Daniel DePetris: The US must restrain itself from being too involved in Syria's redevelopment

Chicago Tribune

2 days ago

When President Donald Trump met Syria's new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, for the first time last month, he came away impressed with the man's vision, stamina and looks. 'Young, attractive guy, tough guy,' Trump told reporters after the session. 'Strong past, very strong past. … He's got a real shot at holding it together.'
Trump followed up the compliments with a policy change that reverberated throughout the Middle East: a suspension of the U.S. sanctions regime on Syria, which the White House argued was a necessary prerequisite to giving the country a chance to turn the page from more than a half-century of Assad family dictatorship.
The United States, however, continues to have certain expectations for the new, evolving Syrian government. Washington's asks boil down to three items: combating the Islamic State militant group, consolidating its authority to prevent chaos, and respecting the rights of ethnic and sectarian minorities in the country, some of whom, like the Kurds in Eastern Syria, have been long-standing U.S. partners. The Trump administration also expects al-Sharaa to clamp down on Palestinian militant groups that have traditionally used Syrian soil as a base of operations, and Trump eventually wants Damascus to join the Abraham Accords, which would normalize relations between Israel and Syria.
The results thus far have been mixed, depending on the issue. But in the Middle East, a mixed verdict is often the best that one can hope for.
On combating Islamic State, the new Syrian government has met expectations so far. This wasn't inevitable when al-Sharaa ascended to power in December. His history sowed doubt among many U.S. national security officials about what could be accomplished on the counterterrorism front. Twenty years ago, al-Sharaa was fighting with al-Qaida in Iraq and spent time as a prisoner under U.S. military custody. When Syria erupted into civil war in 2011, he traveled to the country and established an al-Qaida affiliate there, leading Washington to place a big bounty on his head.
Yet al-Sharaa eventually struck out on his own. He distanced his group from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Islamic State's first so-called emir, ditched the al-Qaida name and turned his organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, into one seeking to liberate Syria, not conduct global jihad. While HTS was still an extremely conservative outfit, al-Sharaa sought to transform it into a de facto government-in-waiting, and for the most part, it worked — HTS ruled over most of Idlib province in northwestern Syria for the duration of Syria's civil war.
Ever since he routed Assad's forces, al-Sharaa has sought to moderate himself further. The former al-Qaida prisoner has spent the last six months ditching his fatigues for Western-style suits and ingratiating himself with the likes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, deep-pocketed countries that could prove extremely useful for the new but cash-strapped Syrian government. Al-Sharaa also has made it a point to burnish his credentials in the West, betting that promises to protect Syria's diverse communities, institute a market economy and unite the nation after nearly 14 years of war would convince Washington, Paris and London to explore a new relationship.
The United States and many of its allies in Europe have taken al-Sharaa up on the offer. U.S. officials view the new Syrian administration as an opportunity to not only wipe the slate clean on decades of adversarial ties with Damascus but to also dilute the influence of Iran and Russia, its historic backers. Syria under Assad used to be one of Tehran's most important pieces on the Middle East chessboard, a country that provided Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with a way station to send weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. With Assad out and al-Sharaa in, Syria is no longer an Iranian proxy. The further the new Syrian authorities ostracize Iran, the more support it will likely receive from the Americans.
Of course, it's not all sunshine and roses for Syria. While Washington is guardedly optimistic about the HTS-led administration's commitment to keeping a boot on Islamic State's neck — if only because it's in al-Sharaa's own interest to do so — it remains unclear whether the country's multiple ethnic and sectarian communities can be reconciled. The long civil war produced an overwhelming sense of mistrust, fear and animosity between Sunnis and Alawites, who compose approximately 10% of Syria's population but held many of the senior military, political and intelligence posts under the former regime. In one especially brutal atrocity last March, hard-line jihadists supposedly outside the Syrian government's control rampaged through Alawite villages along Syria's Mediterranean coast, killing hundreds of civilians, in retaliation for Assad loyalists attacking Syrian army positions. The attack lasted for days and put a bright spotlight on al-Sharaa and his ability to actually implement the promises of peace and inclusion he has made since stepping into the presidential palace.
Can Syria emerge from the ashes? It's a loaded question with no definitive answer at this point in time.
The United States, though, needs to restrain itself from the urge of becoming too overinvolved in the country's political development. Time and again, Washington has allowed hubris to guide its actions, lecturing others about how to structure their politics and pretending it has all the answers. Most of the time, our ambitions outweigh our capacity to fulfill them. At worst, we create new problems and burdens on the states we purportedly wish to help.
So as the Trump administration continues to monitor Syria's evolution, it must take care to distinguish the necessary from the ideal. A democratic utopia in the heart of the Middle East is the ideal; a government willing and able to keep Islamic State in check is the prize.