Amid the shattered glass and trampled flags, posters of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lie ripped on the ground of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. There are torn footage too of the previous chief of Lebanon’s Hezbollah motion, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut in September.
Outside, the ornate turquoise tiles on the embassy’s façade are intact, however the defaced large picture of Iran’s vastly influential former navy Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani – killed on the orders of Donald Trump throughout his first presidency – is an extra reminder of the collection of blows Iran has confronted, culminating on Sunday within the fall of a key ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
So, because the Islamic Republic licks its wounds, and prepares for a brand new Donald Trump presidency, will it resolve on a extra hardline method – or will it renew negotiations with the West? And simply how secure is the regime?
In his first speech after the toppling of Assad, Khamenei was placing a courageous face on a strategic defeat. Now 85 years outdated, he faces the looming problem of succession, having been in energy and the last word authority in Iran since 1989.
“Iran is robust and highly effective – and can develop into even stronger,” he claimed.
He insisted that the Iran-led alliance within the Middle East, which incorporates Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi Shia militias – the “scope of resistance” towards Israel – would solely strengthen too.
“The extra stress you exert, the stronger the resistance turns into. The extra crimes you commit, the extra decided it turns into. The extra you struggle towards it, the extra it expands,” he mentioned.
But the regional aftershocks of the Hamas massacres in Israel on 7 October 2023 – which had been applauded, if not supported, by Iran – have left the regime reeling.
Israel’s retaliation towards its enemies has created a brand new panorama within the Middle East, with Iran very a lot on the again foot.
“All the dominoes have been falling,” says James Jeffrey, a former US diplomat and deputy nationwide safety advisor, who now works on the non-partisan Wilson Center think-tank.
“The Iranian Axis of Resistance has been smashed by Israel, and now blown up by occasions in Syria. Iran is left with no actual proxy within the area apart from the Houthis in Yemen.”
Iran does nonetheless again highly effective militias in neighbouring Iraq. But in keeping with Mr Jeffrey: “This is a very unprecedented collapse of a regional hegemon.”
The final public sighting of Assad was in a gathering with the Iranian Foreign Minister, on 1 December, when he vowed to “crush” the rebels advancing on the Syrian capital. The Kremlin has mentioned he’s now in Russia after fleeing the nation.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, described Assad because the “entrance finish of the Axis of Resistance”. Yet, when the top got here for Bashar al-Assad, a weakened Iran – shocked by the sudden collapse of his forces – was unable and unwilling to struggle for him.
In a matter of days, the one different state within the “Axis of Resistance” – its lynchpin – had gone.
How Iran constructed its community
Iran had spent many years constructing its community of militias to keep up affect within the area, in addition to deterrence towards Israeli assault. This dates again to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
In the battle with Iraq that adopted, Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, supported Iran.
The alliance between the Shia clerics in Iran and the Assads (who’re from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam) helped cement Iran’s powerbase in a predominantly Sunni Middle East.
Syria was additionally an important provide route for Iran to its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and different regional armed teams.
Iran had come to Assad’s support earlier than. When he appeared weak after a well-liked rebellion in 2011 had morphed right into a civil battle, Tehran offered fighters, gas and weapons. More than 2,000 Iranian troopers and generals had been killed there whereas ostensibly serving as “navy advisers”.
“We know that Iran spent $30bn to $50bn [£23.5bn to £39bn] in Syria [since around 2011],” says Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at assume tank Chatham House.
Now the pipeline by means of which Iran may need tried, sooner or later, to resupply Hezbollah in Lebanon – and from there, doubtlessly, others – has been lower.
“The Axis of Resistance was an opportunistic community designed to supply Iran with strategic depth and shield Iran from direct strike and assault,” Dr Vakil argues. “This has clearly failed as a method.”
Iran’s calculation of what to do subsequent will likely be affected not simply by the demise of Assad but in addition by the truth that its personal navy got here off far worse than Israel within the first ever direct confrontations between the 2 nations earlier this 12 months.
Most of the ballistic missiles that Iran launched at Israel in October had been intercepted, though some brought about harm to a number of airbases. Israeli strikes brought about critical harm to Iran’s air defences and missile manufacturing capabilities. “The missile menace has confirmed to be a paper tiger,” says Mr Jeffrey.
The assassination in Tehran of the previous Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in July was additionally a profound embarrassment for Iran.
The nation’s future course
The chief precedence of the Islamic Republic from right here on in is its personal survival. “It will likely be seeking to reposition itself, reinforce what’s left of the Axis of Resistance and re-invest in regional ties with a purpose to survive the stress that Trump is prone to bear,” says Dr Vakil.
