Israel has devastated Hamas, hamstrung Hezbollah, humiliated Iran and emerges the big winner in Syria’s Assad overthrow | Alexander Downer

This weekend proves those demonstrations in support of Hamas and Hezbollah and their puppeteers in Tehran were in vain, writes Alexander Downer.

Last weekend was a disaster for all those who want to see the destruction of Israel.

All the demonstrations in support of Hamas and Hezbollah and their puppeteers in Tehran were in vain.

And the Australian Government’s anti-Israeli rhetoric amounted to shrill and pointless empty slogans.

Here’s why.

First Hamas’s war fighting capacity has been destroyed.

The tunnels which they spent literally billions of dollars worth of aid from Western countries building have been demolished and their key leaders have been assassinated.

Secondly, Hezbollah’s leadership has been eliminated and now its supply chain through Syria has been cut off.

They have been forced to retreat away from Lebanon’s border with Israel.

What is more, the fighters they deployed to support the Assad regime during the Syrian Civil War have been so degraded including by the exploding pagers that they were not able to provide any meaningful support in the last few days for Assad.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem following the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Picture: Maya Alleruzzo/AFP

Syrian and Lebanese people in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli celebrate after Islamist-led rebels declared that they have taken the Syrian capital in a lightning offensive, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. Picture: Fathi Al-Masri/AFP

Thirdly, Iran’s dear ally, the Assad regime in Syria, is no more.

Fourthly, the defeat of the Assad regime which had been propped up not just by Hezbollah but crucially by Russia, constitutes a failure of Russian policy.

And fifthly, the Iranian air defence system has been completely destroyed by Israeli’s air force in their retaliatory raid on Iran.

Syria was a critical component of two things.

It was not only strongly supported by Iran through the long civil war in Syria, but it was a central part of Iran’s power projection through the Middle East.

Iran has been able to exercise substantial control over the Levant because of its control of Syria and president Assad. Not only did Iran have substantial sway over Syria itself, but it supplied its proxy Hezbollah mainly based in Lebanon through Syria.

Reports are already coming out of Iran that there is anger being directed towards the theocrat leadership of the country.

Some of the criticism is coming from the hardliners in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who think Iran has been momentarily humiliated – which they have.

But for the vast majority of their Iranians, they will see their much hated regime losing ground to their sworn enemies at huge expense to the Iranian economy.

It is hard to believe that there could be a successful uprising against the regime but nevertheless the regime’s security is substantially weakened.

As for nuclear armed Russia, the survival of the Assad regime through the Syrian civil war had given Russia substantial power in the Middle East.

Not only had the Russians propped up the Assad regime with military force but Russia also has its one port on the Mediterranean in Syria at Tartus. But in recent times, Russia has had to concentrate on its mad war in Ukraine leaving it under resourced in Syria.

Now, at least in Syria, it has been defeated and Russia’s presence in the Middle East will be substantially diminished.

It is important to look at the Middle East through the lens of great power politics.

The United States and its Western allies have been endeavouring to get rid of president Assad since 2011.

The Russians have been defending the regime.

Well, it would be simplistic to see the defeat of Assad as a straight out victory for the Americans but it is certainly a humiliating defeat for the Russians. America’s position in the Middle East will now be strengthened and Russia’s pretty much eliminated.

Two words of caution though.

Although Israeli security has been substantially strengthened since 7 October last year, Israel is still not entirely secure.

And let us not forget that there are still over 100 hostages being held by Hamas although I fear many of them will have already been killed by Hamas.

The threat to Israel from Iran remains a serious one.

And more than that, we shouldn’t forget that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium to near weapons grade and so we cannot rule out Iran breaching its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and developing a nuclear bomb.

Furthermore, we don’t really know at this stage what sort of government Syria will have.

The victors in the civil war include fighters led by the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.

HTS includes former supporters of hard line Sunni terrorist movements like al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. Although they are making conciliatory noises about the democratic Syria they wish to establish, there will certainly be a struggle between the hard line Islamists and the more democratically minded moderates.

How that will be resolved is anyone’s guess at this stage.

So after 14 months of fighting since 7 October last year, the biggest losers other than president Assad himself are Iran, and their proxies Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Russians. And who is the biggest winner of all?

Prime Minister Netanyahu who is shown the sort of leadership and resolve which most countries could only pray their leaders would have.

Originally published as Israel has devastated Hamas, hamstrung Hezbollah, humiliated Iran and emerges the big winner in Syria’s Assad overthrow | Alexander Downer