Iran may not be finished paying for its massive miscalculation against Israel. Of the two proxy armies that have been decimated if not destroyed in the war launched by Hamas and Hezbollah in October 2023, the latter is by far the most significant to Iran's geopolitical ambitions. Hezbollah didn't just turn Lebanon into a puppet state for Tehran, but it also propped up Bashar al-Assad against Sunni Islamist rebels over the last thirteen years.

Now, with Iranian puppet Bashar al-Assad reportedly out of the country, rumors of a coup have followed on the news that Aleppo has fallen to a coalition of rebels:

The sounds of gunfire were heard in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Saturday night as speculation grew that an attempted coup d’etat was under way.

The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) state television network was off the air Saturday night, and the news outlet’s Arabic and English language websites were unreachable as well.

Explosions and gunfire were heard near the general staff and state media building in the capital.

Local sources said Brigadier General Hassam Louka, chief of the regime’s general security directorate was attempting to oust President Bashar al-Assad, who was out of the country on Saturday.

Coup in Damascus is confirmed.

Hassam Louka Chief of the general security directorate of the Syrian regime is trying oust Bashar Al Assad. https://t.co/zWoMjCqlrG pic.twitter.com/1Ov2VuFJvz

— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) November 30, 2024

Another report claims a flight from Moscow landed in Damascus a short while ago. Did Assad return? That seems unlikely under the circumstances, especially if there is unrest in the capital. Events are clearly fluid at the moment, but it appears that Iran has either lost control of its puppets in the region, or is very close to doing so. 

A few years ago, the Syrian civil war appeared to be over, in large part suppressed by Iran through its Shi'ite army Hezbollah. Israel's destruction of Hezbollah is now creating potentially fatal consequences for Iran's dreams of regional hegemony, the Wall Street Journal reports:

It had taken the Syrian regime and its backers—Iran, Russia and Hezbollah—more than four years to dislodge rebel forces from the country’s second-largest city of Aleppo. At the time, in 2016, they celebrated that victory as the turning point in Syria’s civil war.

Now, a surprise rebel offensive has recaptured Aleppo in just a few days, including parts of the city that the Syrian army had never surrendered before. This stunning feat is the direct consequence of new wars that have erupted outside Syria’s borders. ...

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime are all currently embroiled in conflicts that threaten their very survival, and in which Syria is a sideshow at best. To a varying degree, all three have sustained strategic blows—while the Syrian rebels’ main backer, Turkey, has taken advantage of the turmoil.

“Russia is weakened, Iran is weakened, Hezbollah is beaten—and all this has created an enormous opportunity for Turkey, which it was quick to grab,” said Asli Aydintaşbaş, a Turkey specialist at the Brookings Institution.

Now one can see why Iran cooperated on the cease-fire with Israel. But is it too late? Iran no longer has the use of Hezbollah as either a deterrent against Israeli action or as a means to protect its puppet regimes in the region. Even seasoned observers like former WaPo beat reporter Liz Sly view the fall/liberation of Aleppo as a very bad sign for Bashar al-Assad and the future of Iranian hegemony, now that Hezbollah has been all but destroyed:

Simply astonishing advances by Syrian rebels into Aleppo. In just a few hours they’ve overrun parts of the city they couldn’t take in 4 years of fighting a decade ago. It goes to show how much the Assad regime was depending on Hezbollah and Iran for its survival.

— Liz Sly (@LizSly) November 30, 2024

The Russians also propped up Assad, but they don't have those kinds of resources any more. Thanks to Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, he can no longer afford to rescue his ally in Damascus, although he tried to rush to Assad's aid:

The Russian air force, indispensable for the survival of Assad, hasn’t been as degraded as Russian ground troops in Ukraine, but it too has lost a significant part of its firepower and operates at a fraction of its former strength in Syria. According to open-source analysts at the Oryx consultancy, some 117 Russian warplanes were destroyed in nearly three years of the Ukrainian war, and 15 more damaged.

