Less than a yr after his lightning energy seize, Syria’s president is capping his transformation from jihadist to world statesman in a historic visit to the White House that claims as a lot in regards to the younger chief because it does his push for his nation’s diplomatic reinvention.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s assembly on Monday – the primary ever visit to the White House by a Syrian head of state – is his twentieth international journey since appointing himself as president of Syria in January, and his second visit to the United States, following his attendance of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
But this assembly is essentially the most high-profile and excessive stakes but, a once-unthinkable encounter between the US commander-in-chief and a person who has confronted American forces on the battlefield.
In May, after a quick meeting brokered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, US President Donald Trump hailed the 43-year-old Syrian chief as a “young, attractive guy” with a “very strong past,” and ordered the lifting of a few of the crippling US sanctions on Syria, a rustic that for many years had been firmly aligned with key American foes Russia and Iran.
On Monday, the US prolonged its pause on most sanctions for an additional 180 days. However, they can’t be totally lifted with out congressional approval. Al-Sharaa’s rapid objective in Washington was to push for his or her elimination whereas urging Trump to stress Israel to halt assaults on Syria and withdraw its troops from the south of the nation.
His broader goal, mirrored in his intensive world journey, is to reverse Syria’s isolation, a legacy of the earlier regime that left the nation economically devasted and diplomatically shackled to a slender axis of allies.
Against this backdrop, the White House visit carries profound symbolic weight. Al-Sharaa performed basketball with prime US navy officers after arriving in Washington on Sunday. But in his early twenties, he encountered the US as an enemy, becoming a member of Islamist insurgents battling American forces in Iraq. Captured and later launched, he crossed into Syria in 2011 and established an Al-Qaeda-backed insurgent military to battle forces loyal to then-President Bashar Al Assad.
Speaking to NCS final December, Al-Sharaa mentioned he had gone by episodes of transformation by the years. Using his nom de guerre, he mentioned: “A person in their twenties will have a different personality than someone in their thirties or forties, and certainly someone in their fifties. This is human nature.”
Monday’s visit demonstrated that shift: Syria is predicted to announce that it’s becoming a member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, a senior Trump administration official mentioned, making Syria the ninetieth member of the D-ISIS Coalition.
Al-Sharaa’s Syria will accomplice with the US “to eliminate ISIS remnants and halt foreign fighter flows,” the official mentioned, including that the visit is concentrated on “counterterrorism cooperation, economic development, and advancing regional peace and security.”
After greater than a decade of a brutal battle towards Assad’s autocratic regime, Al-Sharaa ended Syria’s long-stalemated civil conflict by launching a shock offensive that swiftly toppled the 53-year Assad dynasty, an Arab relic of the Cold War.
In their a long time of energy, the Assads aligned Damascus firmly with Moscow, counting on help, arms and unwavering diplomatic backing. In Hafez al-Assad’s first full yr in energy in 1971, the Soviet Union established its strategic Mediterranean naval base within the Syrian metropolis of Tartus. And it was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decisive navy intervention in 2015 that enabled Bashar al-Assad to outlive the civil conflict.
The Russians, who killed scores of Syrians throughout their marketing campaign to maintain Assad in energy, proceed to retain management of their navy base in Tartus even after Assad’s fall. And final month, Al-Sharaa visited Moscow to fulfill Putin.
As he has sought to construct ties with Western nations, Al-Sharaa has been cautious to not antagonize Moscow.
“Engaging in a conflict with Russia right now would be too costly with Syria, nor would it be in the country’s interest,” Al-Sharaa instructed CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview aired in October.
Once sanctioned for terrorism by the West, the chief now seems to be on a world diplomatic appeal offensive, bolstered by aggressive lobbying from regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Turkey, US allies wanting to fill an influence and financial vacuum left by Iran and Russia.
For the US, Syria represents each a strategic prize and a big threat as neighboring Lebanon spirals into instability and Iraq stays a fertile floor for Iran’s proxy militias.
“The US is taking a large gamble on Ahmed Al-Sharaa and Syria,” Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies on the University of Oklahoma, instructed NCS. “As (US) Ambassador (Tom) Barrack has stated numerous times, the US has no alternatives. Lebanon is a failed state according to his assessment. Iraq is deeply penetrated by pro-Iranian militias,” he added.
And regardless of a transparent westward outlook, the previous jihadist chief stays adamant on balancing Syria’s international coverage away from battle in an more and more polarized world – a coverage now adopted by a number of growing nations worldwide.
“In this new era, one doesn’t align completely with any side. We saw that with (Al-Sharaa’s) visit with Putin, who is an active ally with the Assad regime … and you see that with diplomacy on behalf of the Syrian government globally,” Natasha Hall, a senior affiliate on the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) mentioned.
NCS’s Jennifer Hansler, Jomana Karadsheh and Eyad Kourdi contributed reporting.