WSJ: Syrian President Called the U.S.’s Bluff—and It Paid Off
Summary
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa launched a swift offensive against a Kurdish-led militia, leading to its collapse and a potential U.S. military withdrawal. Sharaa’s strategy involved leveraging Arab factions within the Syrian Democratic Forces and tribal connections, rather than solely military might. The U.S. military is transferring approximately 7,000 of 9,000 Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq due to security concerns. |
With a swift offensive against a Kurdish-led militia last weekend, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa proved himself once again to be a bold military tactician and a gambler willing to risk his relationship with the U.S. to achieve his aims.
He ordered the offensive despite threats from Washington that it would reimpose sanctions and the U.S. military’s fears that it could endanger soldiers in the region and lead to the escape of thousands of Islamic State prisoners.
In the end, Sharaa’s gambit paid off. His lieutenants persuaded Arab factions within the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces to switch sides to the government, unraveling the Kurdish-led militia in a matter of days as it pulled back from a swath of northeast Syria.
That has far-reaching consequences for Syria and for the Pentagon’s Middle East footprint. Senior U.S. military officials are now discussing a broader military exit after more than a decade in the country.
Once an insurgent fighter in Iraq who was captured by U.S. forces, Sharaa has forged a surprising relationship with the Trump administration, which backed him to avoid a dangerous power vacuum after the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in 2024. His latest moves haven’t cost him that support, though some U.S. lawmakers and military officials remain wary of the Syrian leader’s militant past.
President Trump on Thursday praised Sharaa for what he said was “tremendous progress,” adding, “I think he’s going to put it all together.”
The takeover of most of northeastern Syria is Sharaa’s most important strategic victory since he led the rebel offensive against Assad’s rule in 2024. That attack toppled the regime in just 11 days, ending 13 years of war that killed half a million people and left Syria’s cities in ruins.
The latest operation broke an impasse after more than a year of negotiations between the SDF and the new Damascus government. The militia’s leader, Mazloum Abdi, agreed last year to a merger with the new Syrian army. But in U.S.-brokered talks he demanded continued autonomy and preservation of its military units, according to Western diplomats and analysts briefed on the negotiations.
Sharaa’s rapid military moves settled most of the issues on the ground, much as he had before.
“People misjudged the capacity of this guy. They thought the war against the SDF would take weeks, not hours or days,” said Bassam Barabandi, a Syrian diplomat. “What happened is they just collapsed. They didn’t fight.”
During more than a decade of fighting in Syria, Sharaa outmaneuvered dozens of other rebel leaders and opponents including more moderate anti-Assad militias who for a time received assistance from the Central Intelligence Agency. He built his influence over the years until he became the top leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Syria’s largest rebel group.
“We’ve always said this about him. He takes a lot of risk, and sometimes it backfires,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who has interviewed Sharaa multiple times.
After cutting ties with al Qaeda in 2016 and fighting against Islamic State and other rival groups, Sharaa spent years in hiding in northwest Syria’s Idlib province, waiting for an opportunity to strike the regime. He did so when Russia was bogged down in the war in Ukraine and Iran was weakened by Israel’s military strikes, leaving the regime especially vulnerable.
This time Sharaa again assessed that his opponent was weak. The SDF had long shown fissures among the Kurdish, Arab and other factions that made up its force. Arab Syrian residents of major cities under the militia’s control, including Raqqa and Deir Ezzour, leaned politically toward the new government in Damascus.
Yet the victory in the northeast owed more to political moves than military prowess.
A number of Sharaa’s comrades, including his intelligence chief and his foreign minister, are originally from eastern Syria, and he leveraged those connections to areas long controlled by the SDF. Last year he placed a key official, Jihad Issa Al-Sheikh, known by his nom de guerre Abu Ahmed Zakour, in charge of liaison with Arab tribes in the area. He helped persuade one group of tribal fighters to switch sides near Deir Ezzour, according to diplomats and analysts familiar with the situation.
In a single weekend the SDF fractured. The tribes helped the government take control of strategic targets, including major Syrian oil fields. A separate offensive by government forces seized control of a major dam on the Euphrates river.
“They used tribes to create the facts on the ground without initially sending the military in, provoking the collapse of the SDF in Raqqa and Deir Ezzour,” said Alexander McKeever, an independent analyst based in Damascus. “The withdrawal was so rapid, especially in Deir Ezzour, it seemed catastrophic for the SDF.”
Sharaa also exploited an opening with the Trump administration, which had brought him to the White House in November and had long wanted an exit plan for the dwindling number of U.S. troops who remain in Syria after more than a decade.
“Something like this was always going to happen,” said Aron Lund, a longtime Syria expert and security analyst at Century International, a policy institute. “The balance of forces on the ground very much favors Sharaa.”
Trump’s special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, argued this week that the rationale for backing the SDF no longer existed after the fall of Assad. For years, the U.S. had justified its alliance with the SDF as critical for maintaining pressure on the remnants of Islamic State, including the prisons where thousands of the group’s fighters and family members were held under SDF guard.
“Today, the situation has fundamentally changed,” Barrack said in a social-media post. “Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps.”
The takeover of the northeast still comes with enormous risks for Sharaa and the nascent government in Damascus. The attack has already galvanized some Kurds in Syria and the wider region against the government.
It also carries uncertainty for the U.S. troops at multiple outposts in northeast Syria. Faced with a severely weakened or even dissolved SDF, it isn’t clear they can stay in the country, U.S. officials said.
During the northeastern offensive, U.S. forces shot down at least one Syrian government drone near one of the bases used by American troops, according to two U.S. officials. Sharaa’s forces shot up the SDF barracks at the base, one of the officials said.
Sharaa’s biggest challenge may be maintaining discipline among his forces.
Any human-rights violations against Kurdish civilians or retreating SDF forces could quickly turn the Syrian public and global opinion against him.
Forces allied to the government carried out two other episodes of sectarian violence last year, intensifying pressure on the government to avoid a repeat of those attacks.
The U.S. military began transferring thousands of Islamic State prisoners from facilities in northeastern Syria to Iraq on Wednesday, concerned that the former fighters and their family members could escape. Around 7,000 of the 9,000 detainees are being shifted to Iraq, where authorities will take over responsibility for holding them, official said.
