Iran's proximity to Assad will hinder any effort to open channels with rebel groups, analyst says

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00:00Well, there have been winners and losers who have already emerged from the fall of Assad's

00:05regime.

00:06And the biggest loser of them all is arguably Iran, one of the ousted president's main allies.

00:13The victory by the rebels in Syria has dealt a serious blow to a central pillar of Tehran's

00:19foreign policy, and that's its axis of resistance, which Iran has built over decades.

00:24As a network of groups across the Middle East, among them Hezbollah and Hamas, Syria had

00:30served as an important geographical link for Iran to move weapons and other supplies to

00:37its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

00:39And with Assad now out of the picture, Iran's influence in Syria could be seriously curtailed.

00:44Well, let's speak more on this and speak to Roozbeh Farsi, who is head of the MENA program

00:49at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

00:52Thanks so much for joining us on the program, Roozbeh.

00:55So I think we can all agree that it's been a very bad year for Tehran's axis of resistance.

01:01Where has it all gone wrong for Iran?

01:03Well, obviously, the primary reason is that the confrontation with Israel was something

01:09that Tehran did not expect to escalate to this degree.

01:13And they were also probably banking on the Americans not wanting this to get out of hand

01:17and that they would, in a sense, hold Israel back.

01:21The Biden administration did the opposite.

01:23And it turned out that Iran was much more risk averse and therefore more or less forced

01:29to back at every step.

01:32And that meant that both Israel could take several steps forward and the opposition groups

01:37in Syria found that the Syrian army and Bashar al-Assad did not have the support from Russia

01:44and Iran as it used to.

01:46And then came the collapse.

01:49I've had some analysts describing the events of October 7th as the main blame, reason to

01:56blame for this fall of Assad or the fall of the axis of resistance.

02:02Give us your thoughts on that.

02:05I think that's probably to take it a couple of steps too far, because it makes it sound

02:10as if everything was inevitable.

02:12There are obviously several things here along the way where people could have chosen differently

02:17and they didn't.

02:18So in that sense, 7th of October is a watershed for the region and arguably also for the international

02:23community if you look at it from a legal perspective.

02:26But it was not inevitable that this would lead to the fall down of Bashar al-Assad.

02:32But it was definitely one of the primary reasons why that in the end was what happened.

02:38And Roozbeh, let's talk about what's next now for the axis of resistance.

02:41Will Iran be looking to rebuild its strength there and with Hezbollah pretty much decimated,

02:47is there any hope for Iran's proxies?

02:50Well, I think it's important to remember that most of these groups have a raison d'etre.

02:55They have their own reason to exist that is independent of Iran.

03:00Hezbollah is integral to the Shia community of Lebanon.

03:04The Houthi rebels were rebels and Houthis long before Tehran entered the picture.

03:08So in that sense, you can say that they have their own reasons to exist.

03:12And when need be, they're going to show themselves to be much more autonomous of Iran than they

03:16have so far.

03:18But obviously, the fact that Iran cannot at the moment support them in the way that it

03:22used to, is going to put a lot of stress on the relationships.

03:27And I think Iran is now under pressure not only to show that it can support them, but

03:31also to show that it has deterrence left, that it still has an ability to act in the

03:37region.

03:38And I think this is one of the debates in Tehran right now.

03:40One of course, is how did this come about without us understanding that it was happening?

03:45How did we lose Syria?

03:47And then of course, what are we supposed to do now to regain some of our footing and see

03:52if we can salvage any of that enormous investment that was made into Bashar al-Assad's rule?

03:57Yeah, well, let's talk about what's next for Iran in Syria.

04:01Of course, as you mentioned, they pumped so much money into Assad and his rule there.

04:08Do you see Iran now taking the same tactics that it did in Afghanistan and Iraq, where

04:15it tried to support destabilising forces to counter US influence?

04:21What do you think is next for Iran in Syria?

04:24Well, the parallel doesn't really work here in the sense that at the moment, there is

04:29no overpowering actor that is trying to control all of Syria.

04:35If that had been the case, then the playing field would be much clearer.

04:39What we have are a number of armed actors that are Syrian and have achieved this victory.

04:45And they're all more or less related or sponsored by outside actors.

04:48Turkey, there's Israel on one side, there are American troops in Syria, there are the

04:53Kurds and so on and so forth.

04:55So that means that the picture is very, very complicated.

04:58And the fact that Iran is the loser today, and will probably remain the loser for the

05:02foreseeable future, it does not mean that we have that many winners on the other side.

05:06That can change within a week or a month or six months.

05:10So this is a very dynamic situation.

05:12And I don't think it's that easy to claim that now what will Iran do in order to spoil?

05:18There's yet nothing to spoil.

05:20But obviously, the Iranians will try and see if they can work up any kind of channels with

05:24the groups that at the moment are trying to control Syria to see if they can regain some

05:29of their influence.

05:30So that is going to be a very tall order, considering how closely associated they were

05:35with the very cruel dictator of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

05:39Rupsa, great to have you on the programme.

05:41Thanks so much for giving us your insight there.

05:43That's Rupsa Farsi, who is head of the MENA programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

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