Iran’s top general in Syria has openly contradicted Tehran’s official stance on the sudden fall of its ally Bashar Al-Assad, admitting in a remarkably forthright speech last week that Iran had suffered a significant defeat but would continue its efforts in the region, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
An audio recording of Brig. Gen. Behrouz Esbati’s speech at a mosque in Tehran was leaked on Monday, drawing sharp contrast with statements from Iran’s President, Foreign Minister, and other top officials, who have downplayed the scale of Iran’s strategic loss in Syria.
Since Syrian rebels ousted Assad last month, Iranian leaders have repeatedly emphasized their willingness to honor Syria’s people’s political decisions.
But General Esbati stated in the leaked audio, “I don’t consider losing Syria something to be proud of. We were defeated, and defeated very badly, we took a very big blow and it’s been very difficult.”
Esbati disclosed that relations between Iran and Assad had been strained for months before his ouster. He claimed that the Syrian leader repeatedly refused Iran’s requests to launch an offensive against Israel from Syrian territory following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
Iran had reportedly shared detailed military plans with Assad, outlining how its forces in Syria could strike Israel, but the Syrian leader resisted.
The general also accused Russia, ostensibly an ally, of misleading Iran by falsely claiming its strikes were targeting Syrian rebels when, in fact, they were bombing empty fields. Additionally, he alleged that Russia “turned off radars,” enabling Israeli strikes on Iranian assets in Syria over the past year.
Iran had previously provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war.
Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made clear several years ago that Iran would withdraw its “military advisers” from Syria and Iraq only if their governments wanted it to.
Iran's then-President Ebrahim Raisi visited Damascus last year and headed a "high economic-political delegation".
However, Iran reportedly reduced its military footprint in Syria in recent months, following a succession of strikes blamed on Israel.
With a coalition of rebels taking over most of Syria and forming a new government, General Esbati expressed in his remarks Iran’s intent to adapt its strategy.
“We can activate all the networks we have worked with over the years,” he said, as quoted by The New York Times. “We can activate the social layers that our guys lived among for years; we can be active in social media and we can form resistance cells.”
When asked whether Iran would retaliate for Israel’s elimination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, General Esbati said Iran already had, referring to missile strikes last fall. On the possibility of further attacks on Israel, he admitted, “the situation” currently does not allow for such actions.
Responding to a question about targeting US bases, he warned that doing so would provoke overwhelming retaliation, adding that Iran’s regular missiles lack the sophistication to penetrate advanced US defense systems.
Despite these sobering admissions, General Esbati sought to reassure the audience, claiming that Iran and its allies still hold an upper hand in the region.