The meeting with Sharaa symbolizes how the US is getting out of the business of “giving lectures” to others.
US President Donald Trump met the new Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa. The photos from this historic moment that surfaced on Wednesday symbolized that a new world order is emerging.
This is a major event in the Middle East.
Syrians celebrated throughout the night between Tuesday and Wednesday due to Trump saying that he would work to end sanctions on Syria.
Many people have commented on the rapid turn of events. Sharaa led his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham forces into Damascus on December 8, 2024. It has only been five months since then, and Sharaa is already in Saudi Arabia meeting the US president.
When he first rolled into Damascus, he had a $10 million bounty on his head from the US owing to accusations of his involvement in terrorism in the past.
The US was quick to note in December 2024 that it would cancel the bounty. However, it remained to be seen if Washington would move quickly to establish ties.
European countries moved faster, and Sharaa visited France first, before meeting the American president.
The Trump meeting is symbolic on many levels. It brings to a close a chapter of US president George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror. That war began after 9/11 and saw US troops go to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sharaa went to Iraq to oppose the US occupation there around 2005. He was held at a US-run detention center called Camp Bucca, according to reports.
Eventually, Sharaa was freed in 2011 and returned to Syria to fight against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He had connections to al-Qaeda in Iraq, and his group in Syria was seen as the Syrian branch of this terrorist network.
Sharaa moved to distance himself from al-Qaeda over the years, but one cannot ignore how fascinating it is that he has come so far and bookended this US role in the region.
HIS RISE is also part of the larger process of the Arab Spring. This uprising began in 2011 and saw several Arab nationalist regimes overthrown.
However, what began as hope became a civil war in many places. People began to think of the Arab Spring as spreading chaos and extremism. ISIS fed off this chaos in Syria and Iraq.
Trump-Sharaa meeting seen as a symbol marking the end of the war against ISIS
Today, the new Syria is trying to end the ISIS war completely. Sharaa has met with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces’ leader, Mazloum Abdi, and it looks like eastern Syria will integrate with Damascus.
The US can then leave Syria. America was involved in the anti-ISIS war in Syria, and the SDF was one of the successful ways that the US helped defeat ISIS.
Now, it seems as though the ISIS war is over; the Trump-Sharaa meeting is one symbol of how it ended, with the United States returning to the picture.
What this means is that states like Syria are whole again, not broken up into pieces. The state is back. Stability is returning.
The photograph also indicates that Trump is focused on the Middle East. His first trip abroad, in both terms, was to Saudi Arabia. Many other US presidents may have chosen traditional Five Eyes allies such as the UK or Canada.
Today, the US is focused on the Middle East and Asia. The whole world is more focused on Asia. For instance, Chinese military technology helped Pakistan against India recently.
Pakistan was a former British colony and had been closely linked to the West. Now it works with China.
Iran also collaborates with China. Countries in the Middle East are running to join economic groups such as BRICS and the SCO, which are non-Western economic blocs.
Therefore, Trump’s time in Saudi Arabia is part of the shifting global world order. The US is no longer a hegemonic power. This is a multipolar world.
Trump agrees with these changes. Although he wants to make America great at home, his “America first” approach also means the US rejects the notion of “national building.”
The American president skewered past Western efforts in the region. “The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation builders,’ ‘neocons,’ or ‘liberal nonprofits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad,” Trump said.
“Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves… developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies,” he continued.
”In the end, the so-called ‘nation builders’ wrecked far more nations than they built – and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” Trump said.
The meeting with Sharaa, therefore, symbolizes how the US is getting out of the business of “lecturing” others.
Trump is embracing a policy where Syria will determine its own future. He will not hold the past against Sharaa and Syria. He is ready for a new world order.
Nancie Pepper
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