both groups’ abilities to wage war. Iran will face significant logistical challenges to resupplying Hezbollah without the Syrian land bridge.
Meanwhile, Iran lacks credible mechanisms to deter Israel. Tehran launched unprecedented direct attacks on Israel, one in April 2024 including 170 drones, at least 30 cruise missiles, and more than 120 ballistic missiles, and one in October 2024 including more than 180 ballistic missiles. But neither caused significant damage or dissuaded Israel from launching counterattacks, the second of which crippled Iran’s air defenses and damaged missile production capabilities.
The remaining members of the “Axis of Resistance” are not much help in terms of deterring Israel. The Houthis in Yemen have proven resilient despite attacks by the U.S. and Israel but have only carried out sporadic long-range missile and drone attacks. The Iraqi militias backed by Iran, such as Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, are also relatively peripheral and have not caused much damage to Israeli targets.
With limited options, a growing number of Iranian officials have called for revising the country’s nuclear doctrine to allow the production of nuclear weapons. As of late 2024, Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium to fuel one nuclear bomb in as little as one or two weeks. Tehran would need several months or more than a year to assemble a warhead and marry it to a delivery system, such as a ballistic missile. But moving to weaponize would come with its own serious risks.
Glantz: Along with Iran, Russia has been a primary backer of the Assad regime for years. With the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the Kremlin supported the regime with loans, political patronage and arms shipments. In 2015, when Russian dictator Vladimir Putin began to fear for its survival, Russian support become qualitatively different, beginning with Russian airstrikes that September and continuing with an increased Russian military role in that conflict.
Russia wanted to keep Assad in power because the Kremlin believed it would be a blow to the United States and its allies and friends.
There are multiple reasons why Russia supported Assad. First, and perhaps most importantly, Russia wanted to keep Assad in power because the Kremlin believed it would be a blow to the United States and its allies and friends. For Putin, the threat to Assad’s regime seemed to echo the earlier overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, which he attributed to U.S.-sponsored regime-change in support of “color revolutions” on the Iraq or Ukraine molds. Preventing the deposition of Assad, therefore, would allow Russia to deal a rebuff to the U.S.-led world order and what Putin perceived as its effort to spread democracy. Second, keeping Assad in power helped assure the Kremlin of the continuation of its military presence in that strategically important region.
Even before Syrian the civil war, Russia had a long-standing military presence in Syria, with a Soviet-era naval base in Tartus. Following their intervention in the Syrian civil war, the Russians also built an air base at Hmeimim. These bases (and other Russian military facilities in the country) became important hubs for Russian military operations or influence in the Middle East and North Africa. Through them, Russia was able to support its long-standing strategic goal of projecting power beyond the Black Sea into the Eastern Mediterranean.
The facilities became especially important following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when Turkey invoked the Montreux Convention and blocked Russia from moving warships from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean (and vice versa). Thus, if Russia wants to continue to support military efforts in Libya or elsewhere in Africa, it must maintain those bases in Syria or move ships and equipment from much further afield — like the Baltic Sea.
Assad’s defeat represents a threat to both of those goals. Russia risks losing its military bases in the country. As of now, Russia retains control of them and reportedly has made an agreement with the victorious opposition forces to continue to operate from them, though recent satellite photos show Russian ships have departed Tartus and are located off the coast of Syria. So, it is unclear just what sort of impact, if any, this change in power will have on Russian forces in the region.
What is clearer, however, is the impact Assad’s defeat will have on Russian prestige. The ignominious flight of one of Putin’s key clients signals to other would-be clients that Russia may not be capable of protecting their regimes while it wages its war against Ukraine. This impact may be most visible in the reaction on Russian social media, where Russian nationalists and military bloggers bemoaned the Russian sacrifices “squandered” in that war.
None of these consequences will likely have a significant impact on Putin or his regime in the immediate term. Angry war bloggers’ criticism of the conduct of the war against Ukraine has not been reflected in broader public sentiment, for example. Yet, these consequences do highlight just how much the Kremlin is sacrificing in terms of its global ambitions — in particular to challenge Western dominance — to support its war against Ukraine, and they signal increasing problems for the Kremlin in the future. More broadly, it shows that Putin’s single-minded obsession with waging war against Ukraine is leading him to sacrifice other regime priorities, like restoring Russia’s global influence and prestige. Supporting Assad was meant to signal that Russia was again a force to be reckoned with. Assad’s defeat may not have hinged upon Russian support, but it will still send the opposite message.