The level of shock and despair with which the Western world watched the lightning-fast fall of the regime in Afghanistan, when the Taliban launched an offensive and troops fled en masse, abandoning American weapons or sided with the Taliban altogether, is quite comparable to the level of gloating when other Islamists in another country succeeded in less than two weeks in what had been years in the making: to overthrow the dictator Bashar al-Assad, who since 2011, with Russian, Chinese and Iranian help, has successfully waged a bloody war in Syria against his own people. Reuters reports that Assad, fleeing the capital, could have died in a plane crash: his plane was initially heading toward the sea, but then turned sharply and flew in the opposite direction for several minutes before disappearing from radar.

Today, state television announces the end of the dictator's era, and his prime minister declares his willingness to cooperate with the rebels. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group is headed by a 42-year-old Syrian named Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, who once served 5 years in American prisons for terrorists, including the notorious Abu Ghraib. He was released from prison in 2011 and immediately traveled to Syria, where a revolution had just broken out, which Assad began to brutally suppress with the help of his foreign friends. Disunited rebel groups were unable to effectively resist him. In another six years, the Americans have offered a $10 million reward for information about his whereabouts. The question is whether they will be willing to pay it now, when al-Sharaa, having abandoned the fighting name he had been using for many years, proclaims the fall of the Assad dynasty from the screen of Syrian state television. And announces the same prize for the dictator's head: 10 million.

This is how Igor Semivolos, director of the Center for Middle East Studies, assesses the damage caused by the recent events in Syria to Russia. After all, it was in Syria's Homs and Aleppo that the Russians once practiced the methods of warfare that they later used in Mariupol. Russia has invested incredible resources to climb into the league of key players in the Middle East, to be on a par with the United States, Turkey, Iran, and China, which in the Middle East, as in Africa, is trying to act quietly, but very consistently. Yuriy Poita, Head of the Asia-Pacific Section at the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, reminds us that in 2021, China was Syria's second largest import partner with a share of more than 11%. Last year, Assad and his wife (a British citizen whose Western education did not prevent her from supporting the bloody regime for years and making such successful economic decisions that the United States imposed personal sanctions against her) attended the opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Hangzhou and met with Xi Jinping, who later stated that relations between the two countries had "withstood the test of international changes," and the Chinese Foreign Ministry noted that Assad's visit would bring bilateral relations to a "new level." Chinese military advisors were in Syria, working to restore its military facilities and training Syrians to use Chinese-made weapons, such as anti-tank systems, air defense systems, artillery, and small arms. There was talk of China's involvement in the Syrian missile program. However, although this year the military attaché of the Chinese Embassy in Syria said at an official event: "The Chinese army will continue to strongly support the Syrian army and the Syrian people in defending independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as strengthening practical cooperation between the two armies," Assad did not receive real support from Beijing when the going got tough.

Neither from Iran, which recently called on Ukraine to stop supporting Syrian rebels and received a response from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry: it is Iran, along with Russia, that is responsible for the escalation in Syria. Today, the Iranian embassy in Damascus is destroyed and diplomats and military commanders left Syria, urgently packing their most valuable belongings, a few days ago. Although at the beginning of the week, Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi assured Assad that he would be defended to the last... the day before yesterday, the rhetoric changed, and in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Iran's chief diplomat said: "We are not harbingers. Everything that Allah wills will happen". Supporting the Assad regime has been strategically important for Iran for years: Syria is a direct, convenient route from Iran to Lebanon, through which Iran supplies weapons to its pocket terrorist group Hezbollah. Mehdi Rahmati, an Iranian analyst, explained to the New York Times: We cannot fight for them.

Because the Syrian army is not fighting. Just like the Afghan army in August 2021, it is retreating without a fight, with generals fleeing to neighboring Iraq. And most importantly, Iran cannot afford a major ground operation right now. Otherwise, it risks getting a response not from the Syrian rebels, but from the United States, Israel, or Turkey. An organized offensive by three different rebel groups from three sides at the same time as Assad's three main allies: Russia (which does not have the strength to fight two full-fledged wars at the same time), Iran (which is holding Israel back), and Hezbollah itself, whose top leadership has been completely exterminated by Israel, are hardly a coincidence. Now Assad has lost either his country or his life; Iran has lost the road to Lebanon; the Russians are fleeing the port of Tartus and the Khmeimim base, losing not only valuable facilities but also the remnants of their reputation as a serious negotiator in the region. Back in 2013, when Russians were bombing neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria, from the air and videos of children killed by Russian bombs were circulating around the world, a schoolgirl on stage in Ufa, Russia, promised her Syrian sister protection from her Russian brother. As it turned out, when the opportunity arises to meet those he has been shooting at from the air on the ground, the Russian brother does not waste extra minutes thinking and attacks as quickly as possible.

The new regime that will eventually prevail in Syria will not necessarily be more democratic than the old one. But I must admit that the fall of the old one-and the loss of all its sponsors-is too pleasant to watch to think about for too long.

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