Iran Retreats From Syria
Another setback for Teheran.
NYT (“Iran Begins to Evacuate Military Officials and Personnel From Syria“):
Iran began to evacuate its military commanders and personnel from Syria on Friday, according to regional officials and three Iranian officials, in a sign of Iran’s inability to help keep President Bashar al-Assad in power as he faces a resurgent rebel offensive.
Among those evacuated to neighboring Iraq and Lebanon were top commanders of Iran’s powerful Quds Forces, the external branch of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, the officials said.
The move signaled a remarkable turn for Mr. al-Assad, whose government Iran has backed throughout Syria’s 13-year civil war, and for Iran, which has used Syria as a key route to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Guards personnel, some Iranian diplomatic staff, their families, and Iranian civilians were also being evacuated, according to the Iranian officials, two of them members of the Guards, and regional officials. Iranians began to leave Syria on Friday morning, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
[…]
“Iran is starting to evacuate its forces and military personnel because we cannot fight as an advisory and support force if Syria’s army itself does not want to fight,” Mehdi Rahmati, a prominent Iranian analyst who advises officials on regional strategy, said in a telephone interview.
“The bottom line,” he added, “is that Iran has realized that it cannot manage the situation in Syria right now with any military operation and this option is off the table.”
[…]
The Iranian officials said that two top generals of Iran’s Quds forces, deployed to advise the Syrian army, had fled to Iraq as various rebel groups took over Homs and Deir al-Zour on Friday.
“Syria is at the verge of collapse and we are watching calmly,” said Ahmad Naderi, an Iranian Parliament member, in a post on social media on Friday. He added that if Damascus fell, Iran would also lose its sway in Iraq and Lebanon, saying, “I don’t understand the reason for this inaction but whatever it is, it’s not good for our country.”
The rebel offensive came at a moment of relative weakness for three of Syria’s most important supporters. Iran’s ability to help has been curtailed by its conflict with Israel; Russia’s military has been sapped by its invasion of Ukraine; and Hezbollah, which had previously supplied fighters to aid the Assad government’s fight against the Islamic State, has been battered badly by its own war with Israel.
The fall of more territory to rebel forces, which are led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, could also threaten Iran’s ability to supply either Mr. al-Assad’s regime or Hezbollah with weapons and advisers.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had traveled to Damascus this week, meeting with Mr. al-Assad and pledging Iran’s full support.
But in Baghdad on Friday, he appeared to make a more ambiguous statement. “We are not fortune tellers,” he said in an interview on Iraqi television. “Whatever is God’s will shall happen, but the resistance will fulfill its duty.”
Reuters (“Situation in Syria creating new weakness for Hezbollah, Iran, says US envoy Hochstein“):
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said the situation in Syria, where rebels are pressing a rapid advance that is threatening President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power, was creating a new weakness for militant Lebanese group Hezbollah and for Iran.
The U.S. envoy, who negotiated a U.S-brokered ceasefire agreement in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that went into effect on Nov. 27, said he believed Hezbollah was not yet eliminated but it was rather weakened.
[…]
Hochstein, speaking during a political conference in Doha, said the situation in Syria would mean it was going to be harder for Iran to supply Hezbollah with weapons there, adding that Iran appeared to be withdrawing its support from Syria, without clarifying how.
Iran has said it is pulling out embassy families but has denied a report by the New York Times that it was pulling out military personnel.
Hochstein added that Hezbollah “may not be strong enough to fight Israel or to support Assad but it doesn’t take a lot of strength to be a dominant presence in Lebanon so you can also be weakened and still strong at the same time when it comes to the Lebanese context”.
Al Jazeera (“Where does Iran stand on Syria’s fast-moving conflict?“):
Iran has continued to voice support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as opposition fighters carry on with a blistering military offensive that aims to overthrow the government.
The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkiye held Astana-format talks, joined by United Nations representatives in Qatar on Saturday, as more Syrian cities fell to the armed opposition groups.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters after the meeting in Doha that participants agreed that the conflict should end and that political dialogue needs to be established between the Syrian government and “legitimate opposition groups”.
