Syria continues to experience a storm of joy and trust in its second year, helped by pleasant scares from its new de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, previously al-Jolani.
He claimed over the weekend that the Islamist Iran program is to blame for the Middle East and that he favors politics over Israel as a means of resolution. And while the hardships of government will surely complicated, and may even undermine, Sharaa’s journey toward his reported goals, his start has been nothing short of superb.
To know Sharaa’s thinking, one does parse his various statements, from when he beat competing military factions to emerge on top in Idlib, therefore from his time as the north province’s ruler and, secondly, from his media availabilities since the rebels, generally Islamists, swept the part of Syria that had been under the control of the Assad dynasty since 1972.
While governing Idlib, Sharaa’s cabinet tried, in January, to pass and enforce a social engineering law, with 128 articles, that was supposed to impose a strict code on public space and behavior. The law also forbids the sale and consumption of alcohol, established a strict Islamic dress code for girls in schools, and outlaws such cliched social behaviors as smoking ( including the well-known hookahs in coffeeshops ) and fortunetelling.
The law created a stir, and that might have prompted its authors to put it on hold. Sharag tried to defend it by selling it as a law that “favored preaching Islam over imposing it,” but he did not appear to be firmly in favor of it.
Sharaa demonstrated one of the key concepts that distinguished him from Islamist rulers while defending it. He said,” If we scare people into believing in Islam, they will pretend to be Muslims when we show up and stop believing when we leave.”
Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman reached the conclusion that Sharaa was aware of the usefulness of religious coercion, and he began implementing it in 2015, accelerating Saudi Arabia’s social liberalization.
During his rule of Idlib, Sharaa praised his team’s ability to run a government that succeeded in collecting taxes, balancing its books, reconstructing damaged infrastructure, and providing adequate services, from trash collection and supply of water and electricity to management of public schools and colleges. Since Assad fled to Moscow and his regime fell, Sharaa has been promising the rest of Syria with this success, ever since he assumed control of the situation.
He appears to have given up on Islamist populism that promises to end all forms of jihad, liberation, and warring against non-Muslims, especially Israel because he has a plan and because he has faith in his ability to make Syria a successful state.
Sharaa claimed in his earliest media interviews that he had joined Al-Qaeda because he was still young and immature at the time and that his opinions have evolved and changed since. Additionally, he claimed to believe in pluralism and democracy.
Both men erected behind them two flags: the Syrian revolution and the jihadist flag of their Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ( HTS ) militia, just like in the first appearance of Sharaa’s Idlib Prime Minister Muhammad Bashir as the head of a transitional Syrian cabinet. On social media, the HTS flag sparked a stir. The next day, Syria’s new rulers nixed their faction’s flag and stuck to the Syria one only. Sharaa and his lieutenants had a plan, but they also listened.
Sharaa’s most encouraging statements, so far, have come during his meeting, over the weekend, with Arab journalists, in which he said that Syria under him had no problem with the Iranian people, but only with the “dangerous project” of the Iran regime. He added that Syria would not choose to fight Israel, that Israel’s attacks on Syria are no longer justified ( since there are no longer any Iranian militias ), and that he would instead seek diplomatic solutions to any issues involving the Jewish state.
Sharaa also appeared unwavering in opposition to the Iranian “project,” and she also sounded unwavering in support of the Iranian model of encouraging the formation of armed non-state militias that would allow a” spiritual leader” to impose rule over the typically weaker government, leading to the formation of failed states in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Sharaa stated that he intended to end all militias and forge a consensus among the Syrian government to be the only sovereign who has the authority to use violence when necessary.
He argued that while Syria’s new rulers could have attacked Russian installations there, he would have preferred to turn the page. Washington and London are both now in contact with Sharaa.
Syria’s future is still in danger of a catastrophe. The government of all of Syria might prove much more difficult than administering just one of its provinces, and it might also lead to a deterioration in the public’s opinion of Sharaa and the new rulers, which could lead to them starting an Islamist populist movement by rekindling national fervor and engaging in bloody wars.
We must take Sharaa and his guys for what they are meant to do and keep a cautious outlook while aiding them in creating a new Syria and offering them advice whenever we believe they are heading in the wrong direction.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain works for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies ( FDD ) as a researcher. Follow him on X @hahussain