Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is due to speak on Iranian TV on Wednesday - 

A furious blame game is unfolding among Iran’s armed forces over the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said commanders of the elite military force were blaming each other “in angry terms” for the collapse of Assad’s regime and the loss of Iranian influence in the region.

“The atmosphere is like something between almost punching each other, punching the walls, yelling at each other and kicking rubbish bins. They are blaming each other, and no one is taking responsibility,” one official from Tehran told The Telegraph.

“No one ever imagined seeing Assad fleeing, as the focus for 10 years had been only on keeping him in power. And it was not because we were in love with him, it was because we wanted to maintain proximity to Israel and Hezbollah.”

Iran spent billions of dollars propping up Assad’s regime after intervening in the Syrian civil war in the mid-2010s.

His government was also the lynchpin in a regional “axis of resistance” masterminded by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Qassim Soleimani, a former commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force who was killed by a US air strike in 2020.

That network had already been badly mauled over the past 14 months by Israel’s wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and British and American airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

But the loss of Syria could be fatal because it was the main route for supplying Hezbollah, whose arsenal in southern Lebanon had projected Iranian military power directly to the border of Israel.

“You need someone there to send arms to [but] they are either getting killed or escaping. Now the focus is on how to move forward from this impasse,” a second IRGC official told The Telegraph.

“For now, there are no discussions about arms, as everyone is trying to understand what is really happening and how dangerous it is for Iran,” he said.

He added that some are blaming Brig Gen Esmail Qaani, the present commander of the Quds Force for allowing Assad’s army to disperse.

“No one dares to tell him to his face, but... he is the one to hold accountable and fire,” he said.

“He has done nothing to prevent Iran’s interests from crumbling. Allies fell one after another, and he was watching from Tehran. Even worse days might yet be coming.”

Iran’s supreme leader is due to address the nation on Wednesday about the “recent regional developments”.

In its official statement, the Islamic Republic expressed expectations of continued “friendly” relations with Syria.

Iran’s allies surrender in Syria

X/ @MintelWorld

Iran’s foreign ministry said the historical ties between Iran and Syria would persist.

“The relations between the two nations of Iran and Syria have a long history and have always been friendly, and it is expected that these relations will continue,” it said.

But behind the scenes, Tehran is in crisis.

The first IRGC official mentioned rumours suggesting that Maj Gen Qaani could be replaced by Khamenei because “many are now calling for it”.

He said Khamenei had summoned commanders several times in recent days as Syrian rebels were advancing towards Damascus.

“The situation is bizarre and heated and angry discussions are taking place – the other concern is what to tell supporters in Iran,” he added.

Asked about the military’s view of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader whose Oct 7 attack on Israel sparked the past 14 months of war, the official said: “I can just tell you that he is no longer a celebrity here.”

Soleimani, who was killed near Baghdad in January 2020, spent years in Syria and was credited in Iran with saving Damascus and reclaiming territory from the rebels.

Khamenei at the time had instructed the IRGC to “save Assad” and called the Quds Force “soldiers without borders”.

Former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif praised Soleimani as a “commander in the fight against terrorism” and claimed the US and Europe owed him for helping defeat Isis in Iraq and Syria.

“But it’s a memory in black and white now and the resistance project almost no longer exists,” added the IRGC official who spoke to The Telegraph.

“You don’t need to be an expert to see that we are in our weakest and most vulnerable position in decades and many acknowledge that here,” he added.

Iran still has some options for supplying its proxies, including by sea, and is unlikely to simply abandon its network.

“Iran is anticipating the arrival of the Trump administration and maximum pressure of sanctions. It sees its partners across the region significantly weakened,” said Sanam Vakil, director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

“But, I do think, Iran will find new ways to provide that support.

“What has Iran done more successfully in the past is taking advantage of state weakness as well as opportunities in the region, and it will be looking for those moments of weakness and opportunities,” Mrs Vakil said.

“But they might not come now.”

Arash Azizi, an Iranian historian and author of a book about Soleimani, said others in the Iranian leadership may seize the opportunity for a fundamental reset of foreign policy.

“There is a big segment of the Iranian establishment which realises the gig is up: revolutionary Islamism devoted to confronting America is not going to get them anywhere,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean they want to be a liberal democracy, but they want to be more like Turkey or India, a big power in pursuit of their own interests.”

Some ordinary Iranian citizens, however, are celebrating the fall of Assad and told The Telegraph they hope the Ayatollah will go the same way.

“I celebrated with a bottle of aragh sagi [Iranian moonshine] and the hope for the fall of the mullahs,” one Tehran resident said. “The region deserves peace, and that won’t happen until they are gone.”

“More than 90 per cent of the people are happy and celebrating it, the mullahs should know that this is what will happen if they don’t have the people’s support,” he said.

“The repression of people leads to dictators’ downfall,” he added. “The mullahs will soon regret their actions in Moscow.”

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