Mere weeks ago, the leader of Syrian militant group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani, was rumoured to have been killed in a Russian airstrike in Aleppo. Today, he holds court in the presidential palace in Damascus, very much alive. He has swapped his nom de guerre for his legal name (Ahmad Al Shara), his fatigues for a suit and tie and his rifle for an in-tray.
Few public figures’ transformations have been so remarkable. And few in-trays have been so full. Mr Al Shara has assumed responsibility for a country largely in ruins – the destruction equally apparent on its streets, in its institutions and on its balance sheets. The World Bank says Syria’s GDP today may be only 15 per cent of its prewar level. The cost of rebuilding will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Mr Al Shara has used this dire state of affairs as justification to divert HTS’s attention in a more conciliatory, diplomatic direction. On Tuesday, the group was formally dissolved and merged into Syria’s Ministry of Defence. Syria, Mr Al Shara says, needs unity at home and friends – or at least, fewer enemies – abroad if it is to rebuild.
These are the right signals to send, though the obstacles ahead are numerous. Many of them lie within HTS’s own ranks. The group consisted of thousands of militants, including foreign fighters who were drawn to the country in recent years by HTS’s violent zealotry. On Tuesday, a group of them set a Christmas tree alight in a Christian-majority town.
But other obstacles emanate from beyond Syria’s borders. Israel has used the fall of Syria’s previous government as an opportunity to grab land in the Golan Heights – a situation it says is temporary, though there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.
It helps that lines of communication between Damascus and the rest of the world are more open now than they have been for decades. In the past week, Mr Al Shara has welcomed a steady stream of foreign dignitaries to the Syrian capital. They include several foreign ministers, UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen and US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf. On Monday, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed had a phone call with the Syrian transitional government’s Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al Shibani, in which he stressed the importance of preserving Syrian sovereignty and “restoring optimism among the Syrian population”.
To ensure its outreach is productive, the international community will need to unite around a clear vision of what it expects from Syria going forward. This will require carrots as well as sticks. The US has already lifted a $10 million bounty on Mr Al Shara’s head (Ms Leaf admitted it would have been “incoherent” for her to meet him otherwise). Lifting Assad-era sanctions on the country could be the next step. It may depend on how quickly Mr Al Shara can assuage fears over Syria’s new leadership.
One way he can do this is to stick to the principles espoused in UN Security Council Resolution 2254, passed in 2015, which calls for Syria to transition to “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, “a schedule and process for drafting a new constitution” and “free and fair elections”. Mr Al Shara has thus far demurred on constitutional questions, but there is no question that Syria’s success will depend on a future framework that is representative, pluralistic and respectful of human rights.
These will be novel features in a country that spent half a century under the iron rule of the Assads. But if Syria can become the kind of country most of its people want, even Mr Al Shara’s apparent transformation will seem truly mundane by comparison.
