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The final blow to Assad, who has now fled Syria, just as Damascus has fallen without a fight to the rebels, was his abandonment by Iran on December 6. Not only did Iran fail to provide the military aid — troops and weapons — that Syria had been hoping for, but just two days before Damascus fell on December 8, Iran ordered all of its personnel, civilian and military, out of the country. Among them were two senior Al-Quds (IRGC) generals, who had to flee for their lives and sought refuge in Iraq. More on this Iranian pullout from Syria, that destroyed the morale of the troops in Damascus, can be found here: “Iran Begins to Evacuate Military Officials and Personnel From Syria,” Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman, New York Times, December 6, 2024:
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….
The Syrian army had been demoralized for quite some time. But no one expected that its troops would crumble all over Syria in less than two weeks. Its troops had long been underpaid. Its officers rose not through merit, but through the connections they had to the ruling Ba’athist party. Alawites — the sect to which Bashar Assad belongs — enjoyed preferment over all other groups. The army’s forces first melted away when the HTS rebels appeared at the gates of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and its commercial hub, taking control of the entire city within three days. Victory came even more quickly for the rebels in Hama. And in Homs, even before the rebels entered the city, thousands of Assad loyalists — his fellow Alawites — including army members, fled the city for the Alawite stronghold on the coast. The rebels then seized Homs, cutting Damascus off from the coast where Assad’s most loyal troops had been stationed, in Tartus and Latakia. In southern Syria, a different group of rebels took over in one day the city of Daraa and its military base. This left the Syrian army even more demoralized, following these swift victories by these seemingly unstoppable enemies.
Another reason for the army’s demoralization was the wretched salaries soldiers have been receiving. In a desperate act to improve morale, the Syrian government announced a 50% increase in army salaries, but that came too late to make a difference in soldiers’ attitudes. Given the string of rebel successes, that rise in salary did not persuade troops in the army to stay fighting when the result was now certain defeat. In a sign of mass despair, two thousand Syrian army troops, unwilling to fight, fled into Iraq.
Right now, early on December 8, the war is already over. Damascus has fallen to the rebels, of whom the largest component is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but there are other rebel groups as well, including the secular and democratic forces of the Free Syrian Army.
“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.”
Now, two days later, Syria has fallen to the jihadis, and as Ahmad Naderi has said, the rebel victory will cause Iran to “lose its sway in Iraq and Lebanon.” Iran will no longer have an ally in Syria. The Sunni jihadis see Iran as the enemy, the malevolent power that helped keep the hated Bashar Assad in power for so long. They feel just as strongly about Hezbollah, that sent troops during the civil war to help Assad. The victorious rebels won’t want to help facilitate the delivery of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
First of all they are Al-Qaida and ISIS. Their ideology is a world CALIPHATE,just like the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2002 Ben Laden wrote his ”Letter to the American People” where he wrote one of the reasons for the 2002 attack was
US support for the existence of Israel. In the caliphate ideology of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood conquering Israel is part of their plan,I am sure you know that.
Trump,based of lies,imposed the Ceaser Sanctions against Syria. Illegal economic and secondary economic sanctions against a country. Illegal since they violate international law,UN law.
Whistleblowers and Wikileaks told Trump the reason for the sanctions was a lie.That Assad had used chemical weapons on his own people. False. What will happen? TULSI GABBARD was talking all the time before how she supported Israel because she was against Hamas. That Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood group that wants to CONQUER the world,establish Islamic law.
Now what she will do,and convince Trump to do,is to LIFT the Ceaser Sanctions against Jolani,leader of the terrorists who rule Syria today.
JOLANI is known to have ordered the cutting off the heads of captives, instituting sexual slavery,persecuting Christians, killing American soldiers in Iraq. Imposing Islamic law.
Ben Shapiro,Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Prager, Dave Rubin, Douglas Murray and others who have said the war against Hamas is a war of civilization vs barbarism,defense of Western values,
will support the Jolani regime in Syria. They will never even mention his crimes.
