Trump's killing of Suleimani led to fall of Assad, says Tugendhat

Donald Trump's decision to sanction the assassination of an elite Iranian commander triggered a chain of events that revealed Iran as a paper tiger and led to the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the UK's former UK security minister has said.

- Patrick Wintour

Tom Tugendhat, now on the Conservative backbenches and intending to focus on foreign policy, predicted the Iranian regime would collapse in a few years. He added that, if handled properly, Syria could become the economic powerhouse of the Middle East within a decade.

It is unusual for a former British cabinet minister to lavish praise on what is seen by some as a controversial act bordering on an extrajudicial killing.

His remarks were made shortly before the fifth anniversary of Qassem Suleimani's killing in Baghdad.

Suleimani was instrumental in using Syria and Iraq as a base from which to drive back the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State and to entrench Iranian interests in both countries.