Lina Khatib writes:

The spectacularly rapid fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his regime is the Middle East’s 1989. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of 54 years of Assad family rule signals an earthquake in the regional order—with tremors that will be felt for decades to come. Just as 1989 was marked by a series of falling dominoes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and elsewhere, the collapse of the Syrian regime is part of a chain of events, including Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah, Iran’s loss of its most potent proxy forces, and the weakening of Russia due to the war it started in Ukraine.

And just as 1989 marked the end of communism in Europe, Assad’s flight to Moscow signals the demise of the ideology of anti-Western, anti-Israel resistance in the Middle East. For more than half a century, the Assad family was the backbone for a political order in the Middle East in which a bloc of states styled themselves as the resistance to what they labeled Western imperialism and Zionism. The appropriation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proved to be a powerful tool to mobilize the masses across the region who wanted justice for Palestinians—sentiments that the Syrian regime and its allies instrumentalized to distract from their domestic failures, oppress their own people, and extend their regimes’ regional influence. In reality, these regimes cared little about the Palestinians.

Within this bloc, Syria and Iran believed they had entered a mutually beneficial and durable alliance—and each thought it had the upper hand. Syria was crucial for Iran because it was the heart of the land bridge between Iran and its most valuable proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Syria saw alignment with Iran as increasing its own stature against Israel and bolstering its influence over Lebanon.

For Iran, the ideology of resistance was an indispensable tool to rally support from Arabs and Sunnis as Tehran vied for dominance in the Middle East. As the leaders of a self-styled Axis of Resistance, the clerics in Tehran were able to supplant the old ideology of pan-Arab nationalism, as espoused by the Syrian Baath Party and others, and ultimately dominate several Arab countries through well-armed proxies. The Assad regime ignored this challenge even as Iran manipulated the Baath Party to serve Tehran’s own objective of achieving regional dominance. For example, Iran presented Hezbollah to Syria as an ally when Hezbollah’s primary purpose was to support exporting the Islamic revolution.

The Syrian uprising of 2011 and the war that followed shifted the balance of power toward Iran, which intervened to prop up the Assad regime. Most consequentially, Tehran summoned Hezbollah to support the Assad regime against the Syrian rebels.

In the course of the Syrian war, the country moved from being a partner to a client of Iran. A much-diminished Assad regime was now dependent for its survival on Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and Tehran-controlled militias from various countries. In other Middle Eastern states, including Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, Iran’s proxies consolidated their status as dominant political and military actors. Iran increased its investment in them as its outer lines of defense and tools of geopolitical influence.

Iran’s rise and dominance as a regional power came to define an entire era of Middle Eastern politics. Across the region, most countries either were under direct Iranian influence via the country’s proxies or were forced to configure their foreign policies around the threats posed by Iran. [Continue reading…]