May 15, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent meeting with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, marked a pivotal moment in Middle East politics and symbolized the emergence of a new world order. The historic photographs released on Wednesday captured a scene unthinkable just months ago—Trump, once a staunch opponent of Sharaa due to his past connections to terrorism, now shaking his hand as a legitimate head of state. Syrians celebrated the announcement late into the night after Trump vowed to work toward ending U.S. sanctions on the country. Remarkably, Sharaa had only entered Damascus with his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham forces on December 8, 2024—just five months prior—and had been carrying a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head at the time. That bounty was quickly canceled by Washington, yet there was still uncertainty about whether diplomatic ties would form. While European nations moved faster, with Sharaa visiting France first, his meeting with Trump now confirms that the United States is back at the table in Syria.
The symbolism of the Trump-Sharaa meeting goes far beyond diplomacy—it represents a closure of the era launched by George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror. Sharaa, once imprisoned by the U.S. at Camp Bucca for fighting against the Iraq occupation in the mid-2000s, later returned to Syria in 2011 to battle Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Though once tied to al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sharaa gradually distanced himself from those links. His rise to power is also deeply rooted in the legacy of the Arab Spring, a wave of uprisings that began in 2011 and eventually spiraled into civil wars and extremist chaos across the region. Today, as Sharaa meets with U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and seeks to unify eastern Syria with Damascus, the war against ISIS appears to be ending. The SDF, once a key U.S. ally in defeating ISIS, may now hand off the final chapter of that war to a newly stabilized Syrian state. The Trump-Sharaa meeting serves as a powerful symbol of that transition.
This event also reflects broader global shifts. Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia reinforces that U.S. priorities have moved away from traditional Western allies and toward the Middle East and Asia. With China’s growing influence—including its support of Pakistan and ties with Iran—regional powers are pivoting toward economic alliances like BRICS and the SCO. Trump’s “America First” stance echoes this changing reality: he rejects the failed nation-building strategies of the past and instead praises the organic growth of regional powers. He openly criticized previous Western interventions, saying the Middle East’s progress was achieved not by neocons or nonprofits, but by the people of the region themselves. The meeting with Sharaa, then, is more than diplomatic—it’s a statement that the U.S. is exiting the business of lecturing and restructuring foreign nations. Trump is embracing a hands-off approach that acknowledges Syria’s sovereignty, signaling a bold endorsement of a multipolar world where each nation charts its own course.
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SOURCE: Jerusalem Post