Few leaders once labelled as terrorists by the US visit the White House. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is joining their ranks. Not to be outdone, on Monday, he will also sign onto a US-led coalition against his one-time rival, the Islamic State militant (IS) group.
Sharaa’s bid to cement his alignment with the US comes as his government faces an Israeli occupation in a swath of southern Syria, festering problems with Kurdish fighters in the north and a sputtering economy that has been unable to draw outside investment because of sanctions.
None of those topics is expected to be resolved outright when Sharaa visits, but the image of Sharaa – who Trump has praised as an “attractive”, “strong”, and a “tough guy” – sitting in the Oval Office is going to resonate far.
“Sometimes the meeting is the message. This is one of those times,” former US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told Middle East Eye. “Think about other leaders that the US has called terrorists. Were they ever in the Oval Office? It’s unprecedented.”
While it is rare, there are a few examples in recent history, including South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s Yasser Arafat and leaders from the Irish Republican Army.
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Sharaa’s ability to assuage the concerns of bigger foreign powers about his past has been his top success, experts say, even as Syrians face corruption, economic woes and the fallout of sectarian violence against Christians, Alawites and Druze.
“Sharaa’s policy is very clear, zero problems, and not just with Syria’s neighbours,” Patrick Haenni, an expert on Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), told MEE, referring to a line made famous by Turkey’s former top diplomat, Ahmet Davutoglu, decades ago.
On Friday, ahead of Monday’s meeting, the Trump administration swiftly removed sanctions on the Syrian president and removed the Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations on Sharaa and Syria’s interior minister, Anas Khattab, according to the US Treasury website.
‘Zero problems, not just with neighbours’
Sharaa’s military is moving closer to Nato-member Turkey, which is now training Syrian troops. Meanwhile, his cash-strapped government is relying on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two key US partners, to pay government salaries.
‘Sharaa’s main success has been showing that Syria will not be the breeding that will challenge another state’
– Patrick Haenni, analyst
Sharaa’s Islamist group, HTS, toppled Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, but that did not prevent Sharaa from visiting Assad’s main backer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in October.
Sharaa’s decision to formally sign onto the coalition against IS codifies his government’s security cooperation with the US and the Gulf.
It is still a head-spinning turn for Sharaa, who served roughly five years in a US prison after travelling to Iraq to repel the 2003 invasion. He went on to found al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch.
“Sharaa’s main success has been showing that Syria will not be the breeding ground for any movement that will challenge another state. That includes everyone: Palestinian militants, Shia militant groups, the PKK, and the Muslim Brotherhood, for what it’s worth,” added Haenni, who is the co-author of Transformed by the People, a book on HTS’s rise to power.
Of course, Sharaa still has his detractors.
Egypt is nervous about Trump normalising Sharaa, given President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s ousting of an Islamist president a decade ago. While the UAE has pledged millions of dollars in investments in Syria, it is taking a backseat to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
But Sharaa’s biggest threat is Israel.
Syria-Israel deconfliction agreement
Syria’s neighbour took advantage of Assad’s downfall to occupy a United Nations buffer zone in southern Syria and launched powerful air strikes that reached the capital, Damascus, over the summer.
Israel is digging in on Syria’s Mount Hermon, the highest peak in the region. It has also sought to portray itself as a defender of Syria’s Druze minority by backing Druze leader Sheikh Hikmat Salaman al-Hajri with arms, experts say.
‘I see no evidence the Israelis are preparing to withdraw from the territory they seized’
– Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Syria
Over the summer, when fighting broke out between Druze and Bedouins, Israel prevented Sharaa from deploying his mainly Sunni security forces to the south. The intervention upset Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Trump administration.
After its attack on Iran, some in Israel mused about Syria joining the Abraham Accords, but Trump’s envoy to the country, his billionaire friend and ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, ruled that out as impractical, given Sharaa’s “backing of Sunni fundamentalists”.
Barrack is trying to broker a more modest security deal between Syria and Israel that would replace the 1974 disengagement agreement that Israel tore up when it invaded Syria’s south.
Saudi news-site Al-Hadath reported last week that the US is working on a plan for US, Syrian and Israeli troops to jointly patrol Mount Hermon.
“A security agreement will happen. It’s just a matter of time,” Dareen Khalifa, an expert at the International Crisis Group, told MEE.
“The Israelis will need to give something, but there will be flexibility in terms of a withdrawal,” she added.
Ford, the former ambassador, said any agreement would stop short of a broader peace deal because Israel is unlikely to surrender occupied territory to Sharaa’s government.
