How Iran Is Explaining Away Its Syrian Absence

This article originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post on December 15, 2024.

The regional war Israel has been experiencing since October 7 is a scenario that Iranian analysts had long warned about. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was asked to defer a large-scale military campaign to give Iran and its allies enough time to prepare for it. Sinwar, however, chose to go ahead with the Al-Aqsa Flood, claiming it was a Palestinian endeavor, and the Iranians had to try to create a balance between “defending Palestine” and “preventing an escalation.”

Israel, for its part, launched a no-holds-barred war, and the Iranians understood the need to seek to put a stop to it in light of the dire results for Hamas and Hezbollah. This message was conveyed to the resistance axis, but the problem, as analysts in Tehran say, was that Israel was not stopping. Hezbollah is now in need of rehabilitation, and the Iranians need four years’ respite for a recovery, not just militarily but also to rehabilitate the narrative that was upended and develop a new one – building victory out of failure.

Hard on the heels of the harsh blow to Tehran’s main force against Israel – Hezbollah – the Assad regime has now collapsed in the space of 10 days. In reality, Iran sat on the sidelines. As The New York Times described, there was a gap between Iran’s declarations and its actual orders – not to fight, to withdraw the militias, and to start a dialogue with the rebels that could ensure the safe departure of the Iranian forces and the protection of the Shiite holy places in return for Iran’s nonintervention.

All these factors led the Iranian regime to conclude that a new narrative was needed to explain why they did not defend a regime in which they had invested, according to different reports, more than $50 billion in the course of a decade. The target audience of the new narrative comprises the countries of the resistance axis, the moderate Sunni countries, the geopolitical powers, and the countries of the world in general, including Israel.

No less important to Khamenei is the domestic arena. He has to provide an explanation to the “fourth generation of the revolution” – radical youth who requested to go to Syria to support Assad’s regime and safeguard the Shiite holy places – for why the proclamations that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would be deployed to Syria within 24 hours from the start of the imbroglio were no more than a false flag.

The first step is to blame Assad’s regime for “not firing a single shot at the Zionist regime for half a century.” From there, Tehran goes on to claim that “Assad’s turn to the West, and receipt of economic incentives from the United Arab Emirates on condition that he disengage from the resistance axis, ultimately led to damage to Iran and to the resistance axis.”

A further step is to present Assad as not heeding the advice of the Iranian regime on different issues where they claim they tried to help, such as “democracy,” “support for his government because of the difficult economic situation,” “weaknesses of his army and the state infrastructure,” and “the suffering of the Syrian people after five decades of dictatorship.”

As Ali Mutahari, former deputy chairman of the Majlis, sums up the narrative: “Iran did not take a stance against a large part of the Syrian people that supported the opponents of Assad, and averted a war between Sunnis and Shi’ites and deadly hostilities between Muslims – something that would have served the interests of the United States and Israel.”

It should be stressed, however, that Iran is well aware that its helplessness was evident to everyone. Militarily, it was not in a condition to help Assad – after senior IRGC officers in Syria were killed in targeted attacks attributed to Israel, with Hezbollah unable to send reinforcements, and with Israel preventing Iranian planes from reaching Syria, and amid attacks on the Iraqi militias by the Americans.

The perceptual domain, however, is no less important in the Middle East. Iran had built up the image of the “resistance axis” powered by missiles and Hezbollah. That image, though, rapidly collapsed amid Israel’s pagers operation and the eradication of Hezbollah’s leadership, as well as the replacement of that leadership.

“This will be the most difficult period in the history of the Islamic Republic,” said a well-known social-media figure affiliated with the IRGC. He added: “With the removal of Hezbollah from the game and of the Iranian regime from Syria, the resistance project is now at a standstill. Iran must completely rethink its defense doctrine. This is the end of the road.”

At the same time, Iran is working on a transition to a new rhetoric in which the rebels are a new proxy objective. Instead of “terrorists,” Iran now calls them resisters or “Islamist resisters.” The aim is to preserve a route to Hezbollah for arms transfers, something the analysts in Iran say is “not impossible.”

Mutahari says Iran “must conduct a dialogue and try to consolidate the main core of opponents of Assad that affiliates with the Muslim Brotherhood and opposes the Zionist regime.” He says it is “possible that they are anti-Shi’ite,” but attributes this to the behavior of some of the extremist Shi’ites, as he calls them.

Seeking a channel of dialogue with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Iranians emphasize their experience with the Taliban and the “coexistence” between them, downplay their responsibility for any harm to the Syrian population, and of course, lie to the public.

On December 8, the Iranian foreign minister declared that “the Iranian forces were in Syria to fight the Islamic State – and with the end of the fighting returned to Iran.” This flatly contradicts an assertion made about four years ago by the commander of the IRGC’s artillery force that in 2011, Khamenei sent Qasem Soleimani to rescue Syria from the rebels – before the Islamic State made its presence felt.

To salvage the axis and preserve the ability to arm Hezbollah by dint of the rebels, Iran seeks to avoid confronting or accusing Erdogan. But HTS is strong enough with Erdogan’s support and does not need money or ammunition from Tehran to rule the new territory in its hands.

Erdogan’s control over the rebels underlines Turkey’s critical role in managing the threat to Israel from the Syrian border and the importance of the Israeli–Turkish relationship.

Israel needs a different policy toward Turkey that takes into account the interests of this country and its leader. In the bazaar over Israel’s security, which requires restraining the rebels under Turkey’s control, experts will tell Turkey that a “Palestinian” exchange currency is required. The emphasis, however, should be on relations with Turkey in the Syrian context, as Israel continues and entrenches its military presence and restores the ties it had with the Free Syrian Army, the Druze, and the people of southern Syria, the Golan Heights, graduates of “operation good neighbor.”