The last of these reports has a rather detailed rundown of recent power shifts inside of Syria, illustrated by this map:
That conflict, like so many others that rage round the world, drew enormous attention in the Western press for weeks before drifting off into the background. It took some stunning gains by opposition forces to bring the spotlight back.
Even with a decoder ring, assessing this from the standpoint of American interests is next to impossible. The only unalloyed good news is that ISIL is a tiny shell of its former self. Otherwise, the large swaths controlled by forces aligned with ostensible American ally Turkey and actual American partner (but enemy of Turkey and ostensibly on our terrorist watchlist) Kurdish forces is, to say the least, complicated.
The continued bad news for Iran, though, is something to celebrate. The Islamic Republic is a malign force in the region and has suffered setback after setback among its proxy forces.
I’ve kind of been of the opinion for long time that the complexity of the factions in the Middle East is indecipherable for Americans. And that we should primarily be out of there. Actually agreed with the first Trump Administration on this. We are even less dependent on ME oil than before. And I still wonder whether our presence is an attractant for jihadist attention rather than a deterrent. But like I said, I don’t know enough other than gut feelings.
BTW, I found this site that I’m finding fascinating: https://syria.liveuamap.com/. Very interactive , up to date, and points to sources. Don’t know what or who is behind it so take that into account. On the surface it looks to be two Ukrainian guys based out of McLean, VA (home of the CIA BTW).
@Scott: “I’ve kind of been of the opinion for long time that the complexity of the factions in the Middle East is indecipherable for Americans. And that we should primarily be out of there.”
Americans are hung up on movies where there’s a good guy and a bad guy and everything gets resolved in 90 minutes. The idea of feuds going on for decades and conflicting interests doesn’t seem to matter to us.
A news item recently caught my glancing eye, something to the effect that Iran has asked Ukraine to stop giving military support to the Syrian rebels. Mentioned in the article was Iran’s own military support to Russia.
I cannot not find the link.
But, is it proven that Ukraine has been giving up precious military resources to the rebels far from their own hot war front lines?
If this thing goes south for Syria as it appears to be headed, there will be a new wave of refugees out of the area along with the attendant political destabilization.
@Rob1:
No it’s not proven. What is known is that Iran is giving/selling weapons to Russia. That info goes back to September.
@Rob1:
It would strike me as a small investment and one that might very well have the blessing, if not the instigation, of their European and American allies. Making Russia pay a price elsewhere for their invasion of Ukraine makes good sense. I imagine Ukraine would do the same in Georgia, Belarus and Chechnya if they could. Perhaps other places, but I would leave it to JohnSF to speculate. He seems much better informed than me.
This is Israel’s victory. They weakened Hezbollah. They hit Iran and Iran couldn’t hit back. Not for the first time the West has over-estimated an Arab army. It mirrors what’s happening in Ukraine. There’s war, American style, and there’s war Arab and Russian style. Corruption and paranoia don’t make for effective armies. Make no mistake: Bibi Netanyahu has simultaneously shattered Hamas and Hezbollah while humiliating Iran in his spare time. We can all hate the guy but he’s pulled it off.
As @JohnSF has pointed out, Iran’s entire strategy is all-but dead with a stake through its heart. (I added the stake, cuz: fiction writer.)
The other big player, Turkey, is the wild card. They’re arming at least some of the ‘rebels.’ Turkey also has the assets to frustrate the Russians. They control access to the Black Sea, they are quite capable of blockading Tartus which, along with the loss of their Latakia air base, leaves them unable to move without Turkish acquiescence.
Of course this being the ME there are no good guys. Turkish-allied forces may be right next to the Golan Heights, and would, in theory at least, have the ability to directly confront Israel, either with their proxy, or even directly. And Turkish armies are not Arab armies – they don’t always win, but they do fight.
Revolutions tend to go the way Hemingway described bankruptcy, “Gradually and then suddenly.” Sounds like there’s a race on to not be the last official or officer to leave Baghdad. I expect Assad has a pile in Swiss banks and bitcoin and a helicopter on standby. Followed by chaos.
