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Once President-elect Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office on 20 January, his administration will need to make critical decisions concerning Syria.

How Trump’s team navigates the war-torn country’s delicate transition into the post-Assad era will have profound repercussions. The foreign policy of Trump 2.0 in relation to Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led government will require complicated assessments and difficult risk calculations.

HTS is the faction which led the coalition of rebel forces that toppled Bashar Al-Assad’s government earlier this month and is now in charge of the new Syrian government.

For years, HTS had ruled most of Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib through a de facto government, the , which lacked international recognition but proved capable of governance in a quasi-state entity squeezed between Syrian regime-ruled land and Turkey’s Hatay province.

HTS has its roots as Syria’s al-Qaeda offshoot, Jabhat al-Nusra. In December 2012, the US Department of State Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organisation, six months before its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa (a.k.a. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani), on the “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” list.

HTS has spent years seeking to present itself as legitimate and moderate in the eyes of the West and the rest of the international community. To do so, HTS went to pains to distance itself from al-Qaeda.

In July 2016, Jabhat al-Nusra its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS). Then, in January 2017, JFS with four other entities - Harakat Nur al-Din Al Zanki, Liwa al-Haqq, Ansar al-Din, and Jaysh al-Sunnah - to form HTS. Despite such rebranding efforts, the US government saw no reason to view JFS and later HTS as anything other than terrorist entities. In May 2017, Washington put a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa’s head.

Yet, al-Sharaa was never truly a target in Washington’s 'war on terror'. He operated out in the open in Idlib and the US made no efforts to capture or kill him, which would have been easy with all the US drones flying over that part of Syria. Nonetheless, the US government ignored HTS’s previous requests for Washington’s support in its struggles against the Assad government and Islamic State (IS).

But today al-Sharaa is Syria’s de facto head of state. The former al-Qaeda leader - whose rise through militancy ranks began in 2003 when battling American troops occupying Iraq, and who was at one point by the US military at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq - has essentially established himself as a Syrian leader whom Washington has no choice but to work with in one way or another.

In a highly pragmatic manner, the outgoing administration started engaging with al-Sharaa despite Washington having not yet de-listed HTS as a terrorist organisation. Twelve days after Assad fled to Russia, the US sent a delegation, led by Barbara Leaf, the senior State Department official for the Middle East, to Damascus for talks with Syria’s rebels-turned-rulers.

In the Syrian capital, Leaf told al-Sharaa that the US had lifted the $10 million bounty that had been on him for the past seven and a half years. She described her discussion with al-Sharaa as “good” and “thorough”. Leaf explained how she had “heard him on his priorities, which are very much rooted in getting Syria on the road to economic recovery”.

While characterising Syria’s de facto leader and his statements on issues such as the rights of women and minorities as “pragmatic” and “moderate”, the US diplomat stressed that Washington “will judge by deeds, not just by words”.

Leaf engaged al-Sharaa in a somewhat cautious manner when she led the US delegation to Damascus. “It is noteworthy that Ambassador Leaf was careful not to offer Mr Sharaa a photo opportunity and chose not to hold a press conference after their meeting,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told ������. “Mr Sharaa will have to deliver if he has any expectations from Washington.”

Although HTS currently governs Damascus and all the other major Syrian cities, much of the country’s land remains outside of its control. It is far from clear whether HTS will end up governing all of Syria and, if it does, there are many unknowns about how it would do so. After all, governing Idlib was one thing, but ruling all of Syria will be far more challenging.

A big question is, how will the new authorities in Damascus deal with the situation in northeastern Syria?

In this hydrocarbon-rich part of Syria, there is a US military presence propping up the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - dominated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-linked Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG). This group has been governing northeastern Syria since early on in the Syrian war, when regime forces left the country’s northeast.  

The HTS-led administration in Damascus is currently engaged with the SDF in talks about integrating the YPG-dominated group into Syria’s national armed forces. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen where such talks lead.

Members of the YPG have expressed how terrified they are of the idea of living under Sunni Islamist rule. The extent to which Ankara is set to have influence over Syria’s post-Assad government is another factor to consider, especially mindful of the fact that Turkey’s government and HTS might not necessarily always be on the same page regarding YPG-related issues.

“The US relationship with its Kurdish partner forces in northeastern Syria will be tested in 2025. It’s uncertain whether it will survive next year. Turkey will pile on pressure by helping its Syrian client factions grab territory and threatening to invade, and Donald Trump’s commitment to staying in Syria is uncertain at best,” noted Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International and Middle East analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (who is not voicing institutional views), in an interview with TNA.

Then there are questions about the Alawites suspected of being Assad loyalists. Recent in Homs, Jableh, Latakia, Tartous, and Qardaha speak to the significant anxiety among Syria’s Alawites. Given the history of Alawites serving in the upper echelons of the Assad regime, many from this minority community fear revenge attacks in this upcoming period.

