On the morning of December 8, 2024, a coalition of Turkish-supported rebel forces captured Damascus, signifying an end to fourteen years of civil war in Syria. The takeover was the last of several major offensives under the coordination of the paramilitary group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The toppling of former president Bashar al-Assad’s regime created a wave of popular support for the group and an overwhelming sense of relief across the nation. Some citizens feared for Syria’s political future, which now rested in the unfamiliar hands of interim president and former HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa. Most Syrians welcomed any leadership as an improvement over the regime of Assad and his allies, which was responsible for 91 percent of the civil war’s civilian casualties. However, al-Sharaa’s track record not only cements him as an ambitious political realist but also draws frightening parallels to the self-serving foreign policy that characterized Assad’s rule, leaving the new Syrian government vulnerable.
Al-Sharaa’s relationship with fundamentalist causes traces directly to his family’s roots in Syria. While Sharaa was born in Saudi Arabia, his family hailed from the Golan Heights territory of Southwest Syria before their displacement following Israeli occupation during the Six-Day War. Sharaa eventually returned to the Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus when he was seven years old. The air of extremism emerging from the Second Intifada and the September 11 attacks coincided with Sharaa’s growing devotion to Islam. These events catalyzed the teenager’s sense of duty to defend predominantly Muslim states against Western occupancy—and defend he did. In 2003, Sharaa became a foot soldier in the highly violent Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), an offshoot of the larger terrorist organization. In around 2005, American authorities arrested Sharaa, and he completed stints in various US prisons for the next five years, including the infamously brutal Abu Ghraib detention center.
Sharaa’s reputation with the US government remains precarious. The US State Department only removed a $10 million bounty for his capture in December 2024. Additionally, the United States still recognizes HTS as a terrorist organization. To a Western observer, Sharaa’s associations with Salafi-Jihadism, an ideology promoting the establishment of an Islamic state under Sharia law, taint his presidency. Sharaa’s journey, however, characterizes him not as a passionate insurgent but as an opportunist whose attempts to further even beneficent domestic policies could still threaten Syria. Months after Sharaa’s release in 2011, he had deftly established connections with the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The 2011 Arab Spring events in Syria created disorder and exacerbated dislike of Assad’s secular government, leaving rebel Islamic fundamentalists with an opening for public support. Sharaa shed his association with Al-Qaeda and used his contacts to acquire funds and men to form “Jabhat al-Nusra li-Ahl al-Sham,” or Nusra, in 2012. The group’s name translates to “The Support Front for Victory of the People of the Levant.” Baghdadi’s radical goal of replacing secular countries with an Islamic state eventually created a rift between him and Sharaa. Knowing these radical views would be unpopular to less-religious opponents of Assad, Sharaa broke away from Baghdadi in 2013 and brought Nusra under the allegiance of Al-Qaeda. Three years later, Sharaa severed ties with Al-Qaeda again, believing any association with a known terrorist organization would impede his nationalist Syrian cause.
Finally, from the ashes of Nusra and other anti-Assad factions emerged HTS, which has been highly active in Syria since its inception in 2017. Since taking office as president, Sharaa has maintained connections within HTS but stepped down as its official leader. These facts portray Sharaa’s transition from a soldier looking to gain a following through radical Islam to a statesman attempting to cleanse his terror-mired past. The only throughline in his quest to emerge as a leader of a powerful nationalistic movement in Syria is Sharaa’s political gamesmanship.
The new president’s policies reveal a push toward a more modern and progressive Syria. In a step away from cultural misogyny and anti-Kurdish persecution, the state has created a diverse interim government with Christian, female, Kurdish, and Druze ministers. Mohammed Nidal al-Shaar, the Minister of Economy and Trade, has asserted goals to privatize previously government-controlled industrial businesses. He has also described policies encouraging entrepreneurship to create job opportunities for the three-fourths of the population that depend on humanitarian aid. Shaar even stated that “attracting local and international investments” is a priority to rebuild Syria’s infrastructure, half of which the United Nations reports is dysfunctional.
Syria’s position in the Levant has made it vulnerable to manipulation in significant international power plays by countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia. Through Saudi-backed rebel groups and Iran-supported Assad forces, both countries used the Syrian Civil War as a proxy conflict to battle for increased influence over the Middle East. At the same time, Russia assisted Assad to strengthen its relationship with Iran. Russia also gained access to the Mediterranean Tartus port for trade in addition to maintaining past influence in Syria’s energy sector, such as through investments in Al-Thawra oil fields and phosphate mines. While the Assad regime has crumbled, the political and economic incentives that drove the involvement of Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia remain. As Syria develops its fledgling economy, foreign aid from these countries seeking to consolidate influence could prove too promising for Sharaa—a proven pragmatist—to pass up. If Syria grows reliant on this external aid, which could take the form of government grants or construction funding, the state will ultimately face obligations to its lenders. In this sense, external support could become an instrument for other countries to extract concessions from Syria, like natural resources or even territory. The most disturbing concession, however, would be a voice in Sharaa’s political decisions. Countries with power over decision-making and Syria’s infrastructure could use these resources to pressure and oppress the country’s populace should domestic and international interests diverge.
In spite of Sharaa’s disdain for Assad’s regime, his quest for legitimacy, influence, and financial strength leaves him vulnerable to the appealing hand of foreign assistance. Furthermore, the president’s history as an opportunistic realist who forms and severs ties to pursue his goals makes him even more susceptible to external bids for Syrian influence. While more established nations may have what Sharaa wants, their self-driven personal stake in Syria’s political and economic future is not what the country needs.