Assad's fall unravels Iranian axis of resistance

Iran spent decades building the so-called axis of resistance, made up of its armed regional proxies.

 

This network constitutes the main engine of Tehran's efforts to oppose Israel and the United States and to exert its influence throughout the Middle East.

 

But the fall of the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - an ally of Tehran - caused irreparable damage to the network, experts say.

 

For Iran, Syria provided an important land corridor to the Levant - the region that provided logistical support to the Axis.

 

The corridor, also known as the Shiite Crescent, connected Tehran with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah - an important ally and, at the same time, an integral part of the axis.

 

“There is no axis without access,” says Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group in Brussels.

 

"Losing the ability to support Hezbollah with logistics means losing Iran's strategic depth," he said.

 

Noting the importance of Syria, Iran spent billions of dollars to keep Assad in power.

 

Tehran intervened militarily in Syria's civil war in 2013 and played a key role in supporting Assad's forces.

 

He deployed hundreds of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers to recruit and train tens of thousands of Shiite fighters - both domestic and foreign.

 

After the loss of the land corridor connecting axis members from Iran to Lebanon, “we are likely to see much reduced resistance in the coming months and years,” says Farzan Sabet, senior research fellow at the Geneva-based IHEID Institute.

 

The Axis, according to him, will have "a significantly lower capacity to conduct military operations in the future."

At its peak, the axis was active in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, and was intended to provide Iran with the ability to strike its enemies abroad.

But his approach suffered a series of striking setbacks in recent months.

Syria is now effectively run by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) organization - designated a terrorist organization by the US - and its allies, some of whom are linked to Turkey, Iran's rival.

HTS took power in Damascus on December 8.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, was severely weakened after the year-long war with Israel, which killed the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel's devastating war in the Gaza Strip also diminished the capabilities of Hamas - a terrorist organization designated by the US and other powers and a member of the axis.

Events in Syria "will certainly further limit Iran's ability to maintain its regional influence," says Raz Zimmt, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel.

Regionally weakened, Iran must now make difficult decisions, including reconsidering its defense strategy and perhaps even developing a nuclear bomb, experts say.

Zimmt says Iran has two “very bad options” – do nothing and accept that its defenses against Israel have been compromised, or build nuclear weapons and expose itself to the possibility of an Israeli attack.

Things look equally bleak for the axis of resistance, says Sabet, adding that Tehran will be under pressure to limit its regional activities.

Sabet says Iran will try to exploit any possible chaos in the region, including post-Assad Syria, to restore its influence.

"If the civil war in Syria is not resolved quickly and a new order is not established, that country could become exactly the type of environment where the Islamic Republic has historically thrived," Sabet says./ REL