A man for all seasons?
How Sharaa must now meet the demands of three competing powers

Interim President Ahmad Sharaa has been spending much of his time doing interviews with a diverse array of media outlets. He spoke to CNN two days before the toppling of Bashar Assad, and then to the BBC a week later. He chose the Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya to conduct his first interview directed at an Arab audience. He provided an interview to A Haber, a Turkish news channel. Most recently he appeared on Syria TV, a Qatar-funded news channel, for his first interview since assuming the presidency. He then went on to be interviewed by The Economist and the British podcast series, The Rest is Politics.

Sharaa’s media blitz is clearly aimed at selling himself to a number of regional and international stakeholders – reflecting the reality that Syria has once again become an arena for great power competition. The Struggle for Syria was Patrick Seale’s first book on the 1946-1958 post-independence period, and its title neatly encapsulates the defining feature of politics in the country before the Baath Party and the Assads created a police state and a strong military that minimised foreign interference. Under Hafiz Assad Syria transitioned from being a theatre for foreign-instigated conspiracies and coups into a closed state that projected hard power influence in the region. That was the theme of Seale’s second book, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. Now, with the dictatorship gone, and with it the significant security and military capacity that granted Syria its regional heavyweight status, Sharaa finds himself heading a country that resembles the Syria of 1946: weak, divided, and once again the playground of competing foreign interests. How he navigates a path forward will depend on how successful he is in meeting the bottom lines of three major players: the West, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Reformed jihadi
Sharaa wants to win the West’s favour. The question that Americans, Europeans, and Israelis are asking is the extent to which Sharaa has ditched his jihadi past and is now the true Syrian patriot he presents himself as. While naysayers may point to his early involvement in assembling IEDs in Mosul in 2004 – something that sticks in the craw of the ex-US servicemen that line the Trump administration – the consensus is that he no longer regards the West as an enemy. In fact, his behaviour since 2018 suggests that he sees the West as an ally against Russia and Iran.

Sharaa’s relationship with the West, however, is likely to remain transactional. He needs the US and the EU to lift sanctions, without which his grand economic plans will never see the light of day. He also needs Western money and know-how to rebuild Syria’s decrepit infrastructure. Siemens, the German multinational, will be key to restoring electricity, while the return of Total, Suncor, and Petrofac among others will be crucial to boosting oil and gas production. Being open to business in a free market environment is a good way to win friends in the West; but without the permanent lifting of sanctions (and time-limited exemptions are not enough), long-term investment will be unlikely.

For that to happen, Syria must comply with Western demands on the permanent decommissioning of weapons of mass destruction. Syria also needs to be a fully paid up member of the War on Terror, and that means total defeat of Islamic State and (more dangerously) standing up to the extremists and foreign fighters within HTS ranks. The West would also like a ‘soft landing’ for the Kurds, and that means a deal with the SDF that is not likely to go down well in Ankara. The matter of Russian bases on Syrian soil will need to be settled in a manner conducive to Western interests. No less important is his commitment to the security of Israel, which will require him to open negotiations on a permanent peace deal and to take in Palestinians from Gaza and Lebanon. Finally, Europe wants a reliable partner in Damascus to close people smuggling routes and to facilitate refugee return.

Where doubts may persist is on the Syrian president’s so-far undefined attitudes to equal citizenship, minority protections, and democratic rights. While these may be seen in Damascus as cultural preferences that are not necessarily dealbreakers for the West – Arab autocrats have got away with much worse – support for them would nevertheless signal a commitment to Western values that would be crucial to win hearts as well as minds. Being the man who established a democracy in Syria would win Sharaa plaudits in Washington and Brussels, but might not go down so well in Arab capitals. 

Tribal leader
Sharaa wants to be Saudi Arabia’s closest friend. To that end, he chose Riyadh for his first foreign visit. This may have been sensible given that he desperately needs Gulf Arab cash, but there is more to it than that. Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) has undergone a massive process of modernisation, part-and-parcel of which has been an end to the policy of handouts to unreliable allies that was pursued by previous administrations. The kingdom is now much more canny in the way that it picks winners – the experience with president Abdelfatah al-Sisi of Egypt offers a lesson in how not to do things. The leadership in Riyadh needs to be sure that Sharaa is first and foremost their man. 

Helping his cause is the fact that Sharaa is Syria’s first truly Sunni Arab president. The country has seen Sunni presidents before (Shukri al-Quwatli, Sami al-Hinawi, Adib Shishakli, Hashim Attasi), but all were of Turkish or Kurdish, rather than Arab, origin. The Sharaa family, in contrast, is of properly Arab stock, hailing from the large Annaza tribal confederation to which the Al Sauds also belong. This may not seem particularly important to outsiders, but it is to a tribal monarchy like Saudi Arabia. The last time Riyadh decided to support a candidate to unseat Assad, in 2013, it backed Ahmad Jarba to lead the Syrian Opposition Coalition. It was no coincidence that he was from the leading family of the Shammar tribe to which the then Saudi king’s mother belonged.