@Michael Reynolds:
Stress point: if Turkish backed rebels end up in confrontation with Israel, the two U.S. airbases in Turkey.
@Rob1:
Indeed. An ascendant Turkey may wish to send us packing. The purpose of the bases was to deter the USSR and then Russia, and Erdogan might well decide he doesn’t need that. Or NATO itself, which would leave him free to take a more aggressive stance toward Greece. There are 85 million Turks with a near-replacement fertility rate of ~1.9, a 1.2 trillion GDP and a growing domestic arms manufacturing base, very well situated geographically. They’re comers on the world stage.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/dec/07/syria-rebels-reach-damascus-bashar-al-assad
If the rebels prevail, the ever assymetrical Putin will likely find a way to establish a relationship with the new regime, offering military resources in exchange for presence.
@Michael Reynolds:
Won’t be the first time Turkey has threatened US ejection.
Top importers of Turkish goods are Germany, U.S., and U.K. which might moderate Erdogan’s impulses.
But yes, Turkey might need to exit NATO to pick up its historical enmity with Greece. Because two members at war with each other seems unthinkable; but surely something conceivable, desirable by Putin, and others straining against the West’s paradigm.
@Michael Reynolds: @Rob1: And then there are the Kurds, who as an ethnic group with long term national aspirations sit on real estate in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. As I said earlier, as Americans, we don’t understand the region with its dizzying number of variables.
@Rob1:
Or Europe generally. This is the reason I feel we have to support Ukraine. For decades war between European countries was beyond the pale. (OK, a few relatively small actions between ex-SSRs that would have been difficult to intervene in.) We should have stomped on Putin hard to keep it so. NATO stomped on the Serbs over Kosovo.
@Rob1:
Well, that’s a wrinkle I did not think of. But of course you’re right unless Turkey vetos and supplies the toys themselves.
Robert Farley at LGM posted today (12/7) That the Russians are baling out of their base in Tartus and the Assad family has left for Russia.https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/the-rats-are-deserting-the-sinking-ship
Turkey is unlikely to pick a fight with the EU.
Just look at the trade data.
Ankara just seems to have lost patience with the Assad govt playing silly buggers with refugees, and Iran wrecking the neighborhood for the quixotic fantasies of the Pasdaran.
And Russia causing devastation just to poke the US in the eye, and attempt to be a player in the Middle East.
And took advantage of Israel gutting Hezbollah, and wrecking Iranian air defences, and Russia being otherwise engaged, to clear the board.
The Sultan is back?
I doubt though that Turkey has any ambitions to rule over Arabs.
More just to stop annoying Arab and Iranian nonsense causing Turkey problems.
Latest indications are that the Syrian army has abandoned the al Assad in pursuit of a deal.
Chances of Russia reaching a deal with the new dominant forces in Syria?
Not good.
The Syrian popular shit-list probably has Russia at equal second place with Iran.
With the al-Assad clan in undisputed first place.
@Mr. Prosser:
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
It appears to be over.
The Bad Guys are claiming they’ve routed the Other Bad Guys, which will be an embarrassment to the Other, Other Bad guys, and even more devastating for the strategy of the Other, Other, Other Bad Guys. But none of this would have been possible had the Other, Other, Other, Other Bad Guys not crushed the Other, Other, Other what is it five now? Other, Other Bad Guys and the let’s call ’em the 6X Bad Guys.
I hope that’s clear.
BTW, this is another setback for the Inevitable March of Fascism. They’re winning some, but they’re losing some others. Gondor has not fallen yet.
Bloody HELL.
It looks like the Damascus is being taken.
There’s me expecting a pause for negotiation.
Silly me.
@Michael Reynolds:
Or, to be less elevated in tone:
“We take a knockin’, but keep on rockin’.”
Well, hell.
To use the technical historic term for such developments.
Hamas’s insanity and obscenity ends up lighting a fuse that detonates to overturn the entire Middle East equation, and wrecking the Pasdarani project.
Bibi and Erdogan between them overturn the entire 21st century Middle East.
Question now: can the US, transitioning to Trump, use this moment?