The Washington trip is “a high-level sign of the trust that the American administration has placed in al-Sharaa — and the hope that he will succeed in holding Syria together during this incredibly complicated transition period,” said Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. Al-Sharaa rose to power after leading Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, in toppling Assad’s regime last December. Since then, he has sought to distance himself from his past as a jihadist who had been jailed by U.S. forces in Iraq, trading military fatigues for smart suits and vowing to rebuild Syria and unify its myriad religious and ethnic groups.
Trump’s approach, a dramatic shift for the U.S., has underscored al-Sharaa’s success in breaking the country’s decadeslong global isolation. The U.S. removed its terrorist designation for HTS, along with the bounty on al-Sharaa himself, before lifting a string of sanctions following a May meeting between the Syrian leader and Trump in Saudi Arabia. Al-Sharaa was in New York in September to address the United Nations General Assembly, but Syrian Information Ministry said that being welcomed to the White House marked a “major turning point” for the country.
