Douglas Murray: After Syrian rebels force Assad out, the Iranian regime could be the next one to collapse

The dominos are falling in the Middle East, and the last one may be about to topple.

For the past 45 years, the Revolutionary Islamic Government in Iran has been the main destabilizing force in the region, against pretty stiff competition.The ayatollahs have colonized vast swaths of the Middle East, though you won’t hear the dolts on American college campuses hollering about that.

For decades the mullahs moved their armies into Lebanon. After the vacuum left by American-led intervention in Iraq, they moved their militias there.

They also moved into Yemen.

And for the past 13 years they propped up their ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

But then Iran’s proxy army of Hamas invaded Israel. The ayatollahs hoped to wipe out the Jewish state. But that didn’t go as well as they planned. In fact, it has backfired completely.

Begging for cease-fire

Israel has spent the past 14 months decimating the armies of Iran.

They have almost completely degraded Hamas in Gaza.

They whacked Hezbollah so hard in Lebanon that Hezbollah started begging for a cease-fire, though there weren’t many people in the organization left to make that ask.

And after a set of direct missile strikes from Iran at Israel, the Israeli Air Force took out all of Iran’s air defenses.

Then this past week, with Iran’s armies diverted and destroyed, the Assad regime finally fell.

After decades of despotic governance, the disgusting Assad family fled to Russia.

The vacuum left in that country will now be troubling everyone in the region — and the world.

But the main defeat is Tehran’s.

The mullahs are now naked, bare and increasingly alone.

They haven’t yet dared retaliate for the last Israeli strike — probably because they know that this time the response might herald the end not just of their oil fields and nuclear ambitions, but of their revolutionary regime altogether.

President-elect Donald Trump and his pick for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, have made it clear America does not want to get involved in another round of Middle East wars.

But as Israel has already shown, you don’t need to get tangled up on the ground to affect the future of the region.

You just have to use the force and deterrent effect of the American military to weigh in when you have to.

The Israeli air force once again showed this week how that can be done.

At the beginning of the week, the Israelis took out almost the entirety of the Syrian air force and navy.

In a stunning set of attacks, they also took out Assad’s chemical-weapons facilities before the jihadist groups that have taken control of Syria could get their hands on it.

And that is the sort of pinpoint action America can also take part in.

The Trump team is rightly wary of repeating America’s experience in trying to govern post-war Afghanistan and Iraq.

They know the Middle East is like quicksand, dragging in any army that starts to operate there.

But American troops do not have to be engaged in the region for the incoming administration to make the final difference.

Trump and Waltz have already made it plain they intend to put sanctions back on Iran.

They have said that they will stop the genius Biden-Blinken policy of handing over billions of dollars in cash to the terrorists in Tehran.

Trump and Waltz are right to stop it.

It is best for America and the whole world to have the mullahs begging.

And America can help increase that loneliness.

Not just Israel’s job

It shouldn’t be up to the Israelis alone to ensure that chemical and other weapons don’t fall into the hands of terrorists.

Joe Biden and his team may have handed over billions of dollars of the world’s best weaponry to the Taliban in the bungled US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But that’s a mistake that should not be repeated.

Neither America nor any other Western power can do much to affect the governance of postwar Syria.

But we can make it clear whose side we are on.

For instance, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this week also used the vacuum in Syria to send his forces into the country.

Turkey is a member of NATO.

But as I have said here before, it is outrageous that an ally of the United States should repeatedly — whether in Gaza or Syria — side with anti-Western terrorists.

If Erdogan wants to continue down his push to be the biggest, best extremist in the region, then he can do so.

But he should not be in NATO.

As well as backing Israel in its act of self-defense, there is another idea the incoming Trump administration should consider.

It is highly likely Syria will split apart.

And if that’s the case, then this is as good a time as any to ­reward the people in the region who most deserve a state and who haven’t yet gotten one.

The Kurdish people are spread across several countries, including Iraq and Syria.

They have been steadfast Western allies for years.

When the US and other countries wanted to wipe out ISIS 10 years ago, we did so with massive bombing campaigns from the air.

But the main fighting on the ground was done for us by our Kurdish allies.

Their men and women are great soldiers who fought heroically, and they should be rewarded for it.

The cause of Kurdish nationalism is not just a moral and just cause in itself.

It is also something that will throw both Turkey and Iran off-kilter.

The despots in the region hate the Kurdish cause.

But in backing the creation of such a state, this country and others will not just reward our friends.

We will also set up another fine bulwark against our enemies.

I wish the State Department and others had spent recent years preparing for a post-Assad Syria and post-ayatollah Iran.

But it’s never too late to start.

Now might be just the right time to consider the latter.

The Iranian revolutionary government started this war.

But America, with our allies in the region, can also ensure that they lose it.