Syria's new ruler is politically astute

When I left London about two weeks ago after a rebel coalition captured Aleppo – a stunning victory that pales in comparison to what followed – I thought I would cover a shooting war.

The group known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham was sweeping away everything in front of it, but I assumed the regime would fight, because it had not stopped as it was losing ground in the years before the Russians intervened in 2015 to bomb Syria. Syrian cities and villages are in ruins.

Nearly a decade later, it is clear that Bashar al-Assad's Russian, Iranian, and Lebanese allies have other wars to think about.

But while the regime struggled with unwilling recruits, it could always find Syrians willing to fight and die for it, even at the height of the war after 2011, when rebels controlled much of Damascus beyond the city center and the road to Beirut.

I have visited these men on the front lines many times.

Many of the most effective units were commanded by officers from Assad's Alawite sect.

In Aleppo, around 2015, an Alawite general handed out cups of perfectly distilled arak, poured from bottles that once held Jack Daniels.

He proudly said that arak, a spirit made from anise that is popular throughout the Middle East, came from the Assad family's birthplace in the hills behind the port of Latakia. Outside, his unit was bombing the rebel-held eastern side of the city.

Not all of them were Alawites. In Jobar, an area on the outskirts of central Damascus, a pro-Assad Christian officer from the Syrian Arab Army took me to the tunnels they had dug under the rubble to attack the rebels.

He recounted how the rebels also had tunnels and how they would sometimes break into each other's tunnels and kill in the dark.

The young man had a tattoo of a cross on his wrist and another hanging around his neck, and spoke of how he had to fight to protect his community from jihadi extremists on the other side.

My hunch about the fighting spirit of the depleted group of Assad loyalists could not be more wrong.

On Saturday, December 7, I went to sleep after hearing the news of the fall of Homs.

By the time I woke up, Bashar al-Assad was on his way to Russia, and rebel fighters were celebrating in the streets of Damascus.

They fired bullets into the air more in celebration than in anger at Assad loyalists, who were running for their lives.

I saw hundreds of cars lining up to leave at the border with Lebanon, full of disaffected, defeated men and frightened families.

The ordinary soldiers threw away their uniforms and weapons without firing a shot and returned to their homes.

The Assad regime has collapsed, hollowed out by corruption, cruelty and brutal contempt for Syrian lives. Even the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs did not fight for him.

That's why, on Thursday evening this week, instead of taking cover from shells and bullets in some frozen street in Homs or Hama, as I expected, I walked through the marble halls of the presidential palace in Damascus with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Syrian president. De facto leader.

He ditched his military uniform and replaced his wartime alias, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, with his real name.

Many Syrians doubt his claim that he has also replaced his old jihadist beliefs with a more tolerant form of Syrian religious nationalism.

It is true that he broke away from Al-Qaeda in 2016, after a long career as a jihadist fighter in Iraq and Syria. But as I found in Assad's palace, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a tall, quiet man in his early forties, is reluctant to go into too much detail about the Syria he wants.

He seems to be very intelligent and politically astute. Like many intelligent politicians, he often does not provide a direct answer to a direct question.

He denied that he wanted Syria to become a Middle Eastern Afghanistan.

He added that the Taliban ruled “a tribal society. As for Syria, it is completely different.” Syria's new rulers must respect its culture and history.

When I asked him whether women would enjoy the freedoms they expected here, he said that 60% of students at universities in Idlib, his power base, were female.

But he tried not to answer the question about imposing the hijab – the Islamic dress – on women.

Damascus is full of rumors of bearded men from Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham ordering women to cover their hair.

I noted that there was a huge uproar on social media after a woman asked to take a selfie with him and then lifted her head covering when she took the photo.

Conservatives criticized Al-Sharaa for agreeing to take photos with a woman who was not from his family. Liberals saw her headdress as a dark omen for Syria's future.

If he became angry at the question, he did not show it.

“I didn't force it. But it's my personal freedom. I want my photos to be taken the way that suits me. I didn't force it. It's not like there's a law about this that applies to all parts of the country. But there is a culture in this country that the law should recognize.”

