Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

Assad, attention has centered on the new dispensation taking shape in Damascus — and the powerful regional actors that may be influencing it. Analysts have already declared geopolitical winners and losers: Iran and Russia,

Syrian media outlets which trumpeted the glories of Bashar al-Assad's oppressive rule quickly adopted revolutionary fervour after his ouster, but