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The U.S. Should Follow the Evidence on Syria's New Government.
(Washington Post) Ilan Berman - Over the past several months, the U.S. has dismantled much of the sanctions architecture on Syria and restored diplomatic engagement with Damascus. The fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024 created an opening to pull Syria out of Iran's orbit, where it had been nestled for decades. Still, it is becoming increasingly clear that, at least at the moment, Washington is making its bet based more on hope than hard evidence. Developments inside Syria suggest the ideological makeup of the country's new rulers has not changed nearly as much as Western officials might wish to believe. Beneath the new government's more polished diplomatic messaging lies an Islamist movement that continues to promote many of the same ideas that defined its origins as an al-Qaeda affiliate. The Syrian military now contains 5,000 foreign fighters who fought to topple Assad. Many of them have been accused of abuses against Syria's minority communities. The continued presence of these elements raises serious questions about the reliability of Syria's security apparatus. The issue was supposed to have been settled. Removing foreign jihadist fighters from Syria's armed forces was a central American condition for sanctions relief after Assad's fall. Yet Syrian President al-Sharaa's government has made only limited progress in doing so because these fighters remain indispensable to the new regime's hold on power. The central premise of the Trump administration's current approach is that engagement will gradually moderate the Syrian government. But moderation is difficult to achieve when a regime's political survival depends on the support of militants and the dissemination of extreme ideology. Washington needs to proceed with considerably more caution. The writer is senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council.