The Trilateral Fortress: “Why the fall of Damascus didn’t end the Middle East’s long war”

The geopolitical shorthand for Iranian power used to be the “Land Bridge”—a 1,000-mile artery of influence stretching from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean. In December 2024, that bridge collapsed into the rubble of the Assad regime. With rebels pouring into the capital of Damascus, Washington-Tel Aviv orthodoxy held that Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” had finally been beheaded. This was a moment of rash exuberance. However, it became evident in January 2026 that this festive assessment was also hasty. The bridge, far from disappearing, has been replaced by something much more intense and turbulent: The Trilateral Fortress. Without the Syrian buffer zone, the clerical regime in Tehran, the Shiite-dominated security apparatus in Baghdad, and the battle-hardened Hezbollah have merged into […]