QWho could have imagined a year ago that Ahmed Al-Charaa, then blacklisted by the UN and Washington, would become the first Syrian president to be received in the Oval Office of the White House? At that time, the former jihadist who had served time in an American prison in Iraq had distanced himself from terrorism. But he is only confined to the Idlib region, in the northwest of the country, while Bashar Al-Assad, in Damascus, relies on power that if a lightning attack in less than a month will show that this power is just an appearance and an illusion.
This spectacular trajectory is not just the result of mutation from a man. That is also allowed by Donald Trump, who decided to follow Ahmed Al-Charaa’s words, especially on the advice of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed Ben Salman. Ahead of this historic visit to the White House, symbolic progress has been noted.
On Thursday, November 6, the United Nations Security Council lifted sanctions targeting Ahmed Al-Charaa and his Interior Minister, Anas Khattab, due to their past ties to the Islamic State organization and Al-Qaeda. The United States also immediately did something similar, by allowing the arrival of Syria’s interim president on American soil on November 8.
We must welcome Donald Trump’s bet in favor of a transition to Syria that is capable of addressing the enormous challenges facing this country. But for these efforts to be successful, Syria’s new powers also need the drastic sanctions imposed following revelations of the Bashar Al-Assad regime’s brutal repression of those who oppose its iron dictatorship, since March 2011, to be lifted as quickly as possible. Lifting these sanctions, which require Congressional approval, is critical to recovering Syria from the ruins that were the legacy of the fallen dynasty.
There’s an emergency. The new powers will not be able to rely on the goodwill of the Syrian people and the memories of past atrocities if improvements in the more than precarious living conditions do not occur. This is not the only obstacle Ahmed Al-Charaa faces. The modus vivendi still exists among Syria’s Kurdish minority, which Damascus has long despised.
Violence targeting the Alawite and Druze minority groups in recent months, who have also been the target of Sunni retaliation, has also served as a reminder of the fragility of Syria’s community mosaic. The new government must do everything possible to prevent this and bring to justice those who are guilty. Taking advantage of the chaos created by the fall of Bashar Al-Assad and the resulting fragility, ISIS has finally shown a resilience that is simply alarming. In Washington, the Syrian president is also scheduled to join the United States-led anti-jihadist coalition.
The latter would be well-advised, if they really count on it, not to let their guard down in the country’s east, where they have had special forces for almost a decade. Likewise, Donald Trump should use all his efforts to prevent Israel from taking advantage of the situation by creating, in southern Syria, the equivalent of a security zone added to the Golan Heights, illegally occupied since 1967, and pretending to be the protector of the Druze minority. Stabilizing Syria requires the success of Ahmed Al-Charaa.