Alawite-led demonstrations picked up after video footage of an attack on an important Alawite shrine in Aleppo’s Maysaloon district began circulating. Many in Syria and outside the country are pointing their fingers at Iran, accusing the Islamic Republic of dangerously stoking sectarianism.

Irrespective of Tehran’s actual role in this anxiety among Syrian Alawites, it is safe to assume that sectarian temperatures will likely remain high as this delicate transition continues moving forward. How the HTS-dominated government will deal with such tensions will be important to observe.

Nonetheless, a possible rise of Shia/Alawite militancy and a growing desire by some to carve out an Alawite-ruled statelet on Syria’s Mediterranean coast could constitute a grave challenge to the new authorities in Damascus who seek to thwart Syria’s Balkanisation.

Furthermore, despite the diverse rebel groups involved in the HTS-led offensive being united in their quest to oust Assad’s regime, it remains to be seen whether HTS will consolidate its power over these various factions if infighting among them breaks out due to ideological and political sources of tension.

Although HTS’s leadership has shown itself to be pragmatic in its quest to avoid resistance from minority groups and to secure international “legitimacy”, there are elements within HTS that stand against moves toward moderation. Whether al-Sharaa will be able to rein in those more hardline and ideologically extreme figures will have an impact on HTS’s ability to consolidate power.

All of this is to say, whether HTS can establish a functional government in post-Assad Syria is far from guaranteed. If HTS fails on this front, countless potential scenarios could unfold.

The Trump variable

Considering Trump’s unpredictability, any discussion about how his second administration will guide Washington’s foreign policy vis-à-vis post-Assad Syria requires speculation.

“So much depends on Donald Trump’s personal opinions and on what will happen in Syria. Unknown factor meets unknown factor,” Lund told TNA.

“Trump’s personal opinions on Syria are vague, at best. He dislikes Islamists and wars in the Middle East, but he also wants to crush terrorism and look tough. In practice, much will probably depend on events in the region and on the views inside his administration,” he added.

Looking back on US foreign policy toward Syria in the 2017-21 period, Trump’s record is dysfunctional, incoherent, and messy.

“During Trump’s first presidency, US policy tended to be shaped by hawkish middle management types, operating without much presidential oversight. But then Trump would occasionally notice that policy had taken a course he didn’t like, and then he would throw things off track with sudden orders to bring US troops home or cut aid,” noted Lund.

“And then those orders bogged down amid general inertia and internal bureaucratic resistance, leading to a lot of dysfunctional, halfway outcomes.”

A Turkish-Israeli clash?

Tensions between Turkey and Israel vis-à-vis Syria stand a good chance of heating up in 2025. If Ankara and Tel Aviv’s Syria-related conflicts of interest become a bigger issue, that could create major challenges for the new Syrian government, which seems determined to avoid being dragged into any conflict involving Israel or any other neighbouring country.

For al-Sharaa and those around him, the focus is on state-building. In practice, this requires gaining international legitimacy, achieving stability at home, and luring investment from abroad. If post-Assad Syria is a place where foreign countries duke it out among each other, the prospects for security, peace, and growth will be extremely dim.

“Indirectly, Turkey now has a border with Israel,” explained Dr Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, in a TNA interview. “Syria is on its back and must focus on rebuilding. [Al-Sharaa] is unlikely to want to tangle with Israel anytime soon, although Israel's new land grab could force him to take a more bellicose attitude toward Israel,” he added.

Erdogan’s government could help post-Assad Syria build up its military to deter Israeli aggression. However, Dr Landis believes that would be “a long way off”.

Lund holds that the extent to which HTS manages to consolidate its power will significantly impact the trajectory of Turkish-Israeli tensions in relation to post-Assad Syria.

“If Syria crumbles into militia fiefdoms and proxy battles in 2025, Turkey and Israel will respond differently to that. If HTS manages to extend its writ across much of Syria, creating a Turkey-aligned regime next to Israel, that will set the scene for a different kind of rivalry,” he told TNA.

“Both scenarios could see Turkey and Israel at loggerheads. We could also see rivalry interspersed with pragmatic cooperation. Israel could seek Turkey’s help in handling HTS and Turkey will want to restrain Israeli incursions,” added Lund.

At a fundamental level, he sees both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “realists” with records of “working with competitors when possible, pushing with one hand and pulling with the other”. Erdogan and Netanyahu’s unique relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin are examples which demonstrate Lund’s point.

Escalating Turkish-Israeli tensions over Syria’s future could be a major challenge that the incoming administration would have to address next year. Although such friction between Ankara and Tel Aviv may play out in mostly political and diplomatic ways, a potential military confrontation can’t be entirely ruled out.

That scenario would constitute a crisis for the second Trump administration, which will not want a fellow NATO member and another close US ally clashing with each other in Syria. Mitigating tensions to prevent any such escalation between Ankara and Tel Aviv would be no easy task for Trump 2.0.

