The White House opens the doors to a former al-Qaeda member to find support in the fight against ISIS, but also under the radar with the probable objective of accelerating the process of normalization of relations between Israel and neighboring countries, with a view to containing Iran. Ahmad Sharaa’s visit to Washington scheduled for tomorrow, the first in the history of a Syrian leader in the Oval Office, marks a turning point for regional analysts in the balance of power in the Middle East in favor of the United States and the Jewish state. Sharaa, a former jihadist commander supported by Turkey and the Arab countries of the Gulf, a year ago gave the definitive push to the Assad regime, which dissolved last December after more than half a century of dynastic power and after more than 14 years of internal and regional war.
Sharaa’s visit comes the day after he was removed from the US terrorism blacklist, following the UN Security Council’s decision last Thursday to lift sanctions against him. The Syrian leader, who in recent months proclaimed himself president and who has effectively centralized the powers of the state, is accompanied on his second trip to the United States in a few months by the foreign minister, Assad Shaybani. Widely indicated as the true architect of the politics of the new Syrian course.
Shaybani himself published a propaganda video in which he and Sharaa play basketball in the US capital together with the commander of US forces in the Middle East, Brad Cooper, and the head of the international anti-jihadist coalition, Kevin Lambert. A film strongly linked to what is defined as the formal objective of the meeting between President Donald Trump and Sharaa at the White House: to announce the inclusion of the Damascus government in the global anti-ISIS Coalition. It is in this sense that we must read the news, promptly spread by the Damascus media, according to which in the space of a few hours the new Syrian security forces – largely made up of Al-Qaeda militiamen defined as “terrorists” by the United States only a few months ago – conducted 61 raids and arrested 71 people as part of a “campaign to neutralize the threat” of the Islamic State.
On the eve of Sharaa’s visit to the United States, news has also spread – denied for now by the Syrian government – according to which American troops, deployed for years in the north-east of Syria to “fight ISIS”, intend to expand their presence in the area of the capital Damascus, a stone’s throw from where the Israeli occupation troops have been stationed since last December.
The meeting at the White House, local observers say, could also serve to relaunch the regional “normalization process” between Israel and countries such as Syria and Lebanon, which have long been in Iran’s orbit. According to these readings, behind the official rhetoric of the “fight against ISIS”, a plan could be outlined that aims to consolidate the US presence in post-Assad Syria and build a system of alliances capable of containing Iranian influence.
“This process risks consolidating a system of external control over Syria, favoring a de facto fragmentation of the country into areas of influence,” said Samir Aita, a Syrian analyst quoted by the National Observatory for Human Rights. “The new Damascus, supported by Washington and Ankara, could become a weak administrative center, surrounded by autonomous regions or militarily controlled by foreign powers,” he added.