CNN
–
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump drank tea with a former jihadist who had until recently had $10 million in US bounty on his head.
Ahmed Al-Shara, formerly known to his extremist Nom Gerer Abu Mohamed Al-Jolani, met Trump in Riyadh six months after overthrew the Assad regime for a half-century, excluded the armed groups supported by Iran and led a swift campaign to declare the country’s leadership.
Al Sharaa was featured on a specially designated global terrorist list in 2013 to head an affiliate of Syria’s Al Qaeda, known as Al Nusra Front, and is said to have coordinated suicide bombings across Syria. The Saudi-born former jihadists fought US troops for years in Iraq before moving to Syria to lead an armed Islamist rebellion that drove brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The conference, which Syria described as “historic,” was held on Trump’s Middle East Tour, the first president of the US and Syrian president in 25 years, and the first set of his second-term state visit.
Both leaders were seen smiling at the photos released by the White House and the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said it had promised that Trump would “stalk in Syria at this important point.”
A day ago, Trump announced the removal of decades-old sanctions against Syria. This announced a move that encouraged 40 seconds of applause from the audience, including a standing ovation from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“Ah, what am I doing for the Crown Prince,” Trump told the room Tuesday, effectively praised Saudi leaders for leading an effort to lift what the president called “brutally and crippling” sanctions. Syria has been designated by the United States as a national sponsor of terrorism since December 1979.
Syrian economy has been undermined by Western sanctions for years. The most severe was the US Caesar Act of 2019, which imposed widespread sanctions that restricted individuals, businesses, or governments supporting Assad’s war efforts from economic activity. The law has made the entire economy untouched. According to the World Bank, the country’s economy shrunk by more than half between 2010 and 2020.
According to the World Bank, as of 2022, poverty had affected 69% of Syria’s population. Extreme poverty affected more than one in four Syrians in 2022, the bank said, adding that the numbers likely worsened after the catastrophic earthquake in February 2023.
Gulf countries have been keen to invest in Syria and support its economy, but are wary of violating US sanctions. Trump’s move is likely to remove such barriers and could create a multi-billion dollar potential way to invest.
During the meeting, Trump proposed normalising with Israel, banishing foreign and Palestinian “terrorists” and taking a series of steps to help the US prevent ISIS from reviving, according to the White House.
Bringing Syria out of the cold gives the fledgling regime and its president a lifeline in an interview with CNN last year that Syrian armed opposition plans to ultimately form an “people-choice council” with a government defined by the institution. But it also offers the Gulf Arab states and Turkey the opportunity to call for sanctions to be lifted, expanding its influence on Syria and profiting from it after decades being excluded from abroad.
“I think the fact that he (Trump) made it public is kind of tacit approval, too, for those who are potentially investing it from Riyadh.” “(That) means that he’s giving Mohammed bin Salman a victory.”
Fireworks illuminated the sky in some of Syria’s biggest cities after Trump announced the lifting of sanctions. The sign was built in thanks to Trump and Prince Mohammed.
“I don’t know what life will be without sanctions,” said Ranim Sahar, who said he had lived under sanctions since he was born in the 1970s. “The country is suffocating.”
“People are optimistic and our dream is for Arab countries to help. This is something we have never seen in years for our rivalry with the Arab leaders of Bashar,” added Sahar.
Syrian currency, Lira, rose 27% against the US dollar since its announcement. The country’s economy minister, Mohammad Nidar al-Shar, stressed that Syria is now in a new phase, which led to tears in the air along with Saudi outlet al-Arabiya.
But optimism is not universal. The lifting of sanctions will go far further to justify Sharaa’s new regime, and some Syrians are concerned about how minorities will be treated by former jihadists.
“We are happy about it…Thank God. The economy of all these years can be revitalized. The prices are very high, the products are unavailable. God is happy to be the beginning of the economic improvement of the country.” However, lifting sanctions should not be interpreted as an implicit approval of the regime, he said, without bringing those involved in the murder of minorities to justice.
“We are faced with many extremist groups that limit freedom,” he said. “If a man and a girl are seen together in public, the man can be detained and disappeared. A man could be beaten to wear shorts… that’s an extreme violation of personal freedom.”
In March, an armed man loyal to the new Syrian regime spoke about carrying out field executions and cleaning up the country after cracking down on the wreckage of the former Assad regime, which swirled with joint killings of Alawite minorities. The United Nations said that at the time, all families, including women and children, were killed during the violence.
For decades, Gulf Arab countries have been removed from Syria as their rival, Iran, expanded its domestic influence through an alliance with the Assad regime.
The decade-long civil war in Syria was a deeply tense relationship between Damascus and most Arab countries, and ultimately reached its peak with Syria’s expulsion from the Arab League. Over the past few years, the Gulf countries began repairing Assad’s regime and fences, leading efforts to rehabilitate him until he was suddenly expelled from power in December. Since then, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have doubled by reintegrating new regimes into the international community.
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Fahan announced on Wednesday that Riyadh is at the “frontline” of Syria’s economic revival. That effort will become a key player in the country and will only be able to expand its influence.
“Syria is not alone. Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of its economic awakening supporters… (Syria) needs a push and receives that push from its local brothers,” Bin Fahan said at a press conference Wednesday.
Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Strategic Studies, said Saudi Arabia has “geographical strategic interests in the Middle East” that can be achieved through the support of the current Syrian regime.
“Saudi Arabia wants Syria to be stable and we recognize that the only way to reach stable Syria is to bring about what is called victory by providing economic resources and tools to the current regime,” he said.
During the Biden administration, the US and Saudi Arabia were approaching a comprehensive security and economic agreement that led to normalizing ties between the Kingdom and Israel.
Despite Trump’s desire to recognize Israel, such normalization did not come true during a visit to Riyadh. Instead, the president said he would establish ties with Shala, a move that rebelled against Israel, which had repeatedly bombed Syria and seized more territory since Assad’s collapse.
Israeli officials told CNN when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Trump in Washington in April, he asked the president not to remove Syrian sanctions.
Netanyahu was taking a positive attitude with Shala and his new government. In the period following Assad’s expulsion, he ordered an unprecedented push on the ground against Syria, driving Israeli forces deeper into the country than ever before, overturning Israel’s 50-year unspoken detente.
Escalation quickly abandoned Netanyahu’s first pledge to practice “good neighbors” in the new Syria. Hundreds of airstrikes targeted Assad’s weapons, particularly the remains of their chemical weapons, preventing them from falling into the hands of extremist groups, and Israeli forces seized Mount Harmon, Syria’s highest peak, and seized strategically important positions overlooking Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
“We have overthrew the Assad regime, which was essentially used as a land link between Lebanon’s Iran and Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said in a video statement last week.
After meeting Shara on Wednesday, Trump praised him, calling him a “very strong past” and a “great young attractive man” who is a “fighter.” He said the new Syrian president “gets a real shot by putting it together.”
