Dispatch from Doha: Assad’s fall, Iran’s weakness, and the impact of unintended consequences

DOHA—In the annual round of conferences that bring together policy makers, think tank experts, academics and business leaders, it is rare to find yourself in the middle of history being made. But last weekend at the Doha Forum — at which the Atlantic Council was one of nearly four dozen partners this year — that was the case.

Many of us in attendance were down the hall or around the corner as the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran met hurriedly on Saturday, as the Syrian army ceded territory to opposition groups and hours before Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled and surrendered. Damascus. We watched on Sunday as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan strode seemingly triumphantly into the main hall to address Forum participants—even though he was never originally scheduled to do so—while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi abruptly canceled his planned mid- afternoon and hurried home with the rest of the official Iranian delegation.

Araghchi returned to Tehran with his country in a weaker regional and global position than perhaps at any time since Iran’s 1979 revolution, a stark reminder of how quickly events can turn in the Middle East. Six months ago, many viewed Iran as having the strongest regional position it had in decades. Relations with Saudi Arabia melted after the approach of the previous year. In April, Tehran thought it had increased its deterrence by striking Israel directly with ballistic missiles and drones, the answer to Israel killing Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran safety links with Russia became increasingly strategically important, and its oil sales to China, in breach US and other sanctions ignored by Beijing continued to bring in revenue.

Equally important, Iran’s network of partners and proxies was on the rise. The Houthis in Yemen continued to undermine global shipping and disrupt international trade. Condemnations of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 had long been pushed aside, and international attention was focused focused almost exclusively on Israel and its military operations in Gaza. And Hezbollah, the crown jewel of the Iranian network, was continuing to fire rockets from Lebanon into Israel on a daily basis, with the group’s massive weapons inventory more robust and deadly than ever.

However, during the past six months, Iran’s regional position has completely turned around. The United States and its allies rallied to Israel’s side to help defend against Iranian and Houthi attacks, while Israel has shown that its army is much more advanced than Iran’s. One has to wonder if Iran asked Russia for a refund for the S-300 air defense systems that did nothing to prevent Israel from striking Iranian military sites (and probably nuclear facilities) in October. Hamas and Hezbollah they were amazing diminishedtheir leadership—not just at the top, but three and four degrees down the chain of command—was killed or seriously injured, most of their weapons supplies destroyed.

In Syria, everything has disappeared — everything that Iran worked for and dedicated so much blood and treasure to be protected in the past ten years. The Assad’s regime has disappeared. Iran’s ability to operate directly (and through intermediaries) on Israel’s border has also disappeared. and land bridge that Iran used to arm Hezbollah, providing a critical deterrent against Israel, is gone, at least in the short term. (Israel almost certainly will whatever he can extend that duration as long as possible.)

It would be naive to think that all this is part of the Israeli plan. The reality is that Israeli strikes against Hezbollah were designed to undermine the daily threat the group posed to Israel. Today, Hezbollah is so weakened that it has abandoned its assassinated leader, Hassan Nasrallah promise continue to strike Israel until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. The Lebanese Armed Forces—if properly trained, supplied, and advised—could in the coming years legitimately confront Hezbollah and prevent it from serving as a perpetual blight on Lebanon, as imagined in the November 27 ceasefire agreement.

But the unintended consequence of the Israeli attacks was aid buoy Syrian opposition leaders and convince them that the Assad regime, which was already weak, will not be able to rely on Iranian or Hezbollah forces to come to the regime’s aid. The opposition leaders were right.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and most other Arab states decided in May 2023 to invite Assad back to the Arab League after an eleven-year absence. There were, many in the region believeda pragmatic response to the feeling at the time that Assad was going nowhere. Was this decision part of a strategic vision for Iran to withdraw from Syria and eventually give up on Assad? Almost certainly not. Anyway, some reporting indicates that warming ties with Arab governments may also have had the unintended consequence of hastening Assad’s fall.

However, the unintended consequences go both ways. Given how much has changed in Iran in the past six months, the story could be completely different in six months or a year. Perhaps next year at the Doha Forum we will witness an Iranian foreign minister engaging in frenzied meetings for a much different reason: because Iran is in a rush to get a nuclear bomb, seeing it as the only way to increase deterrence and ensure the survival of the regime in its currently weakened state and feeling being forced to take riskier actions for survival. Or perhaps the US defense secretary will defend the United States’ decision to join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear program to prevent it from achieving that outcome.

Neither of these scenarios is the most likely, but the odds of one or both are higher today than they were in June. In the Middle East, the biggest developments are too often driven by unintended consequences, not strategy.

Jonathan Panikoff is director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative and former deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East at the US National Intelligence Council.

Note: The author’s trip to the Doha Forum was sponsored by the government of Qatar.

Additional reading

Image: Jonathan Panikoff of the Atlantic Council speaks at the start of a panel discussion at the Doha Forum on December 8, 2024 in Doha, Qatar. (Credit: Sarah Zaaimi)