US credits its support for Israel, Ukraine for failure by Iran and Russia to save Assad’s rule

The White House claims US support for Israel and Ukraine so significantly weakened Iran and Russia that they were unable to prevent the rebel takedown of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

“Much of the developments that we’ve seen in Syria are an outgrowth of the fact that that Assad’s biggest supporters — Russia and Iran — are significantly weakened now, and that is tied directly to the unflagging American support for Israel in their fight against Hamas and in the effort to secure a ceasefire with Hezbollah,” US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says during a press briefing.

“And it is absolutely an outgrowth of our support for Ukraine that has consistently weakened Russian military forces, and certainly caused the Russians to refocus the great locus of their military efforts on that war in Ukraine that they started… [Russia and Iran] are both significantly distracted and weakened by the efforts in the Middle East and in Europe,” he says.

“It isn’t just that Russia and Iran were unwilling to help Assad after 14 years. It is that they were unable to. And the United States played a major role in that,” Kirby adds.

“The ceasefire that we mediated between Israel and Hezbollah sent a strong signal to people in the region and in Syria that Hezbollah was done, that Hezbollah was out of it, that they weren’t going to come to Hamas’ assistance, and that Iran wasn’t going to be able to rely on them.”

“We have been robust in our support of Israel’s right to defend itself and backing that up with real arms and ammunition as well as diplomatic efforts, [which] played a real role [in getting us here],” Kirby continues.