You don’t know half of what you think you don’t know. And what you think you do know isn’t half of what you think you do know.
OK do I have it now? Or do I have to read more of your word salad gibberish?
Regarding Assad,the analysis by Scott Ritter is clear. The Globalists financed and armed Islamic terrorists to overthrow a SECULAR government in 2011.
They almost won,they conquered almost all the country except for Damascus.
Then Iran and Russia were asked to help. 4,000 Iranian soldiers and hundreds of Russian soldiers died.
The Globalists convinced Turkey to send its army to help the Islamic terrorists. Plus the Globalists financed and armed a Marxist-Communist terrorist group in Syria. The PKK (kurdistan Worker’s Party) is
on the US terrorist list. So they changed the name of the PKK in Syria,and put in charge a personal friend of the founder of the PKK,and himself a PKK member.Therefore a terrorist. The PKK conquered 33% of Syria.
Scott Ritter believes that now the Palestinians have lost, that the 5 million Palestinians of th West Bank and Gaza will be ethnically cleansed.
Check out this interview of Ritter by Iranian journalist NIMA ALKHORSHID,who lives in Brazil ( 2 hrs ),just today:
How do you know that they will support the regime?
Good question.To know the future look at the past. Has Trump gone against human rights before? Yes,regarding VENEZUELA.
1. His economic sanctions and secondary economic sanctions destroyed the oil industry there. 95% of Venezuela’s revenues comes from oil.
On purpose.
7 MILLION Venezuelans left the country because of those sanctions, almost all in extreme poverty. The sanctions continued under Biden. Like 6.5 million went to Brazil and Spanish-speaking countries. They were accepted. It is not like the 3 million Syrian refugees in TURKEY who are living in CONCENTRATION camps.
The Venezuelans,about 50% of who are there illegally, can move around freely.
2. Because of Trump the 6 billion dollars in gold of the Venezuelan government was frozen.Gold held in the UK,it is against international law.
3. Was the Venezuelan government sending out suicide bombers to the US and Europe? No.
In 2019 Trump organized a coup against the BOLIVIAN president,since he wanted LITHIUM to be under the control of the Bolivian nation.
In 2020 someone wrote of this to ELON MUSK,about it all,saying:
”The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.”
Musk then wrote: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
And that is the man who is now in Trump’s government? A man who wants to send covert agents to interfere in other nations,bribe people to overthrow a government.
“Its officers rose not through merit, but through the connections they had to the ruling Ba’athist party. ”
In the west it’s the same thing based on virtue signalling and oppression status.
A single Senator can hold up just one person’s promotion or all of them.
So colonels and generals become political or learn to play.
https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/why-does-the-senate-intervene-in-the-military-promotion-process
Thank you. Very informative in a situation that can be confusing to us in the USA.
Cat – I agree. His other article Why Assad Fell was a nice clear
explanation too.
I fear Syria will be come a cauldron of Jihad, with Hezbollah remnants, ISIS and a resurgent Al Qeada competing for the power. Iran appears to be out of the picture and with Trump coming in new pressure will be applied on them.
Meanwhile Assad is living in Russia with his family. Nice company Putin keeps.
This would be a nice opportunity for the IDF to strike at the heart of Iran’s Nuke program.
“Iranians Pulled Out of Syria, Abandoning Assad.” This sounds like a good thing, but Asad may be replaced by a more virulent form of dictatorship…Islamic theocratic dictatorship run by the Sunni majority. The Al Qaeda scourge may return. Syria does not have much to look forward to as far as peace & prosperity are concerned.
I love the spectacle of the nifaq (mutual dissension) that erupted between the Khamene’i and Al Assad regimes! Nothing more shameful than tucking your tail between your legs and running away! Shades of Sir Robin in MP’s Search for the Holy Grail!