A couple of years in the past, you’ll have balked if somebody advised you that the United States president can be photographed within the White Space shaking palms with a person who was once a former member of al-Qaeda, an rebel in opposition to US forces in Iraq, and had led probably the most greatest Syrian Islamist armed teams.
However that’s precisely what came about when Donald Trump welcomed his Syrian counterpart, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to Washington on November 10. Al-Sharaa become the primary Syrian chief in historical past to be invited to the White Space.
Al-Sharaa’s shocking ascendancy to energy has observed him turn into a nearly mythic determine in Center Japanese regional politics. As the top of an armed crew referred to as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), he overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2024 and ended the circle of relatives’s 50-year reign.
Within the procedure, HTS additionally introduced the Syrian civil battle to a detailed. This was once a brutal 13-year duration during which greater than 600,000 lives had been misplaced and greater than 6.5 million other folks had been displaced.
Al-Sharaa has sophisticated roots within the broader al-Qaeda circle of relatives, however he has lengthy taken steps to distance himself from that legacy. His method has been described via some observers as transferring “from jihad to politics”.
Right through the latter part of the battle, HTS was once limited to its powerbase within the north-western governorate of Idlib. The gang started to eschew terrorism via publicly breaking with al-Qaeda, and as an alternative sought to earn believe and supply a valid base of governance.
Since taking keep watch over of Syria, HTS has persisted this public personification of tolerance and steadiness. The gang’s management often asserts that it’s keen to simply accept range and that its number one purpose with all events – even longstanding rival Israel – is non violent cohabitation.
Al-Sharaa has additionally labored exhausting to undertaking a reasonable symbol. He was once just lately photographed taking part in basketball with US army commanders – infrequently the standard symbol maximum folks would take into accout of a former jihadist chief.
Some other folks have raised considerations that HTS is most effective pretending to be reasonable and is hiding its true intentions. Others have famous conservative insurance policies that had been installed position whilst HTS was once in keep watch over of Idlib.
Despite the fact that the battle in Syria has in large part ended, it will even be naive to suppose that sectarian violence has disappeared. Conflicts have damaged out between communities together with the Druze and Sunni Bedouin teams.
There have additionally been a string of centered killings in opposition to the Alawite neighborhood, the Assad circle of relatives’s conventional base of beef up. It’s on this context that al-Sharaa undertook his shuttle to Washington.
US-Syria ties
Since HTS took energy, there was a big world debate over the best way to interact with the brand new regime in Syria. Obviously, the method of the Trump management is to be pragmatic. This isn’t the primary time that robust figures in the United States have pondered operating with al-Sharaa one way or the other.
Way back to 2015, former CIA director David Petraeus advised that the United States must imagine operating with contributors of HTS’s predecessor, Jabhat al-Nusra, within the fight in opposition to Islamic State (IS). And even supposing HTS was once formally indexed as a terrorist organisation via the United States in 2018, this method was once softened in July 2025.
The query stays of what Trump and al-Sharaa need from every different. The legitimacy granted via the shuttle to Washington is incentive sufficient for al-Sharaa, however he stands to achieve extra. With an competitive and retaliatory Israel nonetheless occupying the Golan Heights and different portions of southern Syria, and often bombing inside of Syria’s borders, al-Sharaa wishes allies.
Trump has already revoked lots of the US sanctions that had been put on Syria all over the civil battle – and suspended some extra following the assembly in Washington. He’ll additionally almost definitely play a task in unlocking International Financial institution investment for rebuilding in Syria.
The incentives for the United States would possibly come with gaining an airbase in Syria’s capital, Damascus, that will assist it rival Russia’s affect within the area. There could also be a hearsay that Syria will sign up for the Abraham accords, the agreements normalising diplomatic members of the family between Israel and several other Arab states, which Trump is pushing to amplify. Then again, that is not going so long as Israel occupies the Golan Heights.
More potent ties between the United States and Syria would imply effectively turning Iran’s most powerful regional best friend clear of it, whilst additionally serving to the United States additional struggle the IS crew. Right through his talk over with to Washington, al-Sharaa publicly joined the worldwide coalition in opposition to IS. Regardless that, actually, HTS has been preventing the crowd at the flooring for years.
Supporters of Ahmed al-Sharaa accumulated out of doors the White Space as he met with Donald Trump.
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
Many regional avid gamers be interested in al-Sharaa’s undertaking succeeding. Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan need an finish to struggle on their borders and to look refugees go back house, whilst Saudi Arabia is raring to scouse borrow Syria as an best friend from Iran. Al-Sharaa is even in talks with Israel about an army and safety settlement, and he has already visited the Russian chief, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow.
Shia-led Iraq is perhaps at very best suspicious and at worst antagonistic to al-Sharaa, although each it and Iran could also be left without a selection however to simply accept the brand new established order. And that is to mention not anything of the Kurds in north-eastern Syria. They bore the brunt of the battle in opposition to IS and feature already been time and again deserted via Trump of their struggle in opposition to Turkish forces. They would possibly not react definitely to al-Sharaa’s plans to reunify the rustic.
It continues to be observed if al-Sharaa can consolidate energy, finish the sporadic violence in Syria and stabilise the rustic. An volatile Syria manner an volatile Center East, and an volatile Center East is an issue well past the borders of the area.
