This past week, Syrian rebel forces toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad, breaking a decade-old stalemate in a civil war that has left hundreds of thousands dead. The ouster has the potential to upend the balance of power in a region locked in conflict—and has dealt a particular blow to Iran, which had long relied on a close partnership with Assad to project influence in the Arab world.
The Syrian leader’s fall is just the latest in a series of problems for Iran, which has also seen its regional proxies—and its own defenses—degraded by Israel since Hamas’s attacks in October 2023. But Iran’s current vulnerabilities are unlikely to chasten Tehran, writes Suzanne Maloney in an essay from the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs. “Over the past 45 years, Iran’s leadership has navigated many significant setbacks with surprising agility.” And with Israel and Iran having traded direct strikes for the first time after years of proxy battles, Maloney warns, “the tit for tat has boosted the odds that the two most powerful states in the Middle East will fight a full-scale war.”
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