The image is surreal. Ahmed al-Sharaa — once Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the battle-scarred commander of al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot — now steps onto the South Lawn of the White House, not in shackles but in a tailored suit, welcomed as a head of state. The same man who once carried a $10 million U.S. bounty is now photographed shaking hands with President Donald Trump beneath the American flag.
For years, Sharaa was the face of militancy in the Levant — the elusive insurgent who fought U.S. forces in Iraq, ruled Idlib through Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and evaded drones that hunted him across Syria’s mountains. In Washington’s lexicon, he was a terrorist. Now, in 2025, he is Syria’s transitional president, celebrated as the man who ended Bashar al-Assad’s dynastic regime and promised to rebuild a shattered nation.
Trump’s embrace of Sharaa marks one of the most astonishing diplomatic reversals in modern Middle Eastern history. What began as a clandestine meeting in Riyadh has culminated in a formal state visit — the first by any Syrian leader to the White House. The U.S. Treasury has lifted sanctions, the United Nations has recognised the transitional government, and American energy firms have begun drafting contracts to enter Syria’s oil and reconstruction markets.
Behind the rhetoric of peace, however, lies a web of pragmatic ambition. Trump’s Middle East doctrine — transactional, selective, and profit-oriented — sees opportunity where predecessors saw quagmires. The president’s new General License 25 allows U.S. corporations to legally participate in rebuilding Syria’s energy and infrastructure sectors. It reframes Washington’s role: not as a military occupier but as an economic stakeholder.
Reconstruction is the new battleground. The oil fields of Deir ez-Zor, once contested by ISIS and U.S.-backed Kurdish militias, are now the entry point for American and Gulf capital. Billions in tenders for pipelines, refineries, and ports are in motion. For Trump, it is a way to convert war into wealth, diplomacy into deal-making. Syria becomes not a burden, but a business — and Sharaa, its gatekeeper.
Critics inside Washington are uneasy. To rehabilitate a man once branded a terrorist, they argue, is to gamble on moral amnesia. Old intelligence files describe atrocities and hard-line decrees. Yet the administration insists the “new” Sharaa is pragmatic, Western-educated, and determined to cleanse Syria of both Iranian militias and Russian influence. Trump’s aides call it “strategic redemption” — converting a former foe into a future partner.
The geopolitical implications are profound. By recognising Sharaa, the U.S. undercuts Moscow’s and Tehran’s foothold in Damascus, opening a corridor of influence stretching from Jerusalem to the Gulf. Trump’s calculus is clear: if Assad’s Syria was a Russian satellite, Sharaa’s Syria could be an American client state — one rebuilt with Western funds and tied to Washington’s oil interests.
The boldest piece of the puzzle is yet to come. According to senior officials, Trump wants Syria to join the Abraham Accords, normalising ties with Israel in exchange for reconstruction aid and security guarantees. Such a move would have been unimaginable a decade ago — a onetime jihadist leader signing a peace with Tel Aviv under U.S. mediation. It would redraw the moral map of the Middle East.
Skeptics call it dangerous theatre, warning that Trump is legitimising a militant past for short-term political and economic gain. Supporters hail it as realpolitik at its purest — a demonstration that power, not purity, drives diplomacy.
Whether history will record Trump as a visionary who re-engineered the Middle East or as a gambler who mortgaged principles for profit remains uncertain. But his message is unmistakable: America’s enemies are only enemies until they become useful — and in the calculus of “America First,” even the ghosts of the war on terror can be rebranded as partners in peace.
