Rumours spread like wildfire that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad could have been killed in a plane crash as he fled Damascus. He was believed to be on board the aircraft, which initially flew towards Syria’s coastal region, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map.

 

Celebrations exploded after rebels seized the capital Damascus unopposed on Sunday, effectively ending a 13-year civil war and the 53-year of Assad’s father-son autocratic rule. But with Kremlin’s protection, it was not easy to shoot down his plane. As it turned out, Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow after briefly landed in Abu Dhabi, and have been granted asylum by Russia.

 

There were also news that Assad had already sent his wife and three children to Moscow in the previous week before his downfall – suggesting that he knew and had been preparing for an exit. Crucially, Moscow has made a deal with Syrian opposition leaders to guarantee the safety of Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Latakia province and its naval facility at Tartus on the coast.

While the strategic loser was Russia, the biggest loser who has basically lost everything is none other than Iran, which intervened in the Syrian civil war to rescue and defend Assad. Time will tell if Moscow could eventually lose its valuable military bases in Syria, especially its naval base at Tartus, which allows it to support warships in the Mediterranean Sea.

 

The burning question is this – exactly how did Assad lose power so easily without even putting up a fight? In fact, he ordered his prime minister – Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali – to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Make no mistake. Despite Russia’s historical pillar of Assad’s retention of power since 2015, the Russians can only provide air support to Assad, not boots on the ground.

 

The Assad government’s defences collapse like a house of cards partly because Russian forces chose to shift to fortify Tartus, and largely because major supporter Iran cowardly evacuated its nationals and officers. Worse, the Iraqi Shia militias – traditionally defender of Assad in the front lines – have also retreated, leaving only 2,000 leaderless and demoralized Hezbollah fighter.

Yes, like it or not, the collapse of Assad regime has everything to do with the Hamas attack on Israel, which many, including the clueless Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim does not understand. There’s a reason why Mohammed bin Salman said he “personally” doesn’t care about the Palestinians in a private conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

 

When Hamas’ Yahya Sinwar launched the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against Israel on October 7, 2023, his intention was to deliver a lethal blow against the Jewish state, arguably the most powerful nation in the region – and he succeeded. He became an instant hero, along with Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh. It doesn’t matter whether Iran knew, or pretended to be in the dark about the attack.

 

What was important is Israel knew about the attack, but pretended that its intelligence had screwed up. The Hamas attack provided once-in-a-lifetime golden opportunity for Israel to eliminate not only its enemies, but also to change the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East. The best part was Iran had no clue that Sinwar’s attack is about to destroy Iran’s entire network of proxies.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made two major mistakes – underestimating Israel’s firepower and retaliation, and overestimating Iran’s ballistic missiles and its so-called Axis of Resistance. Tehran was disillusioned with its network of terrorists, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and parts of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Iraq. 

 

While the Biden administration and international community mistakenly view Israel’s war with Hamas as yet another Israel-Palestine conflict, it is actually a much larger conflict this round. Israel keeps repeating that it is fighting on 7 fronts – a warning or message which Iran did not understand and had mistaken as a sign of Israel’s weakness and fear of Tehran’s “ring of fire”around the tiny nation.

 

The “ring of fire” is formed by Hezbollah in the north; Iran and a number of Tehran-controlled Syrian and Iraqi militias in the east; Hamas and Palestinian Jihad in the south; the Yemeni Houthis in the southeast; and the PLO and Hamas in the heart of the Land of Israel. Founded over 40 years ago by Iran, Hezbollah is the most formidable among all and is the de facto ruler in Israel’s northern neighbour.

Hezbollah has some 100,000 well-trained army and an arsenal of between 150,000 and 200,000 rockets capable of overwhelming Israel defences. Like Iran, Hezbollah has vowed to destroy the Jewish state as well as to slaughter the entire Jewish people. In 2002, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said – “If the Jews all gather in Israel, it saves us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

 

As far back as last November, War cabinet minister Benny Gantz already announced that Israel will hunt down Hamas leaders “in Gaza and around the world.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had declared – “Every Hamas member is a dead man.“Israel had given enough warnings. Yet, Iranian’s ring of arrogant proxies did not get the message.

