Gregor Samsa, the traveling salesman featured in Franz Kafka’s famous book, The Metamorphosis, woke up one day to find that he transformed into a giant insect. The case of Abu Mohammed al Jolani, the new Syrian leader who orchestrated the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, is quite the opposite. From a giant jihadist/Islamist warmonger, thirsty for “heretic” blood, he is trying now under his original name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, to transform into a politician, ecumenical in his vision and his message to the Syrians, Syria’s neighbors, and the world opinion.
To do so, al-Sharaa has thrown away his battle gear, his jihadist keffiyeh, and after a brief hesitation, changed his military uniform into a formal European-like jacket and trousers, a clear sign of the transformation of the jihadist war chief into a moderate western-like politician.
This conversion in his personality raises an eyebrow, especially after having followed his “professional career”: From a disciple of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS and the reborn Caliph, he decided after a while to separate himself from the Islamic State by joining Al-Qaeda to head the Jabhat al Nusrah formation which fought the Syrian regime during the civil war. He gained Russian and Turkish sponsorship to establish himself and his troops in the Idlib enclave located in Syria’s northwestern area bordering Turkey, again under a new creation, Hayat Tahrir el-Sham (HTS), which eventually led the assault against the Assad regime and succeeded in ousting the Syrian ophthalmologist Bashar Assad, turned dictator.
There is no wonder Jolani/Sharaa’s declarations since his victory are under scrutiny since they represent just the opposite of what was expected to hear from a jihadist chief:
- In his first official speech at the Omayyad mosque in Damascus, delivered in military fatigues with no trappings of a jihadist uniform, he spoke about unifying Syria and accepting Syrian sectarian diversity. At the same time, he promised to punish all those responsible for torturing the Syrian people and to dismantle all the security agencies that dealt with the regime’s repression. Later, al-Sharaa declared that he would not accept the presence of armed militias in Syria. He said weapons should remain in the hands of the state and only with the state.
- The different minorities are part of the Syrian reality, and al-Sharaa declared that no harm would be done to any of the minorities. During the campaign, al-Sharaa entered two large Shiite townships and promised that no harm would be done to the Shiites living in Syria. As far as the Kurds were concerned, al-Sharaa said that the Kurds were part of the Syrian homeland, just like the Druze and the Christian communities. Al-Sharaa’s declarations were also echoed by his military commanders who repeated their leader’s message.
- Most interesting is his attitude towards Israel. al-Sharaa has chosen deliberately to ignore the current campaign waged by Israel against the Syrian army’s bases and weapons. He argued that Israel was using false grounds to justify its attacks on Syria but that he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts since he wanted to concentrate on rebuilding Syria.
In an interview with al-Sharaa, the New York Times reported that he criticized the advance of Israel’s military into Syrian territory beyond the disputed Golan Heights and into a buffer zone mandated by the United Nations. He said that Syria would continue to abide by the 1974 agreement that followed the end of the Yom Kippur War and called on the international community to make sure that Israel followed it as well. He argued that Israel no longer needed to hold the buffer demilitarized zone to protect itself because the ousting of the Assad regime had removed the threat from Hizbullah and other Iranian-backed militias.
It is too early at this stage to pronounce a judgment on the colossal transformation undergone by al-Sharaa. It is definitely a change that has to be followed. One could argue that this attitude is meant to portray a moderate regime that has changed its course of action, enough to trigger a decision by the U.S. administration, the European Union, and Arab partners that had boycotted the Assad regime to cancel or alleviate the sanctions voted against Syria. Cancellation of the sanctions would cause the world to consider the “New Syria” safe enough to begin investing and reconstructing the failed economy and services that characterized the former Syrian regime.
On the other hand, and in parallel to this transformation, one should expect from this purported moderate regime repression and heavy no-mercy punishments against the former representatives of the ousted ruling class, including public executions like a case recently in Latakia. No one should forget that the Assad regime and its followers are responsible for the biggest tragedy Syria ever experienced with the death of more than half a million Syrians, five million refugees scattered in the Middle East and Europe, and millions of displaced persons within Syria.
