January 17, 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the fall of the Syrian regime on Iran, because it declined to fight advancing rebel troops. In his annual marathon press conference December 19, Putin also said that Russia had flown 4,000 Iranian troops out of the country. The Islamic Republic was furious. But not at Putin for blaming Iran for the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Instead, Tehran was incensed at him for claiming that Russia flew Iranian troops out of Syria to safety. Iran said the Russians flew 4,000 Iranian civilians out of the country, but did not evacuate any troops. The Islamic Republic didn’t just issue a simple correction of what Putin said, but acted deeply offended and complained bitterly. It is possible Tehran made a major issue of what Putin said about the evacuation just to distract from his accusation that Assad’s fall was the fault of Iran.
The Islamic Republic ignored what he said about that. Putin blamed Syrian troops as well as Iranian troops for the Assad regime collapse, saying they all “retreated without a fight, blew up their positions and left.” Actually, it doesn’t appear that they blew up many positions before fleeing. Putin didn’t mention that after Russian planes made a few bombing runs against the rebels on the first day of their advance, Russia did nothing more to confront the rebels either in the air or on the ground.
Russia has two large military bases in Syria an air force base and a naval base, both on the Mediterranean coast plus a host of small bases across the north. With the fall of Assad, it has been seen evacuating the smaller bases and consolidating those forces at the two big bases. Putin said the new rulers in Syria and most Middle Eastern countries wanted Russia to keep its two bases.
No Arab officials have said anything publicly along those lines. Putin tried to make it sound like the decision was purely his to make. “We’ll need to decide for ourselves,” he told the press conference.”