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fullscreen Russia and Iran are the big losers after the change of power in Syria, when the dictator family Assad was forced out. Photo: Hussein Malla/AP/TT
Russia and Iran are the big losers when the Assad regime fell in Syria.
Analyst Alexander Atarodi sees significant regional changes as Islamist groups took power in Damascus.
Those who gain from the development are Turkey and Israel.
The independent analyst Atarodi sees starkly how the political map is being redrawn at a furious pace. A direct consequence of the fall of the regime in Damascus is that Iran has lost a Shia Muslim sphere of power that it has long nurtured, economically and militarily.
– When President Bashar al-Assad disappears in this way, a link that Iran has tried to create for 40 years is broken, he says.
Iranian influence has been decisive in Syria and in Lebanon through the militant Hezbollah movement.
– The link has been weakened immensely in Lebanon and now completely severed in Syria – and thus the strategic depth that Iran had in the region disappears. It is a big defeat.
Russian fiasco
But the consequences in Syria can also have a global impact:
– Russia is by far the biggest loser on a regional and global level, says Atarodi with a background in, among other things, the government office and the Norwegian Defense University’s research institute.
Russia has invested enormous political and military capital in Syria. Moscow wanted to show the entire region that it had the political will to change things in the Middle East.
– That story was very powerful and had an impact throughout the Arab world – and then suddenly Russia is sitting there in the shit, excuse the expression, he says.
This opens up the political playing field for two actors:
– Turkey is absolutely the biggest winner, perhaps along with Israel who got this as a surprise letter in the mail, Atarodi says in a telephone interview hours after the Damascus regime fell.
Turkish approval
The Islamist extremist movement HTS could not have achieved the military successes without the indirect approval of Turkey – which wants to increase its influence in Syria.
– Directly or indirectly, Turkey has had its eyes on expansion and has always looked towards, for example, northern Syria, he says and recalls the historic defeats that the country suffered after the First World War when it lost large areas of land – something that sits deep in the Turkish people’s soul .
For the Israeli government, developments in Syria have been beyond the country’s direct control. In the past, Israel has been concerned that Islamist extremist groups would become strong in neighboring countries.
This partially changed after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Atarodi:
– Israel sees advantages in what is happening – because it means that Iran is diminished on the political stage.