After the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad last December, former al-Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has finally made the world circuit and completed his trip to the White House. On Monday, Nov. 10, Sharaa met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, a meeting to which Trump brought Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as well. Despite Sharaa’s position on the FBI’s “Wanted” list, with a $10 million bounty on his head less than one year ago, the full circle transformation of the Syrian leader has caught many by surprise.
“This is the fastest normalization process that I’ve ever seen,” said Adam Weinstein, the deputy director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, reported Responsible Statecraft. “The embrace of Sharaa by the U.S. and the Europeans is sort of unprecedented, especially given his personal history.”
Trump removed Sharaa from the U.S. sanctions list last week, and on Nov. 10 extended the suspension of the Caesar sanctions for another 180 days—but did not repeal them. However, the biggest win of the visit was simply that it happened, Weinstein said. Sharaa and his team “know the importance of him coming to the U.S. and showing up at Trump’s door,” Weinstein said. “It has a lot of power.”
