Copyright Anchorage Daily News
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday, the latest in a series of once-unthinkable moments for his country and another unlikely stop in the former militant’s personal journey. Once imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq, Sharaa went on to lead Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate and now, as interim head of state, appears in smiling photos with presidents and prime ministers around the world while seeking their help as Syria emerges from decades of dictatorship and war. On Monday, after a historic first trip to the White House by a Syrian leader, Sharaa stepped out of his motorcade and greeted a cheering throng of supporters gathered just outside, many waving Syrian flags. Since Sharaa, 43, led rebel forces that toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, Trump has become one of the new leader’s more enthusiastic global backers, a bond rooted in U.S. perceptions of the country’s strategic importance but also Trump’s apparent personal regard. “Tough guy,” Trump said of Sharaa after the two men first met in May. “Very strong past. Fighter.” As he visited Washington, Sharaa was looking to deepen a partnership with the United States that has already paid dividends, including the lifting of sanctions imposed on the Assad government and U.S. mediation with Sharaa’s rivals, at home and abroad, amid repeated challenges to the Syrian leader’s rule. The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday issued a new order suspending stringent sanctions on Syria under what is known as the Caesar Act, for a period of six months. The order extended a previous suspension, issued in May, but fell short of Syrian requests that the sanctions be fully repealed. Sharaa, who was removed from a United Nations sanctions list last week, is also expected to join the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group, which still threatens Syria. The Islamist militant group that Sharaa once led, called Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, severed ties with al-Qaeda in 2017. On Friday, the State Department said that Sharaa - formerly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani - and Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab would be removed from a list of globally designated terrorists “in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad.” The Trump administration lifted Assad-era sanctions after meeting with Sharaa in May in Saudi Arabia - a critical step as Syria is trying to rebuild following the vast devastation wrought by its civil war, an effort estimated to cost $216 billion, according to the World Bank, which called that amount a “conservative estimate.” Sanctions relief will allow Syria to access international finance, reconnect with the global banking system and import goods to help reconstruct its decimated health care system and other sectors. Sharaa’s government is also seeking the permanent repeal by Congress of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, a punishing set of sanctions imposed in 2019, named for a whistleblower who leaked photographs of thousands of people killed by Assad’s government. Despite Caesar’s suspension by the Trump administration, the threat that the sanctions could be reimposed is a deterrent to U.S. companies seeking to do business in Syria, said Mouaz Moustafa of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit that led the effort to impose the Caesar sanctions. They have since become “a hanging shadow that paralyzes any initiatives” and threatens Syria’s recovery, he said. Skeptics of Sharaa’s government have cited alarming episodes of sectarian violence in Syria over the past year that have killed thousands of people and undermined the new president’s repeated pledges to protect minorities and rule in an inclusive way. In two of the worst outbreaks of violence, in Syria’s coastal region and in the south, security forces under Sharaa’s command were directly implicated in massacres. The government, which promised to hold perpetrators accountable, began prosecuting some of the security members under the state’s command several months ago, according to judges in Damascus. The sectarian violence posed a “dangerous” challenge to Syria’s transition and would make it hard “to maintain international goodwill if they are not careful on this front,” said Michael Hanna, U.S. program director at the International Crisis Group, an international think tank. While the international community has largely overlooked the violence in favor of reintegrating Syria after years of isolation, “I don’t think they have unlimited patience,” he said. At the same time, the U.S. had a strong interest in bolstering Sharaa and his authority, in part because it could allow the drawdown of U.S. troops still stationed in Syria as part of the anti-Islamic State coalition. To that end, the Trump administration has mediated between the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia in northeast Syria with which U.S. forces have partnered in the fight against the Islamic State. An agreement signed in March is intended to integrate SDF forces with those of the government in Damascus. The Trump administration has also tried to broker a security agreement between Sharaa’s government and Israel, which invaded parts of southern Syria after Assad’s fall, established military bases and has demanded a demilitarized zone south of Damascus, citing Israeli security needs. Sharaa has said he favors a deal that returns Syrian territories seized since December, but not the kind of broader normalization agreement with Israel that the Trump administration has prodded other regional governments to sign. During a flurry of diplomatic activity over the past year, Sharaa has courted a wide array of new allies, including former adversaries such as Russia, which backed Assad militarily for years and fought against Sharaa’s rebel group and others during the civil war. But the Syrian leader “has decided he really needs the United States and U.S. support” to provide a “green light” for financial assistance from Persian Gulf states and other benefits, including leverage over Israel to halt attacks on Syria, Hanna said. “All those things require U.S. goodwill and attention,” he said.
