In a stunning policy reversal with far-reaching geopolitical implications, US President Donald Trump has announced that his administration will lift all economic sanctions on Syria. Speaking at an investment forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump framed the decision as an opportunity for a “fresh start” with the new government in Damascus led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a figure whose past affiliation with extremist militancy has already stirred sharp international backlash.

The decision marks a dramatic departure from more than a decade of bipartisan US policy aimed at isolating President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and punishing the Syrian government for alleged human rights abuses and war crimes during the country’s devastating 14-year civil war. But Assad is no longer in power. The fall of Damascus in December last year-after an opposition offensive spearheaded by Al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-reshaped the political and military balance in the region. It also forced a re-evaluation of the US role in Syria.

The man now at the center of Syria’s political transition is no stranger to controversy. Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, first rose to prominence as a commander in Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. He later broke with Al-Qaeda and rebranded his organization as HTS, seeking to distance himself from global jihadism and position himself as a pragmatic revolutionary leader. Nevertheless, Western intelligence agencies have long maintained that HTS remains ideologically aligned with extremist doctrines.

Despite-or perhaps because of-this baggage, al-Sharaa has proven to be a politically........

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