Trump's hug of Syria and his jihadistically related president could redesign the Middle East

Cnn
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US President Donald Trump kicked a tea with a former jihadist on Wednesday, who until recently had a bounty of 10 million US dollars.

The preliminary Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, once known under his militant Nom de Guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, met Trump six months after the instructions of a fast campaign that stormed half the century-old Assad regime and explained the Iranian, armed groups and led himself as the leader of the country.

Al Sharaa was placed in the US, specially designated global terrorist list in 2013 because he orchestrates Al -Qaida's partner in Syria, known as Al Nusra Front, and supposedly suicide attacks throughout Syria. The former jihadist, born in Saudi Arabia, had fought the US armed forces in Iraq for years before moving to Syria to lead an armed Islamist uprising that replaced the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The meeting described by Syria as “historically” was the first between a US and Syrian president for 25 years and took place during the Trump Middle East Tour, the first state visits to his second term.

Both guides smiled in photos published by the White House and the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Trump had committed itself to “standing at Syria at this critical time”.

A day earlier, Trump announced the distance of decades of sanctions against Syria, a step that was triggered by the audience to a 40-second applause, including standing ovation from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” Trump said to the room on Tuesday and gave the Saudi -Arabic of de facto the efforts to “brutally and cripple” sanctions. Syria has been described by the United States as the state sponsor of terrorism since December 1979.

The Syrian economy has been crippled by western sanctions for years. One of the hardest is the Caesar law of the USA 2019, which imposed far-reaching sanctions, which limited individuals, companies or governments to economic activities that support Assad's efforts. The action made the entire economy inviolable. According to the World Bank, the country's economy shrank by more than half between 2010 and 2020.

From 2022, poverty affected 69% of the Syrian population, according to the World Bank. The extreme poverty more than one of four Syrians in 2022, said the bank and added that this number probably deteriorated after a devastating earthquake in February 2023.

The golf states were interested in investing in Syria and supporting their economy, but were careful to violate US sanctions. Trump's move will probably remove such obstacles and have space for potentially billions of dollars of investments.

During the meeting, Trump suggested that Sharaa took a number of measures, including normalization with Israel, the triggered of foreign and Palestinian “terrorists” and the support of the United States, according to the White House, to prevent the resurrection of ISIS.

The introduction of Syria out of the cold gives the young regime of the country and its president, who lasted in an interview with CNN last year that the armed opposition of Syria ultimately wants to form a government defined by institutions and a “advice selected by people”. However, it also offers the opportunity for Arabic Gulf States and Turkey, which also pushed for sanctions to be lifted to expand their influence in Syria and benefit from it after decades in which it was exuberant.

“The fact that he (Trump) did it so publicly and from Riyadh is a kind of tacit consent for those who also want to invest in Syria,” said the Natasha Hall of the Middle East in the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “(It) means that he gives Mohammed bin Salman victory.”

Fireworks illuminated the sky in some of the largest cities of Syria after Trump announced the lifting of sanctions. Advertising boards thanked Trump and Prince Mohammed.

“I don't know what life would be without sanctions,” said Ranim Sakhal, who said she had lived under sanctions since her birth in the 1970s. “The country suffocated.”

“People are optimistic and our dream is that Arab countries help what we have not seen for years due to the rivalry of Bashar with Arab leaders,” added Sakhal.

The Syria's currency, the Lira, rose by up to 27%after the announcement compared to the US dollar. The economy and the country's commercial minister, Mohammad Nidal al-Shaar, shed the tears in the air with Saudi Outlet Al Arabiya when he underlined that Syria is “now entering a new phase”.

But optimism is not universal. The lifting of sanctions would give legitimacy far beyond Sharaa's new regime, and some in Syria are concerned about how minorities are treated by the former jihadists.

“We are happy … Thank God. After all these years, the economy could be revived. The prices are very high, the products are not available. God wants, it will be the beginning of the economic improvement in the country,” said George, a resident of Damascus who refused to share his last name, to CNN. However, the lifting of sanctions should not be interpreted as tacit consent of the regime without taking those who are involved in the killing of minorities, he said.

“We face a number of extremist groups that limit freedom,” he said. “If a man and a girl are seen together in public, the man could be arrested and just disappear.

In March, armed men who were loyal to the new Syrian regime were conducted and spoke of the country's cleaning against the remains of the former Assad regime, which turned into municipal murders against alawite minority. At the time, the United Nations said that entire families, including women and children, were killed while violence.

For decades, the Arabic Gulf States from Syria were excluded when their rival Iran expanded its influence on the country with his alliance with the Assad regime.

A decades of civil war in Syria rose with greatly tense relationships between Damascus and most Arab states and finally culminated in Syria's displacement from the Arab league. In recent years, the Gulf States began to offer fences with the Assad regime, and have led the efforts to rehabilitate it until it was abruptly replaced by power in December. Since then, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have doubled in the fact that the new regime has been integrated into the international community.

The Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal Bin Farhan announced on Wednesday that Riad will be in the “foreground” of the economic revival of Syria. His efforts could enable him to become an important player in the country and to expand his influence there for the first time.

“Syria will not be alone. Saudi Arabia … will be at the top of the supporters of this economic awakening … (Syria) needs a move and this brothers will receive this brothers in the region,” said Bin Farhan at a press conference on Wednesday.

Hasan Alhasan, Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that Saudi Arabia has “geostrategic interests in the Middle East”, which can be achieved by support for the current Syrian regime.

“Saudi Arabia wants Syria to be stable. It is recognized that the only way to get into a stable Syria is to provide the current administration the economic resources and instruments to achieve a so-called victory,” he said.

During the bidges, the United States and Saudi Arabia were about to have a comprehensive security and economic contract that would have led to the normalization of relationships between the kingdom and Israel.

Despite Trump's desire for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel, there was no such normalization during his visit to Riyadh. Instead, the president said that he would make connections to Sharaa, one step that defies Israel, who repeatedly bombates Syria and has confiscated more from his territory since the fall of Assad.

An Israeli civil servant announced CNN when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Trump met in Washington in April, he asked the President to remove no sanctions on Syria, and feared that this would lead to a repeating of events from October 7, 2023, as a Hamas-led militant Israel.

Netanyahu had taken an aggressive attitude towards Sharaa and his new government. In the days followed after Assad's fall, he ordered an unprecedented soil in Syria and carried the Israeli armed forces deeper into the country than ever before and the 50-year tacit relaxation of Israel with the Assads.

The escalation quickly gave Netanyah's promise to practice “good neighborhood” for the new Syria. Hundreds of air strikes aimed at the remains of Assad's weapons, especially chemical weapons, to prevent them from falling into the hands of militant groups, and the Israeli forces confiscated Berg, the highest peak of Syria and a strategically important position with a view of Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

“We overthrown the Assad regime, which was essentially used as a land connection between Iran and the Hisbollah in Lebanon,” said Netanyahu in a video declaration last week.

After Trump hit Sharaa on Wednesday, he praised him and called him a “great young attractive guy” with a “very strong past” that is “a fighter”. The new Syrian president, he said, “got a real shot on pulling it together.”