Assad’s Fall Shows Russia, Iran and Hamas Made a Bad Bet
Nobody could have imagined that the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel could have rebounded so badly on America’s enemies. But the Mideast remains very dangerous.
The one that got away.
Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyv/AFP/Getty Images
A great many actors had a hand in the fall of Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that led the offensive; Turkey, which nurtured and supported HTS; the myriad Syrian groups and people who gave a hated tyrant a final push. But Assad’s fall was also the work of a dead man, Yahya Sinwar.
When Sinwar ordered Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, he meant to revolutionize the Middle East. Today, the region is being remade, just not as Sinwar intended: An astonishingly successful Israeli offensive has left Hamas and the rest of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” in ruins, and has now claimed Assad as its latest victim.