According to U.S., European, and Arab officials, Iranian forces have reportedly now mainly left Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in December, dealing a serious setback to Tehran’s Middle East power projection agenda.
Tehran’s years-long attempt to utilize Syria as a focal point for its larger regional policy of collaborating with regimes and affiliated militias to expand influence and launch a proxy war against the United States and Israel came to an end with the Iranian exit.
Armed organizations in Syria with Iranian support have attacked American forces and assisted in operations against Israel.
The militia organizations have disintegrated, and members of Iran’s elite Quds Force have now fled to Iran.
Following the 2011 Arab Spring revolt, the Islamic Republic sent thousands of soldiers and military professionals to Syria, spending billions of dollars to support Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Syria served as Iran’s principal Middle Eastern state ally and a vital land link to Hezbollah, the most potent militia in Tehran’s self-described “axis of resistance” coalition.
Iran started removing troops amid the catastrophic 11-day fall of the Assad regime’s military late last year, as it was already in shock by Israeli raids on its assets and regional allies.
Iran’s administration was already angry with Assad when Syrian rebels launched an onslaught in November because Assad had been largely ignored throughout Tehran’s multifront war with Israel the year before.
Iran used to have a network in Syria that extended all the way from the east, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps assisted in bringing fighters and weapons into the nation, to the Syrian border with Lebanon, where it assisted in supplying Hezbollah with weaponry.
Thousands of Iran-backed militia members remained in Syria when the Assad regime fell, mostly in eastern Syria, though some were also dispersed around Damascus, Aleppo, and other areas.
According to Western and Arab officials, the majority of people in eastern Syria, including IRGC officers, as well as Afghan, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Syrian fighters, fled to al-Qaim, a border town on the Iraqi side.
Hezbollah fighters in the country’s west escaped to Lebanon by car, while some Iranians operating in Damascus flew to Tehran, they added.
Iranian leaders have used the defense of Shia sacred shrines as an excuse for their involvement in Syria and Iraq.
Tanks and mobile rocket launchers were among the many destroyed military vehicles that littered the road from Damascus to Beirut in the days after Assad was overthrown.
The majority of the vehicles were aimed toward the Lebanese border, indicating a hurried attempt to remove military equipment from the nation.
The Middle East’s regional order has drastically changed as a result of the hasty retreat.
The influence of Assad’s main supporters, Russia and Shiite-led Iran, has been weakened by the transition to the new, young government in Damascus, which is headed by the Sunni Islamist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which overthrew Syria’s long-standing dictator.
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