As a last major event while still on the ground in Saudi Arabia, and before embarking for Qatar, President Donald Trump met with Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa. This signifies a monumental, historic shift in the entire regional order. We are witnessing the final blood soaked after-effects of the culmination of what was laid out in Seymour Hersh’s The Redirection, a policy which began all the way back in the Bush administration.
Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, got his start early in the Syrian war as an emissary of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and later became the founder of Syrian al-Qaeda, called Jabhat al-Nusra. The terror group went through several name changes and is now the ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s December ouster. The CIA had helped the group take over Idlib in 2015.
Trump had yesterday in a speech before the US-Saudi Investment Forum described that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had asked him to remove the long-standing sanctions against Syria. Trump expressed hope that the country could become stable again under its new rulers. “The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served as an important — really an important function — nevertheless, at the time. But now it’s their time to shine,” he said. “So I say, ‘Good luck, Syria.’ Show us something very special.’” As for ‘special’…
Indeed, Jolani/Sharaa went from head of AQ-linked HTS in Idlib province, which is ruled by Sharia law, to standing in Riyadh alongside the United States president and Saudi crown prince. He actually still has not been removed from the US terrorism list, though the ten-million-dollar bounty that had been on his head was taken off months ago.
Trump described the terrorism elephant in the room by telling reporters aboard Air Force One just after the meeting that Sharaa was a “young, attractive guy—tough guy” with a “strong past” and that he now has an opportunity to stabilize Syria.
“He’s got a real shot at pulling it together,” Trump added. Trump had reportedly urged Sharaa to make peace with Israel and join the Abraham Accords. Washington has also been pressing Damascus to protect and respect religious minorities after recent mass killings of Alawites, Druze, and Christians, especially along the coast, in the south, and in some Damascus suburbs.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Donald Trump, and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Riyadh today. @PressSec/X
Trump’s meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa is even more extraordinary than an American president meeting with some repugnant branch of the Assad family. Until late December, the U.S. government was willing to pay $10 million for information about al-Sharaa’s location, because he was on the “specially designated global terrorist” list.
The irony is that the Sharaa meeting happened on the sidelines of the summit of the United States and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members in Riyadh. It was the GCC, which, early in the Syria proxy war, had a big role in funding the anti-Assad jihadist insurgency, which included ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Qatar, especially, was a big financier of the Islamists in Syria who beheaded civilians, massacred Christians, and took women as sex slaves. Qatar even hosted “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) training camps, in coordination with the CIA and Western and Gulf intelligence services. FSA commandos would then often, fresh from this training, take their weapons into Syria and fight right alongside ISIS. We have previously documented this many times.
As for highlights from the readout from the Trump-Sharaa meeting:
Trump told al-Sharaa that he had “a tremendous opportunity to do something historic in his country,” the readout said. He urged the Syrian leader to sign on to the Abraham Accords, a framework for Arab states to recognize Israeli sovereignty that the U.S. mediated during Trump’s first term.
He also advised al-Sharaa to tell foreign terrorists to leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help the U.S. prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State terrorist group and assume responsibility for ISIS detention centers in Syria’s northeast.
Al-Sharaa affirmed his commitment to Syria’s 1974 disengagement with Israel and invited American companies to invest in Syrian oil and gas, the readout said.
On Wednesday, Trump landed in Qatar, where, as Al Jazeera explains, “Regional peace, investments, energy and security cooperation on agenda as US President Donald Trump holds talks with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in the Qatari capital Doha during the second leg of his Gulf visit.
An American president has not visited Qatar in more than 20 years. But certainly the two sides became closer in the context of the covert push to overthrow Assad, and to wage proxy war against the ‘pro-Iran axis’ in the region. Qatar is also home to major regional US military and naval facilities, and is, of course, an oil and gas hub far beyond its tiny geographic size.
As for another theme which Trump is continued to expected pushing, he said Wednesday: “This is good for Israel” – after reporters asked whether the Netanyahu government is being sidelined in his Gulf trip. “Having a relationship like I have with these countries … I think it’s very good for Israel.”
And as for the ongoing Gaza crisis, not much has been said publicly, but it is likely high on the agenda behind closed doors. After all, the White House wants to “be able to say he hit a home run in all three kingdoms – that he was able to build relationships that are going to transcend his presidency. He wants to overwhelm the US press with a success list.” Trump is holding talks with the Emir of Qatar.
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