Sanctions, instability and external meddling are still problems for Ahmed al-Sharaa, one year after Assad\u2019s fall
\n Damascus
\nIf ubiquity and handshakes were the only measures of success, Ahmed al-Sharaa would be diplomat of the year.
\nSince he formally became president of Syria on 29 January 2025, the former leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham \u2013 a jihadist group with an al-Qaida lineage \u2013 has made a total of 21 public international trips to 13 countries. These include a visit to the UN general assembly, the climate change conference in Brazil, and numerous Arab summits.
\nIn the latest sign of the goodwill directed towards Syria\u2019s rebirth, envoys from all 15 members of the UN security council were in Damascus last week to mark the anniversary of the fall of Bashar al-Assad. The display of unity was a remarkable moment: since 2011 no issue has divided the security council more bitterly than Syria.
\nThe visit was also an acknowledgment of the role Syria and its diaspora can play in bringing stability to the Middle East.
\nBut ultimately the test will be whether Sharaa is able to translate this curiosity and goodwill into something tangible for the Syrian people in terms of lifted sanctions, internal stability and freedom from external meddling, whether by Israel, Iran or Sharaa\u2019s potential ideological partner Turkey.
\nOn the investment front, overseas pledges are rolling in. Saudi Arabia has promised investments worth more than $6bn (\u00a34.5bn). Qatar is helping to revive the oil and gas industry and the final set of US sanctions is likely to be lifted in a vote before Christmas. But such is the chaos, Syria\u2019s central bank admits it does not know the country\u2019s true GDP.
\nThe influx of Gulf investment is dependent on Sharaa continuing on a path of internal reconciliation and trust-building, far removed from the extremist threat. At the same time he has to show his still-reeling country is not being used as a base from which either Islamists in the south can threaten Israel or from which Kurds in the north will threaten Turkey.
\nIn this task he has gained the unlikely support of Donald Trump, who has promised to visit Damascus soon. Sharaa has already met Trump three times, including a critical meeting in November in the White House, becoming the first Syrian president to visit the Oval Office since 1948.
\n\u201cHe comes from a very tough place, and he\u2019s a tough guy. I like him,\u201d Trump gushed when they met.
\nWith his usual stream of consciousness, Trump continued: \u201cWe\u2019ll do everything we can to make Syria successful, because that\u2019s part of the Middle East. We have peace now in the Middle East \u2013 the first time that anyone can remember that ever happening.\u201d
\nTrump also obligingly brushed aside Sharaa\u2019s controversial history. \u201cWe\u2019ve all had rough pasts,\u201d he said, as if property contract disputes in New York were on a par with Sharaa\u2019s military turf war in Raqqa with the leader of Islamic State (Isis), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in which Sharaa lost 1,200 fighters.
\nPerhaps the most striking of Sharaa\u2019s many meetings was on stage in New York in September when he was interviewed by Gen David Petraeus, the former CIA director and retired army general who commanded US forces in Iraq while Sharaa was imprisoned there with other members of al-Qaida.
\nPetraeus showed concern for the Syrian leader\u2019s personal wellbeing, asking whether he was getting enough sleep. He added his former prisoner had \u201cmany fans\u201d and that he was one of them. Sharaa said with a smile when asked about their shared past: \u201cAt a time, we were in combat and now we move to discourse.\u201d
\n\u201cWe cannot judge the past based on the rules of today and cannot judge today based on the rules of the past,\u201d the Syrian president said.
\nThat willingness to reject the rules of the past is reflected in the remarkable joint intelligence operations Syria\u2019s interior ministry conducted alongside the US last month, locating 15 Isis weapons caches in southern Syria.
\nThe concern is that external pressures are hampering Sharaa in his daunting task of keeping the country unified. In the south, Israel remains convinced Islamists are preparing terrorist attacks, while in the north, Turkey is impatient to see the strong Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) either disarmed or fully integrated into the Syrian army.
\nIn both instances the White House is urging the external actors to be patient. In the case of Israel the fear in Damascus is it is intent on weakening Syria to the point it fragments, with a Druze-dominated rump state in the south.
\nIn total Syria has been hit by nearly 1,000 Israeli airstrikes, including on the capital, and faced more than 600 ground incursions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sanctions, instability and external meddling are still problems for Ahmed al-Sharaa, one year after Assad\u2019s fall Damascus If ubiquity and handshakes were the only measures of success, Ahmed al-Sharaa would be diplomat of the year. Since he formally became president of Syria on 29 January 2025, the former leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham \u2013 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-518920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n