On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is going to meet with the Syrian Foreign Minister on Thursday in Turkey.
President Trump will greet Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Riyadh tomorrow.
My favorite quote from the article:
Trump will talk to anyone who sincerely wants to talk to him. It’s like his magic power.
Ahmed Al Sharaa has been serving as President of Syria since January of this year. He is from a Sunni Muslim family.
The article notes that he has not been an exemplary leader so far:
By the beginning of March, it was pretty clear a jihadi leader now using his given name – Ahmed Al Sharaa – in a $4000 suit was still a jihadi at heart. Al-Sharaa’s boys were having themselves the rampaging adventures of a lifetime, systematically exterminating Druze and Alawite communities all over northern Syria with impunity. Oh – and trying to find the five or six Jews left in the country.
We haven’t heard much out of the area since, except for reports that detail American and Israeli strikes on targets in the area. Most associated with the ongoing cat and mouse game the Houthis had been playing and the assorted Iranian militias supporting them, who operate freely all through the southern portion of Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, as President Trump noted during his speech in Saudi Arabia today.
I applaud President Trump providing an avenue for Al-Sharaa to reform, but I am skepticall. Any time you are dealing with an Islamist, you need to consider the Islamic concept of taqiyya. This is a concept in Islamic law that translates as “deceit or dissimulation,” particularly toward infidels. It is generally described as lying for the sake of Islam.
However, there may be some possible rewards for making nice to Syria.
To quote Shaun Maguire on X:
This also helps keep Turkey on the spot because, should Al-Sharaa start to see the fruits of cooperation with the US pay off and Syria begins to rise from the dead, he becomes a hero, and there’s nothing more these egotists love than being loved. He won’t let Erdogan interfere with that, whatever he owes him.
The other is the pressure from Saudi Arabia on Syria now. They facilitated this come to Trump moment. The crown prince would take it ill if the jihadi reappeared after making a public spectacle of the Saudis’ belief that he was worth cultivating and his country worth saving.
The Saudis do not take embarrassment lightly.
This is going to be interesting to watch. It would be wonderful to see the Middle East break out in peace.