 

Having repetitively warned the Zionist regime not to underestimate the power of Hezbollah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hilariously made a U-turn in October after Israel retaliated against Iran’s ballistic missile attacks. Not only he refrained from pledging immediate retaliation and said Tehran did not seek war, Ayatollah also expressed something surprising – “Do not underestimate Israeli retaliation”.

But it was too late. Two-thirds of Gaza’s buildings have been either damaged or destroyed, leaving behind 42 million tonnes of rubble. Having sent Gaza back to the Stone Age, Israel shifted focus to Lebanon. From the stunning assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran to the shocking walkie-talkie and pager explosions in Lebanon, it quickly crippled the entire chain of command of Hezbollah.

 

The targeted assassination of numerous top officials in Hamas, Hezbollah and even Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including Haniyeh, Nasrallah and Sinwar was the signal of the end of Iranian’s proxies. Killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah who initially thought to be invincible, was the ultimate game changer that will change “the balance of power in the region”.

 

Again, there’s a reason why Saudi Arabia and his allies were quietly supporting Israel, including intercepting 180 missiles and drones unleashed by Iran into Israel in early October this year. They knew Israel can’t lose, which means Iran will lose the war. And they bet on the right horse when Hezbollah, despite trumpeted as the most powerful force that could exterminate Israel, lost tamely and quickly.

From its ground invasion of southern Lebanon on the night of 30 September 2024, it would take only about 2 months for terrorist organization Hezbollah – he crown jewel of Iran’s network – to be defeated, begging for a ceasefire. With tail between legs, even Tehran had to cut losses, thus convincing Hezbollah to agree to the ceasefire even though it was on terms favourable to Israel.

 

In reality, a main concern in Tehran was that the Lebanese terror organisation risked further degradation and decapitation had it continued fighting against Israel. Besides saving face from seeing Hezbollah totally wiped out, Iran wanted to redirect whatever left of its military, political and financial resources to Syria. So much for the glorified 100,000 well-trained Hezbollah army and 200,000 rockets.

 

But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had miscalculated again. It was not a coincidence that the Syrian group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began its push for the city of Aleppo on the same day that Israel and Hezbollah agreed a ceasefire to end the fighting in Lebanon. The domino effect set in motion by Hamas on October 7, 2023 would see the downfall of Syria’s President Assad.

With Israel wiping out much of Hezbollah’s command structure, troops and its leaders in airstrikes, and without Russian air support, Iranian buddy Assad was merely a sitting duck. Hezbollah should not have engaged with Israel forces, but instead strategically defend Syria and let Hamas do all the heavy lifting. Tehran had clearly overestimated the strength of its ring of fire, and is now paying the price.

 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) entered the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights on Saturday for the first time since 1974 to help repel an assault by rebel forces. On Sunday, the IDF said two extra brigades had been deployed and troops sent into the buffer zone to keep Islamist rebel groups and potential refugee flows away. It would be naive to think Israel didn’t know the effect in Syria when it was bombarding Hezbollah.

 

Now, everything Iran had worked for and dedicated so much military resources, weapons and money to counter “Great Satan” United States and “Little Satan” Israel for the past 40 years is all gone. The Assad regime is gone. Iran’s ability to destabilise the Jewish state on the Israeli border is gone. Tehran’s ability to project power as far west as the Mediterranean and south to the Arabian Sea is also gone.

Crucially, a land corridor for Iran to supply weapons and material to Hezbollah in Lebanon has gone after the critical link – President Assad – is destroyed. The timing was already bad that Hamas, with blessing from Tehran, chose to attack Israel at a time when Russia was busy in Ukraine War. It became worse when Iranian proxies attacked Israel for the sake of attacking, without any strategy or exit plan.

 

However, the game isn’t over. Syria has become a time bomb, which could even see Iraq becoming the next theater of confrontation. With Syrian government forces, Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces and al-Qaeda HTS rebel groups fighting for power, it could see the strengthening of the Sunni Syrian power – further reducing Iran’s Shia influence.

 

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December 10th, 2024 by financetwitter

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