The Whitewashing of Ahmed al-Sharaa
Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa was just welcomed to Donald Trump’s White House. His visit represents Washington’s embrace of a sectarian government with little respect for democracy.
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s name has been removed from the US list of wanted “terrorists,” with a ten-million-dollar bounty for his capture. (Ibrahim Ezzat / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
An invitation to visit the White House has always been the pinnacle of political whitewashing, at least from a Western perspective. In the Oval Office this Monday was Ahmed al-Sharaa, after he mutated overnight from Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the emir of al-Qaeda splinter group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), to Ahmed al-Sharaa, the president of the Syrian Arab Republic, shedding his khaki jihadist uniform for a Western suit and tie.
Donald Trump received him behind his desk, as if quizzing him before granting approval. Just three days prior, al-Sharaa/al-Julani’s name was removed from the US list of wanted “terrorists,” with a ten-million-dollar bounty for his capture, dead or alive, like a villain straight out of a Hollywood Western.
Al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House came less than a month after another even more astounding visit — though one that attracted far less attention in Western media: his meeting with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow. What is more surprising about this is that al-Sharaa had been fighting Russian troops for years, unlike the United States to which he had extended a helping hand in the fight against ISIS, notably through his ties to NATO member Turkey. Yet al-Sharaa did not hesitate to shake hands with the man responsible in large part for the destruction of Syria and the deaths of its people in defending the regime of Bashar al-Assad — al-Sharaa’s sworn enemy, for whom Moscow has provided a haven.
These stunning events are compounded by the convergence of rival regional powers — Turkey, Qatar, the Saudi kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and others — in courting al-Sharaa. Iran, however, has not joined this chorus, due to the sectarian tensions between its policies and those of HTS. Meanwhile, Israel treats the new Damascus regime similarly to how it handles Lebanon: with military pressure aimed at achieving its objectives.
Israel’s goal is to bring both Syria and Lebanon into the fold of Arab “normalization” — establishing friendly relations with the Zionist state — on two conditions: confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon in order to disarm it, and recognition by Damascus of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981. Trump officially recognized this annexation during his first term.
Amid all this geopolitical maneuvering, Syria’s situation remains quite precarious. The new government lacks the power to control the country and is unable to discipline the armed groups it has relied on for years. Sectarian massacres have deepened fears among Syria’s religious minorities, who now believe that security under the new regime can only be achieved by force. In this, the Kurds in northeastern Syria have set an example by carving out an autonomous region for self-protection. Indeed, the new regime in Damascus is the antithesis of what Syria truly needs: distance from all sectarianism, along with democracy and integrity. Instead, this is a sectarian government, a dictatorial project, and a corrupt regime continuing the family-dominated cronyism that characterized the Assads’ rule.
Real Estate
What lies behind these many paradoxes that have developed since al-Sharaa replaced Assad in the presidential palace built by Assad’s father? The answer resides in each faction projecting its own desires onto the new regime, combined with al-Sharaa’s boundless opportunism. In truth, the Arab oil monarchies had done everything in their power to turn the Syrian revolution from a popular democratic uprising into a sectarian jihadist war, consistent with their own despotic character. Today these same monarchies fear that post-Assad Syria could be worse than the country was during the civil war — that jihadist terrorism, which has been exported from Syria for over a decade, could intensify.
Western countries share these fears, as do Russia and even China, which remains wary of the new Syrian government. Beijing is particularly concerned about the presence among al-Sharaa’s troops of jihadist fighters originating from China’s Muslim populations.
Economic interests also play a crucial role, of course. The Syrian reconstruction market is huge, far exceeding the size of the Gaza reconstruction market that so appealed to Trump’s wild “Riviera” dreams. The World Bank estimated the Syrian reconstruction market at between $140 billion and $340 billion, considering the most likely cost to be around $215 billion. Gulf monarchies have invested billions in real estate and tourism projects, particularly in Egypt. They had begun investing in Syria under Assad before the 2011 uprising.
The mere mention of “real estate” immediately brings to mind Trump, his family, and his associates, for whom real estate speculation plays a key role in their political conduct. Al-Sharaa is well aware of this, having expressed his desire to see a Trump Tower built in Damascus when efforts were underway to arrange a meeting between him and Trump during the latter’s visit to the Saudi kingdom in May. The prospect of benefiting from Syria’s reconstruction market — although it is still highly hypothetical — likely influences the US president’s stance.
The same logic applies to European countries like France. President Emmanuel Macron is emulating his predecessors, seeking to secure a share of the Arab economic pie (attracting oil and gas dollars, securing construction contracts, exporting weapons, etc.) by adopting a foreign policy more in line with the official Arab consensus than Washington’s. Thus, Macron was quick to meet with al-Sharaa at the Élysée Palace before the Syrian leader’s meeting with Trump in Riyadh.
Finally, European leaders try to appease the far right within their countries by seeking to expel Syrian refugees. Declaring confidence in the new regime in Damascus is a necessary prelude to deporting refugees back to Syria under the pretext that the country is now “safe,” despite the obvious contradictions in this claim. Last week, German chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that he had invited al-Sharaa to Berlin to discuss the conditions for the return of Syrian refugees. Merz had previously been a critic of then-chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s doors to refugees ten years earlier.
These various factors — ranging from economic interests to political maneuvering — help explain the strange paradox of countries scrambling to whitewash al-Sharaa and curry favor with a regime that was considered a terrorist entity just months ago. It is a fitting spectacle for the state of global politics in this Trumpian era.