De-listing HTS and US sanctions

If HTS consolidates its power and retains its role as the government of the ‘New Syria’, it would be pragmatic for Washington to seek good ties with the administration in Damascus. Securing a workable relationship with HTS, however, would require the US to rescind its terrorist designation of the organisation.

When asked whether the Biden administration’s decision to lift the bounty on al-Sharaa could be interpreted as Washington gradually moving toward a de-listing of HTS, Dr Landis said it was a “minor” step in that direction, yet an “important” move, nonetheless.

Lund reads the bounty’s removal as being “probably partly intended to make the situation less embarrassing for US diplomats”. For Washington to send Leaf to Damascus to meet with al-Sharaa in his office while at the same time offering a multi-million-dollar reward for information on the individual’s whereabouts “seemed a bit silly”, he told TNA.

“But it was probably also partly intended as a signal that the United States is ready to lift sanctions and remove HTS’s terrorism designation, under the right circumstances,” offered Lund.

With al-Sharaa declaring that HTS will be dissolved, this move might offer a way for Syria’s post-Assad government to work around this terror listing issue.

The first Trump administration implemented the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (a.k.a. the Caesar Act), a series of crippling sanctions on Syria that remains in place today. Although these sanctions were officially imposed to go after the Assad government, Washington has yet to lift the Caesar Act even after Assad’s ouster this month.

In fact, on 23 December, President Biden signed a $895 billion Pentagon policy bill which includes the renewal of these sanctions on Syria for an additional five years.

For now, the HTS-led administration in Syria remains subject to all of the US sanctions that Washington imposed on Assad’s regime with the Caesar Act prohibiting reconstruction of parts of the country under the control of the “Government of Syria” ( the Assad government) where “civilians have been subject to forced displacement”.

For Syrians to have any success in rebuilding their country following a gruesome civil war, relief from Washington’s sanctions will be necessary. If the Caesar Act continues choking Syria’s economy, the country will not have a shot at reconstruction and redevelopment in the post-Assad period.

In a recent interview with Al Arabiya, al-Sharaa his hope that Trump’s incoming administration will “not follow the policy of its predecessor” in terms of keeping sanctions on Syria.

US lawmakers like Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who were proponents of the Caesar Act during Assad’s reign, now for Washington to end these sanctions.

A host of activists, analysts, and other policymakers agree with Wilson. “Not considering sanctions relief right now is like pulling the rug out from under Syria just when it’s trying to stand,” the International Crisis Group’s Delaney Simon. “I can’t overemphasise the intensity of the effect of the sanctions on the Syrian economy,” she added.

Whether Trump will heed such advice is unclear. Nonetheless, this will be a vital decision that he will need to make early on in his second term - one with profound implications for Syria’s impoverished population.

Some analysts conclude that this will come down to how the Trump administration perceives the new Syrian government’s conduct in this upcoming period.

“The Biden administration’s decision to suspend the USD 10 million reward for Ahmad al-Sharaa was necessary for Assistant Secretary Leaf to meet with him. However, any further lifting of sanctions will be based on actions taken by the new rulers of Damascus and staggered,” Maksad told TNA.

Withdrawing US forces?

Another important question is, will Trump’s second administration pull the US military out of Syria? During his first term, on several occasions, Trump boldly declared his plans to do so. Yet, no such withdrawal ever occurred. However, some experts expect Trump to wind down the presence of US forces in Syria this time around.

On 22 December, Mike Waltz, whom Trump has selected to serve as his national security adviser, stated that US troops should not stay in Syria. In Waltz’s , “We do not need American boots running around Syria in any way, shape or form”.

Dr Landis believes that Washington’s counterterrorism concerns in Syria, specifically regarding the Islamic State’s remnants, will inform the Trump administration’s decision regarding a potential US military withdrawal.

“I expect that President Trump will want to prepare to withdraw from Syria - of course he will have to make sure that the [Islamic State] situation can be taken care of by [al-Sharaa],” he told TNA.

“The US’s justification for being in Syria is to fight the War on Terror. Once [al-Sharaa] can provide assurances that Syria has the capability to fight [the Islamic State], which he has done before, the US will have no legal standing in Syria," explained Dr Landis. 

"There is also no reason for the US to hold Syria’s oil wells. Also, the Syrian government is the only entity that has jurisdiction to try the [Islamic State] prisoners.”

Looking ahead, divisions within the second Trump administration are likely to heavily impact how the incoming president handles post-Assad Syria.

“It is difficult to predict US foreign policy towards Syria under a Trump administration given that there are two competing camps within Trump’s team - one deeply isolationist that will want to withdraw US troops and mend fences with Turkey over support to the Kurds," Maksad told TNA. 

"And another that will want to remain to fight the [remnants] of Islamic State and project American power in the Levant,” he added.

“Trump’s own instinct will be to withdraw, but the president’s style is to encourage internal debate before making his decisions.”

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics

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