It’s access to Syrian territory that Russia and Iran will miss most after the fall of their friend Bashar al-Assad, the president ousted on Sunday by rebels whom both of those outside powers had fought against.
Russia may lose use of an air base in Syria and, most importantly, a naval base there, limiting its ability to project force in the Middle East and Africa. Iran meanwhile has presumably lost an important ally as Israel increases the pressure on Hezbollah and other Iran-linked forces across the Middle East.
These losses will constrain Russian and Iranian ambitions beyond Syria.
On Sunday, as rebels took control in Damascus, Russian news agencies cited a Kremlin source as saying a deal guaranteeing the ‘safety’ of the bases had been agreed. It’s unclear whether that means they have any future in Russian hands.
The naval base is at Tartus on the Syrian coast near Lebanon. It’s Russia’s only warm-weather port, inherited from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union used the base from 1971 for force projection at the height of the Cold War—notably, during the nuclear weapons scare of the Yom Kippur War.
More recently, Tartus has been instrumental in Russia’s naval operations, used for intervention in the Syrian civil war, for force projection into Africa and for sanctions evasion. Russia easily resupplied the private military company Wagner Group (now called Africa Corps) through Tartus.
Still supported through the base, the mercenary organisation helps prop up juntas in Africa and siphon resources for the Kremlin. Without the naval base in Tartus, supporting mercenaries in Africa would become increasingly hard and expensive.
The diplomatic prestige of Russian ships operating in the Mediterranean also depends on use of Tartus.
Turkey has closed the Bosphorus to naval warships and seldom allows Russian military aircraft across its airspace. Russia’s major ports outside the Black Sea are Vladivostok on the Pacific and Kaliningrad on the Baltic. Putin reportedly has plans for a new naval base in Libya, so Russia may shift its focus to interference in that country.
In 2020, Yuri Borisov, Russia’s deputy prime minister said the Kremlin would invest $500 million in grain facilities at the port. Assad’s fall will now make it harder to Russia to export grain to African junta allies.
The Hmeimim air base, 50 km up the coast from Tartus, was another asset of force projection for Moscow. Hmeimim is a large airfield that can support operations by heavy military cargo planes, such as the IL-76.
Assad’s major counteroffensives began thanks in part to availability of air power at Hmeimim, from which the Russian air force pounded Assad’s enemies with Su-35, Su-25 and Su-24 aircraft.
Helpfully for Russia, it had access to the air base free of charge.
Loss of the bases would at least temporarily end half a century of Russian military presence in the Middle East.
The fall of Assad is a blow to Iran’s attempts at promoting Shiite theocracy in Sunni-majority Syria. During the Iranian intervention, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps sent Shiite militiamen from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon to Syria to supplement Assad’s war-battered forces. The Revolutionary Guards encouraged them and their families to settle in Syria.
Also, militias affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards mustered near the Israeli border.
Loss of Assad also means loss of land supply to Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon. Iran could formerly send weapons, ammunition and other supplies across Iraq and then Syria by truck. That was already risky, having been at times noticed and bombed by Israeli intelligence. But it’s presumably impossible now that Syria is not controlled by Iran-friendly forces.
Hezbollah, already battered by escalated fighting with Israel from September to November, is thus weakened and, with it, so is Iran’s influence in Lebanon.
Hezbollah will now come under more pressure to disarm by the Lebanese army, which will have the backing of the United States, France, and the United Nations.
