Internal crisis threatens Iranian regime as officials angrily blame each other for collapse of Syrian regime

The collapse of the Syrian Assad regime, once a main pillar of support for Iran’s regional policy, has given rise to mutual recriminations that threaten the internal stability of the regime just as it struggles to cope with one the most challenging periods of its existence, according to recent reports.

“Normally empires collapse gradually and then suddenly,” a Western diplomat with years of experience in the Middle East told the British Telegraph.

“But Iran’s informal empire, its network of influence, is, by historical standards, collapsing very fast. An emergency recalibration is now under way in Tehran.”

Among Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, no one wants to take the blame for the stunning collapse of the Assad regime, sources told the Telegraph.

“The atmosphere is like something between almost punching each other, punching the walls, yelling at each other and kicking rubbish bins,” an IRGC official said.

The central importance of Syria for Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” was once illustrated by a remarkable quote from Mehdi Taeb, head of a regime-affiliated think tank, in 2013.

“Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic province for us. If the enemy attacks us and wants to appropriate either Syria or [the oil-rich Iranian province] Khuzestan, the priority is that we keep Syria,” said Taeb.

He explained, “If we keep Syria, we can get Khuzestan back too, but if we lose Syria, we cannot keep Tehran.”

Many are even blaming IRGC Brig.-Gen. Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force for the collapse of the regime.

The IRGC’s shadowy secret unit oversees the vast network of proxy militias spanning the Middle East, much of which was established by former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in the wake of the Syrian Civil War.

Syria served as a central node in this network. “No one ever imagined seeing Assad fleeing, as the focus for 10 years had been only on keeping him in power. And it was not because we were in love with him, it was because we wanted to maintain proximity to Israel and Hezbollah,” the IRGC official explained.

A second IRGC operative added, “You need someone there to send arms to [but] they are either getting killed or escaping. Now the focus is on how to move forward from this impasse.”

On Tuesday, an Iranian spokeswoman said that 4,000 Iranian citizens returned home to Iran after fleeing Syria, among them likely many members of the IRGC or their families who were stationed there over the past decade.

The first official said that “many are now calling for” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to fire Qaani: “He has done nothing to prevent Iran’s interests from crumbling. Allies fell one after another, and he was watching from Tehran.”

The internal fault lines within the IRGC center on a conflict between the older, veteran commanders and young radicals, according to Kasra Aarabi, director of the IRGC Research at the United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) think tank.

“We zealous youth will not forget the cowardice of the decision-makers” — a young IRGC radical tells me.

Fault lines are emerging in Iran’s IRGC over the handling of Syria. Younger radicals are enraged at the “abandonment.” This will cause Khamenei major problems.

👇🧵1/ pic.twitter.com/qOl7qPN7pI

— Kasra Aarabi (کسری اعرابی) (@KasraAarabi) December 8, 2024

“In recent years, the divisions between the IRGC’s older, conservative commanders and its younger, radical ranks have deepened,” Aarabi explained, after speaking with several younger operatives.

“Things heated up after more and more IRGC commanders and partners were killed by Israel in response to Oct 7. The younger gens began questioning the competence and commitment of their seniors.”

According to Aarabi, the Iranian assault on Israel on Oct. 1 was, in part, designed to calm the younger IRGC operatives’ anger after they accused some of the veterans of “corruption and even colluding with Mossad” following the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Despite the attack on Israel, the IRGC radicals were not appeased. “They see the fall of Syria as the ‘abandonment’ of the holy Shia shrines and the ‘trampling of the blood martyrs’,” Aarabi said.

“The major issue for Khamenei is that he can’t afford to simply ignore these younger gens or put them aside as these are the very foot soldiers that take to the streets to suppress Iranian protestors. They are critical for his regime’s survival.”

Aarabi concluded, “Things are going from bad to worse for Khamenei. Hezbollah/Hamas decimated, Assad toppled, supply line for proxies cut and now internal divisions in IRGC—divisions that can be exploited to weaken the suppressive apparatus at a time when there is a real fear of a domino effect.”

“This is an earthquake for Iran, given how much it has invested in Syria over years,” Jason Brodsky, policy director at UANI, wrote in The Spectator.

“Some estimates suggest that it provided around $11 billion worth of oil alone to Syria from 2012-21. Leaked documents reveal a total debt owned by Assad to Tehran to be around $50 billion and counting. Other assessments, including by Syria expert Steven Heydemann, in 2015 put the total Iranian support between $15 billion to $20 billion annually.”

“The resistance project almost no longer exists,” one of the IRGC officials told the Telegraph. He added, “You don’t need to be an expert to see that we are in our weakest and most vulnerable position in decades and many acknowledge that here.”