The United States is implementing such extreme policies in Syria that it is destroying what little hope remains for a better future for the country.

President Donald Trump is leading the charge, despite his false claims about distancing the United States from Syria. The president is backing a repressive ruler who once fought for al-Qaeda, betraying Kurdish allies who have been trying to create a more inclusive society, and relying on Russia to deter Turkey and Israel from going to war over Syrian territory.

Lawmakers and foreign policy experts are well aware of the president’s actions, reviewing them during a congressional hearing earlier this year, but they are doing little other than acknowledging that the country is enduring great hardship.

“The humanitarian situation there is almost mind-boggling,” Mara Karlin, a former Defense Department official, told Congress.

Over a decade of civil war has devastated Syria. An estimated 90 percent of Syrians are living in poverty, and millions of people require assistance to survive.

Since his return to power, President Trump has shown little concern for the humanitarian crisis, however, focusing instead on how to implement policies so extreme that they would have once been considered shocking.

For starters, President Trump is supporting Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former member of al-Qaeda who is now the country’s president. Although al-Sharaa has previously been designated as a terrorist by the United States and security forces under his control have committed massacres against minority groups, President Trump has openly embraced the Syrian leader, even welcoming him to the White House in November 2025.

“He comes from a very tough place, and he’s a tough guy,” President Trump said after their meeting. “I liked him. I get along with him.”

There was once a time when no U.S. leader would have been able to get away with meeting and supporting a former member of al-Qaeda, the organization behind the terrorist attacks against the United States on 9/11, but President Trump has faced little pushback. Officials in Washington have largely accepted the president’s approach as an open secret.

“We all know the current Syrian president is a former al-Qaeda fighter,” Representative Brian Mast (R-FL), the chair of the House foreign affairs committee, acknowledged.

While President Trump has been supporting al-Sharaa, he has also been spurning longstanding U.S. allies, such as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The president never liked the Syrian Kurds, who have been partnering with the U.S. military in counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) while leading a leftist social revolution in Rojava, part of northern Syria.

Although U.S. leaders have never fully embraced the Kurds either, exploiting them for years as a proxy force against the Islamic State, they have at least recognized that the Kurds are laying the groundwork for a more inclusive and democratic politics.

“Northern Syria is proof a different future is possible,” Nadine Maenza, the former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, told Congress. “Local communities were empowered to govern, deliberately including religious and ethnic minorities, with half the leaders being women.”

In complete disregard for the Kurds’ achievements, however, the Trump administration betrayed them, abruptly ending the partnership earlier this year and endorsing a military operation against them by the Syrian government.

“The original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired,” Thomas Barrack, the administration’s special envoy to Syria, wrote on social media, as Syrian military forces were moving against the Kurds.

The Kurds now face an uncertain future. Their political project may not survive, despite its having been one of the few bright spots in Syria over the past decade.

“That cohesive society, a refuge for religious and ethnic minorities, is now under threat,” Maenza said.

As President Trump has been turning against U.S. allies, he has also been turning to U.S. rivals, giving special consideration to Russia. With little oversight or attention, President Trump has been enabling Russia to play an increasingly influential role in Syria, a country where it has long exercised power.

At the congressional hearing earlier this year, former U.S. officials alluded to a possible rationale, indicating that Russia could help balance a bitter rivalry between Turkey and Israel, two U.S. allies that are competing for control of Syrian territory.

“Syria is part of a dangerous rivalry and grab for influence between Turkey and Israel,” former Defense Department official Mara Karlin explained in a written statement to Congress. “This may be the most important regional dynamic influencing Syria’s future.”

Although the witnesses insisted that they did not want to see Russia playing an active role in Syria, they indicated that a war between Turkey and Israel would be worse. James Jeffrey, special envoy to Syria during the first Trump administration, said that some people in Turkey and Israel welcomed Russia’s role.

“Both sides kind of want the Russians there as a sort of buffer,” Jeffrey said.

 Marlin went further, indicating that the Trump administration does not object to Russia’s role.

“I have gotten the impression that it is not a top five, top 10 priority, from the U.S. perspective, to pressure Damascus to downgrade its relationship with Russia,” Karlin said.

Members of Congress raised concerns about Russia, warning that the Syrian president is seeking support from the Russian government.

“He’s still growing closer with Russia,” Representative Michael Lawler (R-NY) said. “There are concerns about that, not to mention obviously his past terrorist ties.”

Regardless, President Trump continues moving forward with his radical overhaul of U.S. policy. Rather than ending U.S. involvement in Syria, as he claims to be doing, the president is playing a decisive role in causing even greater harm. President Trump is normalizing the rule of a former member of al-Qaeda, abandoning Kurdish allies who have been trying create a more inclusive society, and relying on Russia to intimidate two of the most belligerent countries along Syria’s borders.

What President Trump is doing, in short, is eliminating any possibility for a more peaceful Syria while creating new structures of violence, oppression, and instability. He is destroying hope for a better future in Syria.

This article was published at FPIF

© Eurasia Review