Al-Sharaa was referring to the fact that many Syrians are religious, and not just in the Sunni Muslim majority.

Many women wear the hijab. The important point, secular Syrians say, is to be able to choose.

During Assad's half-century of rule, Syrians developed survival strategies that often included hiding their feelings and doing what was expected of them.

Shocked and nervous secular Syrians showed me videos on their phones of mass prayers outside universities when students returned last Sunday.

Is it true piety, they asked, or are the young people doing what they are told because that is how it has been here all their lives?

Al-Sharaa said that the entire matter will depend on the new constitution, which will be decided by a committee of legal experts.

Shara's critics will point out that, under the current circumstances, he is choosing who will join the committee that he says will write new laws as well as a new constitution.

Ahmed Al-Sharaa wanted to talk more about the old regime’s oppression of the people.

“Syrian problems are much bigger than the issues you are asking about. Half of the population of Syria has been expelled or forcibly displaced from their homes.

“They have been targeted with barrel bombs, unguided stupid bombs, and more than 250 chemical attacks. Many Syrians have drowned at sea while trying to escape to Europe.”

He realized that Syria had no chance to begin to stabilize and rebuild if sanctions were not lifted.

The sanctions were originally targeting the Assad regime. To retain it, he said, would mean treating the victim the same as the persecutor.

He denied that the group he leads was a terrorist organization, which is the position of the United Nations and most of the most powerful countries in the world at the present time.

Visits by foreign diplomats indicate that changing sanctions and terrorist lists may be possible.

He was dismissive when I pointed out that I knew diplomats had told him that changing this situation would depend on proving that he was keeping his promise to respect minority rights and run an inclusive political process.

“What matters to me is that the Syrian people believe me. We promised the Syrian people to liberate them from this criminal regime and we did that. This is what matters to me first and foremost.

“I don't care much about what is said about us abroad. I don't have to prove to the world that we are working seriously to achieve the interests of our people in Syria.”

Over the past two weeks, I have heard many Syrians say they want to be left alone to try to rebuild their country.

This seems like a pipe dream.

The war has destroyed much of the country, but it has also sapped Syria's sovereignty.

Bashar al-Assad became an agent of Iran and Russia and fled the country when it stopped supporting him.

The United States is present in the northeast to pursue the remnants of ISIS and to protect its Kurdish allies.

Türkiye controls much of the northwest and has its own Arab-led militia.

There are indications that the Turks, who have a close relationship with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, are preparing for a renewed attack on the Syrian Kurds who have a close relationship with Kurdish separatists inside Türkiye.

Israel, still as aggressive as it has been for many years, openly exploited the power vacuum it saw in Syria.

It continues to bomb the remnants of the state's military infrastructure and seize more Syrian territory to add to the Golan Heights, which it has occupied since 1967.

The Israelis, as always, justify their actions as self-defense.

The UN special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, told me that Israel's actions were “irresponsible.” He said that Israel should not act in a way that could “destabilize this very fragile transitional process.”

Ahmed Al-Sharaa realizes that he cannot stand in the face of Israeli power supported by the United States.

“Syria is exhausted from war, regardless of whether Israel is strong or not. Syria needs to become stronger and more developed. We do not have any aggressive plans against Israel. Syria will not pose a threat to Israel or anyone else.”

Ahmed Al-Shara's agenda is packed.

Syria is a broken country that he says he wants to repair and revive, and full of challenges that may make his mission impossible.

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham is not the only armed group in Syria, and there are those who want to destroy its nascent administration. Enemies of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham in the ISIS network may attempt to launch destabilizing attacks.

Syrians' desire for revenge against Assad's killers – and the former president himself – could explode into devastating public anger if Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham cannot prove that it is bringing to justice the men who have kept their boots on the necks of Syrians for so long.

Ahmed Al-Sharaa, rightly, sees Syria as a fulcrum in the heart of the Middle East.

He added: “Syria is an important country with a strategic location and very influential in the world. Look at how America is present there on the one hand and Russia on the other hand and regional countries such as Turkey, Iran and Israel as well.”

He says this is why the outside world must help Syria recover.

This is also why powerful countries may not allow this to happen.