Then there is the matter of “strategic depth.” Saudi Arabia was deeply concerned with Iran’s capture of Syria and its implications for its own national security. Sharaa’s triumph meant an end to Iran’s Levantine project and Syria’s return to the Arab fold. In concrete terms this means that Syria’s planned small but professional and well-motivated army will be Saudi Arabia’s advance guard against threats from its north and could also help deal with threats from its south. The blitzkrieg that unseated Assad could become the blueprint for unseating the Houthis in Yemen, and Sharaa’s men could even assist in such a venture. Beyond immediate threats, the Saudi monarchy has never quite relinquished its expansionist ambitions northwards, which were only halted by the British-engineered creation of the Hashemite kingdoms of Jordan and Iraq in the 1920s. While establishing formal suzerainty over Syria is unlikely, an indirect tutelage mediated by Sharaa might be the price for financial support on the scale needed to rebuild Syria; and with Syria in his pocket, MBS can claim to be “King of the Arabs.”  

This, however, implies a limited likelihood of a true democracy emerging in Syria. The Saudis are not fans of unpredictable change, including the election of a Muslim Brotherhood government in Damascus. They would want to see distance from Turkey, a conducive business environment for large-scale investment, and a commitment to remaining in lockstep with MBS on regional and international affairs. They would also require a truly “modern” approach to governance: more secular technocrats and businessmen in ministerial posts and fewer men with long beards and shady pasts.

The prize for Sharaa will not only be money but also a good reference from President Trump: crucial for his full normalisation.   

Ottoman governor
Sharaa needs the protection of Turkey. Since 2020 NATO’s second-largest army had shielded the HTS fiefdom in Idlib, and Ankara’s political, military, and intelligence support was vital for the success of the November offensive that swept Sharaa into power. It now feels that it’s owed a large debt of gratitude. In return for Turkey ensuring Syria’s security and territorial integrity – and it is the only regional power able and willing so to do – Syria’s new president will need to deliver on certain demands. 

Top of the list is Turkish military bases in the Syrian desert, east of Homs. They are likely to host up to 50 F-16s and assorted drones and air defence systems. Ankara sees such bases as crucial to enable Erdogan to convince Trump to withdraw US forces from Syria by pledging to defeat Islamic State without continued reliance on the SDF. Bereft of an air force, Damascus would meanwhile rely on Turkey to protect its skies and deter aggression by, among others, Iran and Israel.

Turkey has also asked to train Syria’s nascent army. This is not something new: the Syrian National Army has been trained and equipped by the Turks for years, and it is likely to account for about half of the new army’s intake. Nevertheless, training by Turkish army officers will create the sorts of institutional linkages with the Syrian officer corps that Sharaa would likely view with some suspicion. Announcements from Damascus about a “better offer” from Jordan to train the army has incensed officials in Ankara, who are adamant that Syria’s military be modelled on theirs in structure and doctrine.

Economically, Turkey has asked that its products be allowed to enter Syria tariff-free. It has asked that the electricity sector be dominated by Turkish companies working under long-term concession agreements, and that Turkish construction companies receive preferential treatment in contract awards by the UN and Gulf donors. Ankara also wants Syria to sign a maritime demarcation agreement tied to oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean.

Politically, Turkey would like Syria to have a largely secular constitution and a multi-party system that would allow meaningful representation for Turkmens and – crucially – Kurds, the latter in lieu of any separatist aspirations. This does not mean that Ankara wants a perfect democracy. Rather, it wants just enough democracy to allow the installation of its client politicians. Ankara would meanwhile expect Sharaa to model himself on Erdogan by establishing an AKP-like broad-based, mildly Islamist-nationalist, pro-free market political party that mainly campaigned on service delivery and bread-and-butter issues.

Administratively, Ankara would like to see the local governance geography of the future Syrian state resemble its own, which embraces 81 provinces centred on cities or large towns. Replacement of Syria’s present large and unwieldy governorates by smaller administrative units would allow a degree of decentralisation that could allay minority fears of Sunni Arab subjugation. It would also grant flexibility on the culture war issues of most concern to ethnic and religious minorities: policing, language, dress code and alcohol.

Maintaining an illusion
Ahmad Sharaa’s success will hinge on his ability to be a man for all seasons in deeds as well as words – and he has no time to lose. His honeymoon period is coming to an end and he will be expected to deliver on the promises made to the powers that enabled him to capture power. To win the West’s favour, he must deliver on inclusivity and economic opportunities while bending to its security demands. For Saudi Arabia, he must be a loyal Arab ally, offering strategic depth and alignment with its regional ambitions. Turkey, meanwhile, expects military and economic concessions and a multi-party system conducive to Turkish influence. Sharaa’s challenge is to manage these competing demands without losing control at home. His survival depends on being the ultimate pragmatist: playing off rival powers while maintaining an illusion of sovereignty. In Syria’s current chaos, this may be the only viable route to stability, but it will come at the cost of true independence and democracy. If he can pull it off, Syria might just avoid becoming another failed state ripe for partition.