With the dramatic fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime, the West may have achieved its objective in Syria. But the success could impose enduring costs on Western, and especially European, security.

Assad’s secular regime has been replaced by violent jihadist forces that Western governments regard as terrorists. On President Joe Biden’s watch, first Afghanistan and now Syria have emerged as jihadist citadels. As has already happened in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, the victorious Islamist leaders in Syria have pledged to introduce a system based on Islamic law.

The main insurgent group that spearheaded the lightning blitz to Damascus seeks to establish a caliphate and has had historic links to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (or ISIS). Formerly known as the Al Nusrah Front, it was officially labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 2014.

Yet by seeking to engage with its victorious leadership, including sending secret messages to it, Biden is making the same mistake he did following his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, when he drew specious distinctions between “good” and “bad” terrorists, in a bid to obscure both the significance of the Taliban’s takeover and his administration’s outreach to that terrorist militia.

The current effort to portray this murderous band of terrorists as a reforming group that now cultivates an image of tolerance parallels the 2021 attempt, in the aftermath of Kabul’s fall, to rebrand the Taliban leadership as moderate. Washington is today considering removing its $10 million bounty on........

© The Hill