Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi discussed the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in a December 8, 2024 appearance on IRINN TV (Iran), criticizing the Syrian army’s failure to put up “any resistance” to opposition forces. 

He stated that everyone – not just Iran – was surprised by the Syrian army’s inability to handle the opposition’s movements from Idlib, despite Iranian and Syrian security and intelligence agencies allegedly being fully aware of what was happening in the area. 

Araghchi emphasized that if the Syrian army had done its job, not even Aleppo would have fallen to the opposition.