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President Donald Trump met with Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, one day after announcing the U.S. would drop sanctions against Syria.
Trump said after meeting Sharaa that he would explore “normalizing” relations with Damascus, while Syria would explore joining the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel.
Wednesday’s half-hour, closed-door meeting marked the first time the leaders of the United States and Syria have spoken face-to-face in 25 years, the last example being when President Bill Clinton met with dictator Hafez al-Assad in Geneva. It was a major ice-breaking moment for Sharaa, who is desperate to lift crippling Western sanctions that were imposed against the regime he overthrew in December 2024.
The meeting appeared to be everything Sharaa could have hoped for. After it was over, Trump spoke highly of the Syrian leader to reporters aboard Air Force One.
“Young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter,” the president said. “He’s got a real shot at holding it together. He’s a real leader. He led a charge and he’s pretty amazing.”
“I felt very strongly that this would give them a chance. It’s not going to be easy anyway, so gives them a good strong chance. And, it was my honor to do so,” he added.
Trump’s outreach to Damascus, especially if he can get Syria into the Abraham Accords, could prove long-term beneficial to the United States. The move could go a long way toward diminishing Chinese influence in the Middle East and further isolating Iran, which sank a great deal of blood and treasure into supporting the regime of dictator Bashar Assad and may now have nothing to show for it. The political geography surrounding Israel would change dramatically if Syria became friendly, cutting Iran off from its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Trump’s play is also politically risky. Sharaa is indeed a “fighter,” but he used to be a fighter for al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, under the terrorist alias Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. His insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), began as al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria.
HTS has been listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 2014, when it was known as the Nusra Front. Sharaa was named as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under his Jawlani alias in 2013.
Until very recently, the State Department was offering a $10 million bounty under its “Rewards for Justice” program for information leading to his capture. The bounty was originally $5 million, but the State Department doubled it to $10 million in June 2020.
Sharaa’s story is that he cut ties with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS when the Nusra Front became HTS and devoted itself to Syrian nationalism and revolution against the Assad regime. After capturing Damascus and driving Assad into exile, Sharaa pledged to build an “inclusive” government that would protect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities. His progress on that front has been mixed at best, which is one reason Western leaders have been reluctant to lift sanctions on Syria.
Sharaa is also the leader of a military junta, a form of government the United States has traditionally frowned upon. He describes himself as an “interim” president and says elections will be held within four years, with full participation from all of Syria’s factions and minorities.
The Israeli government might like to see Damascus join the Abraham Accords someday, but for the moment, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to lifting sanctions on Syria. An Israeli official said on Wednesday that Netanyahu asked Trump not to lift the sanctions during his visit to Washington last month because Jerusalem is still concerned that cross-border attacks could be launched from Syria. Netanyahu’s office did not immediately comment when Trump announced the sanctions would be lifted on Tuesday.
Trump said on Wednesday he put Sharaa on notice that Syria must improve its relations with Israel and become a force for regional stability.
“I think they have to get themselves straightened up. I told him, ‘I hope you’re going to join when it’s straightened out.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ But they have a lot of work to do,” the president said, referring to the possibility of Sharaa signing the Abraham Accords.
The White House said Sharaa’s to-do list would include deporting Palestinian terrorists and “assuming responsibility for ISIS detention centers in northeast Syria.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to coordinate with Syrian Foreign Minister Assad al-Shibani on these efforts.
Trump said he discussed lifting sanctions on Syria with Saudi Arabia’s de facto chief executive, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday. Erdogan joined the meeting in Riyadh by telephone.
Al Jazeera hailed the Trump-Sharaa meeting as a “massive breakthrough” that would give Syria’s new government “more legitimacy internationally.” The lifting of U.S. sanctions will make it possible for Gulf Cooperation Council states, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to commit more financial aid to Damascus.
The Jerusalem Post said the Trump-Sharaa meeting marked the emergence of a “new world order,” and the end of a chapter in the “Global War on Terror,” as Sharaa completes his transformation from a militant who was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq into a statesman who can share the stage with America’s president.
With a little luck, Sharaa’s transformation might also provide one of the few happy endings from the “Arab Spring,” the 2011 uprising against calcified authoritarian governments that mostly succeeded in replacing them with vigorous authoritarian governments.
The Jerusalem Post noted that ISIS was one of the ugliest organisms to crawl from the “chaos and extremism” unleashed by the Arab Spring, and Sharaa’s embrace of Trump – and of the Kurdish-led, U.S.-supported, anti-ISIS Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – could “end the ISIS war completely.”
The U.S. president’s outreach to Sharaa could also end the fantasy of “nation-building,” since whatever Washington’s relationship with the new Damascus ends up looking like, it will bear no resemblance to the old neo-liberal ideal of occupying hostile countries and attempting to forcibly convert them to constitutional republics.
“Trump is embracing a policy where Syria will determine its own future. He will not hold the past against Sharaa and Syria. He is ready for a new world order,” the Jerusalem Post concluded.
