The Syrian civil war decimated the country. It killed over 600,000 people and displaced more than half the population, with 7 million displaced internally and more than 6 million fleeing into Turkey and Europe.
Syrian President Bashar Assad’s exit resolves one problem. With the conflict frozen, the United Nations and international community had begun discussing Syria’s reconstruction. The problem was that U.N. agencies coordinate with the government in power, and that meant Assad. To channel billions of dollars through Damascus and Assad’s corrupt regime would essentially reward Assad for mass murder. Now, with Assad gone, he can no longer profit from his destruction.
The problem is what comes next. While Washington’s useful idiots attest to the Syrian rebels’ newfound moderation, the Syrian leaders are already showing themselves to be insincere. To President Joe Biden’s credit, he counseled caution about the agenda of Syria’s new leaders. “They’re saying the right things now, but as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words but their actions,” he said.
Rebel leader Abu Muhammad al Jawlani, a former al Qaeda acolyte who reportedly broke with the group in 2016, made his first address to the Syrian people not from the presidential palace or parliament, but rather from the Umayyad Mosque.
Journalists and the pundits to whom they turn to reflect their biases, however, believe the Syrian opposition has turned away from its radical past. Rebel leader Abu Muhammad al Jawlani, a former al Qaeda acolyte who reportedly broke with the group in 2016, made his first address to the Syrian people not from the presidential palace or parliament, but rather from the Umayyad Mosque, highlighting the religious overtones of his agenda and mirroring the pronouncement the Islamic State’s would-be caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi made in Mosul a decade ago. It gets worse. While some English-speaking insurgents said they bore Israel no harm, on Dec. 8, after Hay’at Tahrir al Sham entered the Umayyad Mosque, the group’s fighters declared, “Allah willing, we will enter the Al Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem], the Prophet’s Mosque [in Medina], and the Kaaba [in Mecca].”
Jawlani can gain a great deal from immediate pragmatism. Not only can he win widespread recognition as leader of a transitional or even permanent new government but he can also then leverage that into control over how perhaps 10 billion dollars in international aid get spent. As he follows the Turkey playbook, this means diverting contracts to business associated with himself, his fellow jihadists, or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will expect payback for his backing.
The pendulum then swings far to the other direction. No longer does the United States need to worry about money flowing into the coffers of Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran, but now it needs to worry about billions of dollars indirectly enriching militants mirroring if not directly loyal to al Qaeda. Biden faced this test before and failed when he greenlighted channeling billions of dollars in “humanitarian assistance” through the Taliban. His and the United Nations’ bureaucrats explained that was actually Afghanistan’s money. Weaseling out of accountability does not change reality, however. The money paid to Afghanistan benefited the Taliban, but not that country’s women or minorities. Likewise, reconstruction money channeled through once and future extremists will not help Christians, Yezidis, Kurds, other minorities, or Syrian moderates.
The United States can hope Syria will embrace moderation, but President-elect Donald Trump faces his first significant Syria decision. To allow reconstruction aide to flow into Damascus is to enrich those who embraced al Qaeda and now seek an extremist state in the heart of the Middle East.
