The Assad regime and Russian troops cooperated with Israel against Iran.
Author: Davlat Usmon, Senior Expert on Regional Affairs (Tajikistan), especially for "Sangar"
The events of November 27 - December 8 in Syria, which put an end to the 53-year rule of the Assad dynasty, led to unexpected changes in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Here, especially after the end of World War II, the geopolitical confrontation was initially between the two superpowers of the East and West, the United States and the Soviet Union, and after the fall of the latter - between world and regional powers.
Syria occupies a special place in this game due to its geographical and strategic position. The lightning fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in 11 days could have been called a military coup or military chaos if it had been carried out by the Syrian army. But the actions of a 200,000-strong army, which is incapable of seriously opposing radical armed formations numbering 25-30 thousand people, raise great doubts and give rise to a lot of speculation and assumptions.
The implementation of the idea of a multipolar world, which was raised during the speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Munich Conference in 2007, is still ongoing under the name of the Special Military Operation, essentially a full-scale war in Ukraine and Russia's military presence in Africa. Over the past few years, especially after the Russian armed forces entered Syria to support the Assad regime in 2015 and defeated ISIS as part of a joint operation with Iranian troops and the Syrian government, with direct support from the United States, they have practically divided Syria into two parts. This can be called the beginning of a practical period of confrontation over the redivision of the world between the main contenders, in particular, Russia. Although the civil war in Syria had been going on for more than four years when the Russians did not enter the Syrian case.
Another country that strengthened its position in Syria from the first days of the civil war was the Islamic Republic of Iran. Earlier, the Islamic Republic established itself in another country in the region, Iraq, neighboring Syria, after the US military intervention in 2013, which led to the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime and a change in the government of that country, as well as to a civil war and the resistance of the Iraqi people to foreign occupiers. Indeed, the US intervention and aggression under the pretext of destroying Iraq's chemical weapons, which was nothing more than a pretext, and the US considered itself the only power in the world, ended in favor of Iran.
By entering the Syrian conflict in 2011, Iran joined its other proxy force, Hezbollah, which by that time controlled another strategic country in the region, Lebanon. It is interesting to note that the process of Russia's military intervention was secret until the very beginning, even without Iran's knowledge. From this, from the very beginning, there was mistrust not only between them but also between Syria and Iran.
This mistrust continued until the end and ultimately led to the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Before that, the leaders of Iran and Russia not only officially considered their cooperation in Syria successful, but considered it one of the main strongholds of the struggle for multipolarity.
The cooperation between Russia and Iran since Russia's military intervention can be divided into three stages.
THE FIRST STAGE lasted from the moment of intervention until the suppression of ISIS and other extremist jihad groups.
STAGE TWO – Turkey’s intervention and division of Syria into three parts: first, the region under the influence of the central government of Syria, which controlled 63.7% of the country’s territory with the support of Russia and Iran. The second part is the territory controlled by the Kurds and a group of Arab tribes called the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which controlled more than 25% of Syria’s territory. Finally, the third part, which was under the influence of Turkish-backed Islamic extremist groups and the Syrian National Army controlled another 10%. The second stage lasted until the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
STAGE THREE – the direct confrontation between Iran and Israel after Hamas’ Operation Aqsa Storm, which led to a devastating war, brutal killings and displacement of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army, and the destruction of the entire infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Why three stages?
All stages slowly prepared the ground for the fall of the Assad regime. After the first stage, the mistrust between Russia and Iran could have been resolved by their real support for the Syrian government, actions to rebuild the Syrian army, invest in the country's economy, and improve the lives of the people in the territory under Bashar al-Assad's control. Then the situation could have been different. But in the second stage, the latent rivalry between the two countries to strengthen their positions in Syria gained momentum and even sometimes led to clashes between supporters of both sides. At the same time, there was no reaction from Russia and its allies in the Syrian army to the Israeli airstrikes, which were primarily aimed at Iranian forces and their allies.
After the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine and its full support from Iran through military aid, Tehran hoped that cooperation between the two sides in Syria and Russia's support in preventing Israeli airstrikes would improve. On the contrary, following the clashes between Hamas and Israel after October 7, 2023, Israeli airstrikes against bases and locations of Iranian forces and their supporters on Syrian territory not only intensified but were also carried out based on accurate information provided from inside Syria. The Iranian side suspects not only Mossad agents inside the Bashar al-Assad regime, but also Russian forces.
Since most of the ground operations were carried out by pro-Iranian forces such as Hezbollah, Fatemiyoun, and Zainabiyoun, together with the Assad regime forces from the territory controlled by the Syrian government, Iran was forced to withdraw these forces from Syrian territory due to increasing losses.
Today, we see that at the time of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, none of these forces were captured and killed, since they were not physically on the battlefield. This situation was well known to the opposition forces, and they believed that the government forces did not have the will to resist and were in a deplorable state.
So it was. Bashar al-Assad's regime has collapsed with a bang. Russian air support has also failed. With the collapse of the regime and the change of power in Syria, there is no doubt that we are in for a major shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East, the consequences of which will soon become apparent.