Dennis Horak spent three years in Iran as Canadian cost d’affaires. “It’s a fairly resilient regime with great levers of energy, and much more they may unleash,” he says.
It nonetheless possesses critical firepower, he argues, which might be used towards Gulf Arab nations within the occasion of a confrontation with Israel. He cautions towards any view of Iran as a paper tiger.
It has nevertheless, been profoundly weakened internationally – with an unpredictable Donald Trump about to imagine the presidency within the US, and Israel having demonstrated its means to choose off its enemies.
“Iran will definitely be re-evaluating its defence doctrine which was primarily reliant on the Axis of Resistance,” says Dr Vakil.
“It may also be contemplating its nuclear programme and attempting to resolve if better funding in that’s crucial to supply the regime with better safety.”
Nuclear potential
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is completely peaceable. But it has superior significantly since Donald Trump deserted a carefully-negotiated deal struck in 2015, which restricted its nuclear actions in return for the lifting of some financial sanctions.
Under the settlement, Iran was permitted to counterpoint uranium as much as a purity of three.67%. Low-enriched uranium can be utilized to provide gas for industrial nuclear energy vegetation. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran is now considerably growing the speed at which it will probably produce uranium enriched to 60%.
Iran has mentioned it’s doing this in retaliation for the sanctions that Trump reinstated and which remained in place because the Biden administration tried and didn’t revive the deal.
Weapons-grade uranium, which is required for a nuclear bomb, is 90% enriched or extra.
The IAEA head, Rafael Grossi, has advised what Iran is doing could also be a response to the nation’s regional setbacks.
“It’s a extremely regarding image,” says Darya Dolzikova, skilled on nuclear proliferation on the Royal United Services Institute assume tank. “The nuclear programme is in a very totally different place to the place it was in 2015.”
It has been estimated that Iran may now enrich sufficient uranium for a weapon inside a few week, if it determined to, although it could additionally have to assemble a warhead and mount a supply system, which specialists say would take months or presumably so long as a 12 months.
“We do not know the way shut they’re to a deliverable nuclear weapon. But Iran has gained loads of data that will likely be actually onerous to roll again,” provides Ms Dolzikova.
Western nations are alarmed.
“It’s clear that Trump will attempt to re-impose his ‘most stress’ technique on Iran,” says Dr Raz Zimmt, senior researcher on the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University.
“But I feel he’ll additionally attempt to interact Iran in renewed negotiations attempting to persuade Iran to roll again its nuclear capabilities.”
Despite Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s said want for regime change, Dr Zimmt believes the nation will bide its time, ready to see what Donald Trump does and the way Iran responds.
Iran is unlikely to wish to provoke a full-scale confrontation.
“I feel Donald Trump – as a businessman – will attempt to interact Iran and make a deal,” says Nasser Hadian, professor of political science at Tehran University.
“If that does not occur, he’ll go for optimum stress with a purpose to convey it to the desk.”
He believes a deal is extra doubtless than battle, however he provides: “There is a chance that, if he goes for optimum stress, issues go flawed and we get a battle that neither facet needs.”
‘Widespread simmering fury’
The Islamic Republic faces a number of home challenges too, because it prepares for the succession of the Supreme Leader.
“Khamenei goes to mattress worrying about his legacy and transition and is seeking to depart Iran in a secure place,” in keeping with Dr Vakil.
The regime was badly shaken by the 2022 nationwide protests that adopted the loss of life of a younger lady, Mahsa Jina Amini, who had been accused of not sporting the hijab correctly.
The rebellion challenged the legitimacy of the clerical institution and was crushed with brutal drive.
There continues to be widespread, simmering fury at a regime that has poured assets into conflicts overseas whereas many Iranians face unemployment and wrestle with excessive inflation.
And Iran’s youthful era, particularly, is more and more estranged from the Islamic Revolution, with many chafing on the social restrictions imposed by the regime. Every day, girls nonetheless defy the regime, risking arrest by going out with out their hair lined.
However, that is to not say that there will likely be a collapse of the regime just like that in Syria, say Iran watchers.
“I do not assume the Iranian individuals are going to stand up once more as a result of Iran has misplaced its empire, which was very unpopular anyway,” says Mr Jeffrey.
Mr Horak believes its tolerance of dissent will likely be lowered nonetheless additional because it tries to shore up its inner safety. A protracted-planned new legislation that strengthens punishments for ladies who don’t put on the hijab is because of are available in imminently. But he does not imagine the regime is presently in danger.
“Millions of Iranians do not assist it, however tens of millions nonetheless do,” he says. “I do not assume it is at risk of toppling anytime quickly.”
But because it navigates anger at residence, the lack of its lynchpin in Syria – after so many different blows to its regional clout – has made the job of Iran’s rulers much more difficult.
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