Once again, history has been made in large part thanks to Israel. Over the weekend, Syrian rebels overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia, ending more than half a century of the tyrannical and bloody rule of the Assad family.
The opportunity for this sudden reversal of fortunes in Syria was created by the weakening of Iran and its proxies, especially Hezbollah, and by Russia’s continued war against Ukraine. Hezbollah, which was instrumental in saving Assad nearly a decade ago, was unable to assist him this time given its recent losses against Israel. Likewise, Russia, still bogged down in Ukraine and having suffered heavy losses itself over the last three years, was unable to spare the resources to assist its ally this time.
The greatest significance of the fall of Assad is that it constitutes another domino that has fallen in the ongoing collapse of the Iranian empire. With Hamas nearly destroyed, Hezbollah decapitated and at a third of its previous strength, and its own military weakness exposed following its two attacks on Israel and Israel’s retaliation, Iran desperately needed Assad to remain in power.
Iran has used Syria as a conduit to transfer supplies of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon for many years. With its puppet deposed and replaced by forces that spent years fighting against Hezbollah and its officials scrambling to flee Syria just like Assad, Iran will find resupplying its most powerful proxy army, and Hezbollah will find reclaiming its former status as the world’s most powerful terrorist organization, that much more difficult.
Iranian proxies remain a grave threat in Iraq and Yemen, but the ‘Axis of Resistance’ now looks a lot like the Axis of 1944, an expansionist and genocidal empire on the run and in collapse.
Now is the time to increase the pressure on Iran with more crippling sanctions to make it impossible for Iran to even attempt to rebuild Hamas and Hezbollah. Thankfully, that appears to be the intention of the incoming Trump Administration.
As great as the fall of a dictator with the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands is and no matter how vast the damage this has done to the Iranian regime and Hezbollah, the situation is not all suns and roses. The forces that captured Damascus from Assad are not the righteous rebels from the original Star Wars trilogy. The primary force responsible for taking Syria back from Assad is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (THS), an Islamist militia led by Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a terrorist with long ties to al Qaeda.
Moreover, as the sun sets on the Iranian empire, a new threat may be rising to take its place, just as Iran rose as a threat in 1979, the same year Israel’s greatest enemy for the first three decades of its existence, Egypt, made peace with the Jewish State. That potential threat is Turkey.
Under repressive autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish government has embraced Islamism, radicalism, and imperialism. Erdogan openly supports and harbors Hamas and was a key backer of the Islamist rebels who overthrew Assad. The makings of a policy of supporting terrorist proxies who murder Jews and other ‘infidels,’ and spreading one’s influence by destabilizing other countries as Iran has done until now are already in place, especially in light of Erdogan’s desire to restore the glory of the Ottoman Empire. It would not be surprising if Erdogan sought to take Iran’s role as Hamas’ patron, given his support for the genocidal terrorist organization.
As long as they continue to receive Erdogan’s patronage, no attempt by the Syrian rebels to appear moderate can be taken at face value. If Erdogan continues down the path he is currently on, a new imperial threat may well attempt to impose its will on the region in the coming years. Israel, the US, the moderate Arab states, and the world as a whole must be prepared to respond should Erdogan become the next Khamenei.
Even if Erdogan stops short of empire-building or threatening Israel, his war against the Kurds will continue until he succeeds in ethnically cleansing them from northeastern Syria. Such a victory could whet his appetite for further military adventurism.
None of this has to happen. The collapse of the Iranian empire was the direct result of Israel refusing to sit still and let itself be attacked again after the October 7 massacre. Had Israel listened to the Biden Administration, the EU, or the UN - Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran would all have remained as powerful as they were on October 6, 2023 and the Iranian empire would still be flourishing instead of falling apart. After 40 years of Western inaction allowed Iran to build its empire, one year of action by a single tiny state has brought that empire to the brink.
Israel’s example proves that expansionist dictators like Erdogan can only succeed if the nations of the world embrace inaction as they did against Iran. If the US and the West act now, they can still nip the potential Erdogan empire in the bud and protect the Kurdish people without direct military intervention.
What will the Middle East look like a year from now?
-Will Iran be allowed to recover from its losses and begin the process of empire-building anew, or will its collapse continue or even be completed, ending the threat of the Islamic Republic and freeing its people after 45 years of suffering under a brutal dictatorship?
-Will Lebanon finally free itself from the iron grip of Iran and Hezbollah, thereby allowing itself to move from a failed state to a prosperous one?
-Will Syria change from a puppet of Iran to a puppet of Turkey? Will the Kurds be abandoned to die or supported and thrive?
-And will Erdogan begin to realize his dream of restoring the Ottoman Empire, setting up the next great regional threat for the coming decade, or will be his empire to stopped in its infancy by an America no longer led by cowards?
History is being written every day, despite the best efforts of the Biden Administration to freeze history in place over the last year. The world of tomorrow will be shaped by the actions of today, so those actions must count.
Gary Willig is a veteran member of the Arutz Sheva staff.