The images of the Iranian embassy, ransacked by a group of Syrian rebels after they entered Damascus on Sunday, marked a turning point. Portraits of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Ayatollah Khomeini littered the floor. Portraits glorifying Hassan Nasrallah – the former leader of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, who was killed in an Israeli raid in September – and revered Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, killed in a 2020 US strike in Iraq, have been torn down. It was clear that Tehran, Bashar al-Assad's main ally, is no longer in control.  

Iranian diplomats had evacuated the premises the night before. Military commanders – including senior officers of the Quds Force, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards – and other Iranian personnel left the country in a hurry, an acknowledgement of Iran's inability to continue propping up the Assad regime in the face of the rebels' lightning offensive.

Tehran’s tone changed on the eve of the fall of Damascus. Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday called on the Syrian government “and legitimate opposition groups” to enter negotiations. It was a key shift in its approach to the new leadership in Syria, which Tehran had previously referred to only as "terrorists". 

The ministry took a further step on Sunday, saying it expected ties between Tehran and Damascus to remain strong based on a “far-sighted” approach to relations and said Iran was open to talks with Syria’s new rulers.

The Assad family had been Iran's main regional ally since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. “Syria was the only Arab country to support Iran during the [1980-1988] Iran-Iraq war while all the other Arab countries supported Iraq,” notes Siavosh Ghazi, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Tehran. Iran continued to support Assad's regime after the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011 despite the opposition of other Arab countries.

‘The axis of resistance as we knew it no longer exists’

Syria was Iran’s corridor for delivering logistical and armed support to the Lebanese group Hezbollah and to Hamas in Gaza, which helped ensure the security of Axis of Resistance powers while allowing Iran to exercise its influence – and deterrent capabilities – far from its own borders. “Syria represented a springboard for the Iranian regime to project its influence as far as the Mediterranean, and that has disappeared,” notes Jonathan Piron, a historian and Iran specialist at the Etopia research centre in Brussels.

“The Axis of Resistance as we knew it no longer exists,” he says. “With the Israeli operation in Lebanon, Hezbollah is no more. Its capacity for action has been significantly diminished, in any case. Now, Assad's Syria no longer exists, either. The main pillars of the Axis of Resistance have disappeared. What is left? The Houthis [in Yemen], but they have their own agenda and are far from Tehran. And the Iraqi militias, which have refused to intervene in recent days on Syrian soil to come to the aid of Bashar al-Assad."

A collapse predicted by Netanyahu?

The destruction of the Axis of Resistance is a direct consequence of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7 and Israel’s subsequent offensive, says David Rigoulet-Roze, associate research fellow and Middle East expert at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.

“The first riposte was the war in Gaza against Hamas in immediate response to the tragedy of October 7. This was undoubtedly the first salvo in a larger game plan,” Rigoulet-Roze explains. “The second was the war of attrition against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which became the first Iranian proxy to intervene by firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas starting on October 8.”

“The fall of Bashar al-Assad could be seen as the third stage, triggered by the two previous ones,” he says. 

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may have anticipated this outcome or at least hoped for it, according to Rigoulet-Roze, who notes that Netanyahu began speaking of a grand redrawing of the region very early on.

“What Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible ... we are going to change the Middle East,” Netanyahu said on October 9, just two days after the attack on Israel. 

The fall of Assad can be partly attributed to Iran’s weakened state, brought on by the strategic crippling of its proxies – first and foremost, Hezbollah.

“It is usually Hezbollah that fights to defend Iranian interests by protecting Bashar al-Assad,” notes Rigoulet-Roze. “But Hezbollah had to repatriate many of its troops to Lebanon for its battle with Israel. So Assad found himself a bit like a 'naked king', especially since Russia was no longer able to save the Syrian regime because of its involvement in Ukraine."   

‘The Iranian regime will have to rethink its security’

For many years, the Islamic Republic of Iran built its deterrent capability on a network of alliances extending all the way from Tehran to Beirut on the Mediterranean Sea. This significantly expanded Iran’s influence by allowing it to brandish the threat of retaliation from Hezbollah or Iraqi Shiite militias against any possible aggression, notably from archenemy Israel.   

“Iran finds itself in an unprecedented position of weakness; its security perimeter is now restricted to its actual borders,” says Piron. “The Iranian regime will have to rethink its security.” 

And that could introduce even more new dynamics to the region. Given the new circumstances Iran now finds itself in, Tehran may look to accelerate the development of nuclear weapons to ensure that its regime does not suffer the same fate as Assad’s.