While the Russian air force carried out a series of bombing runs in Syria in recent days, these strikes were limited and didn’t do much to halt the rebel advances. “The Russians are very, very busy in Ukraine, and that’s a big part of it,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a group that advocates for democracy in Syria. “Thank God for the Ukrainians.”

The Telegraph paints a dire picture of the status of Assad's regime and prospects for any assistance in the near future. But is the alternative much better?

The challenges facing Assad and his backers in Russia and Iran are unprecedented. Moscow is bogged down in Ukraine, where a reinvigorated US-backed campaign has given Kyiv the green light to strike inside Russian territory. Iran, meanwhile, is grappling with a relentless Israeli campaign that has targeted its military networks and weakened its grip on Syria.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The Assad regime faces a crisis that echoes the darkest days of the war, but with one stark difference: this time, the regime looks even weaker, and its allies are unable to come to its rescue. Years of economic collapse, internal fragmentation and the rise of unchecked militias have left Assad severely weakened. In many ways, the regime is now a hollow version of the one Russia and Iran fought to save in 2015.

By contrast, the rebels appear more disciplined and unified than ever. Under the command of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – a former al-Qaeda affiliate that has since severed ties with the group, and even all but rooted it out – opposition forces have evolved into a well-organised military machine, better equipped to sustain a long fight. The regime, ironically, now looks more fragmented and chaotic than the rebels it once dismissed as disorganised insurgents.

They rooted out AQ elements? That certainly sounds good, but it also sounds like PR. Do the Israelis see this as good news? Only in the sense that it damages Iran and Russia, one analyst writes, and perhaps opens up some new potential for revamping the Middle East. But the nature of some of the rebels has Israel concerned too:

The Islamist attack on Aleppo is "ostensibly good news for Israel," Daniel Rakov, a senior research fellow for the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), said in a post to X/Twitter on Saturday.

Rakov is known in JISS for being an expert on Russian policy in the Middle East and is also a reserve Lt. Colonel in the IDF. In his post on X, he said, "The fall of northern Syria to the rebels damages the infrastructure of the Iranians and Hezbollah there and will make it difficult for them to work to restore Hezbollah." 

"Assad will be more defensive, and as he fights for the survival of his regime, ostensibly helping Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon are of secondary interest," implying that Israeli freedom of action in Syria will likely expand.

He also said that the attacks were "very embarrassing for Moscow, the Russians were surprised by the rapid advance of the rebels from Idlib, and that the few military sources Russia has in the country will also "serve its best interests, as opposed to assisting Iran and Hezbollah." 

Color me skeptical on the long-term prospects of a successful overthrow by the rebels as currently organized. US-allied Kurdish forces participated in the Aleppo assault and control some ground there, which is a good development, but the Kurds are not likely to end up in charge. Sunni Islamists will end up running things for a while with the backing of Turkey, while Recep Tayyip Erdogan plays some very complicated games with and opposed to Iran and Russia. Turkey will eventually target the Kurds too, and has been attempting to suppress them for years in this civil war. In a war between two Islamist armies, the only result to cheer is one in which they both lose. 

In the short run, though, the fall of Assad will certainly provide a boon for Israel. Even if he doesn't fall, Assad will have his hands too full with the rebels now to do much against Israel, either for his own purposes or Iran's. The Iranians won't have the ability to restore its IRGC and Hezbollah infrastructure in a hot civil war either, which means they can't rebuild their forward deterrent against Israeli military action in Iran itself -- and that means they can't afford any more provocations. All of this will allow Israel a lot more leverage against Hamas in Gaza and an opportunity to strengthen their northern borders to re-establish their own deterrents against the Iranian axis. 

As for the rest of us, the fall of Assad may be good news ... depending on what follows. Over the last 14 years, though, what has followed in these regime collapses has usually been worse than what preceded it. 

Addendum: "Listen, not for nothing, but do you know the story of the Zen master?" This clip from Charlie Wilson's War seems very appropriate at the moment.