Iran says it is in direct contact with groups in Syria’s new leadership
Tehran eager to avoid ‘hostile trajectory’ in relationship, sources say, amid concerns rebels who ousted allied Assad regime will now spurn Islamic Republic
Iran has opened a direct line of communication with rebels in Syria’s new leadership since its ally Bashar al-Assad was ousted, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, in an attempt to “prevent a hostile trajectory” between the countries.
The lightning advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, marked one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations. Assad’s fall as president removed a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world.
Hours after Assad’s fall, Iran said it expected relations with Damascus to continue based on the two countries’ “far-sighted and wise approach” and called for the establishment of an inclusive government representing all segments of Syrian society.
There is little doubt about Tehran’s concern about how the change of power in Damascus will affect Iran’s influence in Syria, the linchpin of its regional clout.
But there is no panic, three Iranian officials said to Reuters, as Tehran seeks diplomatic avenues to establish contact with people whom one of the officials called “those within Syria’s new ruling groups whose views are closer to Iran’s.”
“The main concern for Iran is whether Assad’s successor will push Syria away from Tehran’s orbit,” a second Iranian official said. “That is a scenario Iran is keen to avoid.”
A hostile post-Assad Syria would deprive Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah of its only land supply route and deny Iran its main access to the Mediterranean and the “front line” with Israel. Iran and Hezbollah, like the Gaza-based Hamas, openly seek to destroy Israel.
One of the senior officials said Iran’s clerical rulers, facing the loss of an important ally in Damascus and the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January, were open to engaging with Syria’s new leaders.
“This engagement is key to stabilizing ties and avoiding further regional tensions,” the official said.
Contacts with Syrian leadership
Tehran has established contacts with two groups inside the new leadership and the level of interaction will be assessed in the coming days after a meeting at Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a top security body, he said.
Two of the Iranian officials said Tehran was wary of Trump using Assad’s removal as leverage to intensify economic and political pressure on Iran, “either to force concessions or to destabilize the Islamic Republic.”
After pulling the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers in 2018, then-president Trump pursued a “maximum pressure” policy that led to extreme economic hardship and exacerbated public discontent in Iran. Trump is staffing his planned administration with hawks on Iran.
In 2020, Trump, as president, ordered a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander and mastermind of overseas attacks on US interests and those of its allies. Soleimani headed the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a US-designated terror group.
“Iran is now only left with two options: fall back and draw a defensive line in Iraq or seek a deal with Trump,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
The fall of Assad exposed Tehran’s dwindling strategic leverage in the region, exacerbated by Israel’s military offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel has been at war with Hamas since October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group led a massive cross-border attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people. The next day Hezbollah began attacking along Israel’s northern border in support of Gaza, opening a conflict that spiraled into open war. Israel decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and weapons stockpiles before the fighting ended with a fragile ceasefire at the end of November.
Iran’s clerical rulers spent billions of dollars propping up Assad during the civil war that erupted in Syria in 2011 and deployed its Revolutionary Guards to Syria to keep its ally in power and maintain Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” to Israel and US influence in the Middle East.
Assad’s fall removes a critical link in Iran’s regional power chain that served as a crucial transit route for Tehran to supply arms and fund its proxies, particularly Hezbollah.
