America’s Chosen Jihadist: The Rebirth of Syria Or The Next Mirage?

With the departure of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria has entered a tentative and fragile phase of national reinvention. Presiding over this uneasy rebirth is Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, whose prior life as a jihadist commander would, under normal circumstances, render him an unlikely steward of statecraft. Yet, in the unenviable environment created during a 12-year civil war, these are hardly normal circumstances.

When it comes to Middle Eastern geopolitics, nothing is ever as it seems. Entanglements between states, unlikely allies, and hidden motives are as ubiquitous as in a season of Game of Thrones. The current events in Syria are no different, and the presented theater the world is in attendance for is not without echoes of every imperial playbook before it.

To begin, let’s discuss the ascendant leading man. Before Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rise to prominence in Syria, he fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq during the U.S. occupation, aligning himself with the insurgency led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Captured by American forces in 2008 and held at Camp Bucca, the future president was released in 2011, along with so many others with similar histories as Syria erupted. Jolani’s role at the time appears to have been operational and strategic, which allows friendly media sources to assert that there is no evidence directly linking him to the killing of American soldiers. Bluntly, he simply planned out the killing of American soldiers, rather than actually pulling the trigger. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether or not that distinction is of particular consequence.

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