“I see no evidence the Israelis are preparing to withdraw from the territory they seized after December 2024, much less the Golan Heights. So what does Sharaa get in return for a deal with Israel? What’s in it for him?” he said.
How Sharaa is sidelining Syria’s Kurds
Trump campaigned on reducing the US’s entanglements in the Middle East.
Syria, where about 1,000 US troops are stationed in the northeast, has been a focal point of efforts to end the US’s so-called forever wars.
This issue is so divisive that Trump’s nominee for the top State Department position on the Middle East saw his nomination torpedoed last week – in part over his opposition to troop withdrawals during Trump’s first term.
Now, the US may deepen its role on the ground. Reuters reported on Thursday that the US is planning to take over an air base south of Damascus to monitor a security deconfliction agreement with Israel.
‘The Americans are moving gradually to Damascus.The military resources that are coming will be significant’
– Dareen Khalifa, International Crisis Group
Syria’s foreign ministry denied the report, but experts say such a move would represent a victory for Damascus.
Since 2014, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been Washington’s main security client in Syria. The US used the SDF to fight IS.
Washington’s support for the SDF has been a long-running sore point with Turkey, which views the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The SDF’s ranks are filled out by the YPG, the PKK’s Syrian wing.
Barrack is lobbying for a deal whereby the SDF incorporates into the Syrian military, but the SDF has been loath to surrender the autonomy it earned while Assad was in power. Experts say the closer Sharaa moves to the US, the more American support for the SDF becomes redundant.
“Time plays in Sharaa’s favour. The Americans are moving gradually to Damascus,” Khalifa, at the International Crisis Group, said. “The military resources that are coming to Damascus will also be significant.”
Haenni said the next logical step will be the transfer of IS prisoners and their families to Damascus’s control. Those prisons in northeast Syria are currently guarded by the SDF, which is one of their key forms of leverage with the US.
US concerns about the professionalism of Sharaa’s troops will be gradually addressed through closer military cooperation with Turkey, a US official told MEE. Syrian cadets entered Turkish military academies last month.
Sharaa is arriving in Washington at a time when tensions in Syria between Turkey and Israel have somewhat eased. The US mediated for both its partners to enter deconfliction talks in the spring. Ford, the former US ambassador, said Sharaa’s government could still be dragged into a potential flare-up.
“The Israelis feel they have total military superiority in the region. While Erdogan does not want to stir up a fight with Israel, the Turks will look for ways to challenge them,” Ford told MEE.
Israel’s campaign to keep Caesar Sanctions on Syria
Sharaa’s visit is being closely watched by Syrians who want to reintegrate into the region. One analyst who has met Sharaa and his advisors said that a common quip was that among HTS’s base, “the global coalition against ISIS is seen as a global coalition against the Sunnis”.
“Joining does not come without costs,” Haenni said. “But significant parts of Sharaa’s own social base will see this as a way out of international isolation.”
‘If there is a hint of a snapback, no company is going to Syria. That is what Israel wants and President Donald Trump is against’
– Mouaz Moustafa, Syrian Emergency Task Force
Trump announced in May that he was lifting all US sanctions on Syria. The country was under one form of sanction or another since the 1970s, but Washington slapped most of them on during Syria’s civil war that pitted rebels against Assad.
Trump has removed sanctions by executive order, but experts say Gulf states and western businesses are reluctant to make long-term financial commitments in Syria if Caesar sanctions, the most crippling regime, are not repealed fully by Congress.
Advocates in Washington hope the imagery of Sharaa in the Oval Office hits two people in particular, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressman Brian Mast.
“They are doing essentially all they can not to repeal the Caesar sanctions,” Mouaz Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, told MEE.
Mast, who often wears an Israeli military uniform in Congress, told The Hill on Thursday that his opposition to repeal Caesar “should be obvious to anyone following the situation in Syria”.
Two US officials familiar with the matter said Mast and Graham are responding to a lobbying push by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisor, Ron Dermer, to keep the sanctions on Syria.
“The Trump administration, at the highest levels, has been lobbying actively for Congress to repeal Caesar, but diehard pro-Israel lawmakers are against it,” Moustafa told MEE.
Although Congress is not in session, the House and Senate are working on an amendment to the 2026 Defence Act that some hope could be ready by the time of Sharaa’s visit.
Moustafa, whose group is spearheading the push to repeal Caesar, a law they originally helped author, said there needs to be a “clear-cut repeal” in order for Gulf states and western companies to have confidence in investing.
“If there is any hint of a snapback, no company is going to move into Syria. That is what Netanyahu wants and President Donald Trump is against,” Moustafa said.
