Four days after the fall of the Assad dynasty in Syria, the foreign powers that have carved the Arab-majority country up into competing fiefdoms are still trying to come to terms with a dizzying situation. The Syrian people are in the same boat. While nobody is mourning the fall of Bashar al-Assad—even Iran, Assad’s most prolific backer, was getting tired of his intransigence—there are fears about what a post-Assad Syria might have in store.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is saying all the right things. Instead of dismissing Assad regime bureaucrats wholesale, he’s ordering them back to work. Syria’s minority communities are being reassured that they have nothing to fear. Conscripted Syrian soldiers have been granted amnesty, both to maintain security in Syria’s major cities and to nip any potential armed opposition in the bud.
At the same time, it’s lost on no one that Jolani still has a $10 million FBI bounty on his head. HTS, which ruled Idlib with an iron fist, remains designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and United Nations. Although the Biden administration is debating whether to de-list HTS, U.S. officials are also cognizant that Jolani’s words of inclusiveness don’t mean anything until they’re backed up by action.
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