Assad’s Fall Jolts Iran’s Increasingly Vulnerable Leadership
The Islamic Republic's ‘Axis of Resistance’ is broken and the regime is rattled as Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House.
Broken pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lie on the floor at the Iranian embassy after opposition forces took control of Damascus on Dec. 8.
Photographer: Ghaith Alsayed/AP Images
The tanker carrying oil from Iran had been sailing to Syria with critical supplies when it was forced into a U-turn just before entering the Suez Canal. Word of President Bashar al-Assad’s downfall had reached the vessel, with the cargo’s sender reduced from a powerful, longtime sponsor of his regime to a mere spectator of its demise.
In a matter of days, the Islamic Republic had lost one of the last men standing in its so-called Axis of Resistance, leaving its foreign policy effectively in tatters.