Dec 27, 2016

On Dec. 22, the same day the Syrian government announced that Aleppo was under its control, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari was in Damascus to meet President Bashar al-Assad. Ansari was in fact in the Syrian capital to congratulate his country’s prime regional ally for retaking Syria’s largest city and one of the main strongholds of the armed opposition. But Aleppo isn’t only a military target for Assad and the coalition fighting on his side, and retaking it isn’t an ordinary victory in the long route of the crisis. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, just a few hours after meeting Ansari in Beirut Dec. 23, said the triumph is a milestone to be invested in, representative of “a tough war that foiled all attempts to topple the Syrian government.”

Over four years of fighting in Aleppo depleted the Iranian-led axis more than clashes in any other area in Syria. Without any accurate count, it is enough to say that hundreds of pro-Iranian fighters were killed in the battles; among those who died were high-ranking officers in both Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. Iranian Gen. Hussein Hamadani and Hezbollah Cmdr. Ali Fayyad — aka Alaa of Bosnia — were both killed near the Athrya-Khanaser road. Hamadani was killed Oct. 9, 2015, and Fayyad on Feb. 26 of this year while executing the plan for the retaking of Aleppo.

An officer who asked to only be identified as a senior military commander from the forces allied with the Syrian government told Al-Monitor, “Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the armed groups dreamed of taking control of Aleppo due to its strategic importance.” According to the commander, when the battle started, “There was a solid strategy: first, opening the road to Aleppo [Athrya-Khanaser and al-Sfira], then retaking the southern countryside and part of the northern countryside, and finally fighting the battle for the city. This strategy was set from the beginning, and without it there would have been no victory.”

The Iranian-led axis’ strategy involved nibbling forward from outside the city toward areas of opposition groups’ dominance; this meant separating opposition areas with several corridors. The corridors, when finally connected with each other, constituted a complete siege. The armed opposition groups attempted during the last few weeks to reconnect eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo to areas they controlled in the outskirts of the city, but found this wasn’t possible. These attempts were confronted by tightening the siege, which entailed tough battles. The two sides saw the international and regional political moment as critical and decisive: The perceived vacuum was damaging to the opposition and an opportunity for those siding with the Syrian government.

To the coalition fighting on the side of Assad, there were no concerns about game-changing decisions with respect to the international community. The United States is busy with the presidential transition and about all it could do was issue statements of condemnation. Turkey is on bad terms with the West and has started investing in new relationships with Russia and Iran; this brought about the possibility of involving Ankara in the final solution to the Aleppo dilemma and later in efforts to reach a nationwide cease-fire that could help stabilize the situation. On the opposition side, the same givens clearly mean that a defeat in Aleppo will have dire implications on the status and morale of Syrians opposed to the regime. Regional countries backing the opposition kept their distance while waiting to see what the new administration in Washington was going to do in terms of the Syrian crisis. This doesn’t mean a total withdrawal from the scene, but rather that there is a moment to reassess and later decide whether to be part of an overall strategy or to start a separate strategy.