Middle East analyst says Syrian visit to White House a huge development for region

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Syria's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has met Donald Trump at the White House. He is the first Syrian president to enter the White House since 1946. Dr Dara Conduit is a Middle East analyst from the University of Melbourne and discusses the significance of the event.

Transcript

00:00This is a huge development.

00:04I mean, if you think this time last year, President Bashar al-Assad was still firmly

00:08ensconced in the presidential palace in Damascus, and the new president, Ahmed Shahra, is, you

00:15know, a designated terrorist who was controlling a small part of Idlib province.

00:20In the space of less than 12 months, he has not only taken control of Syria and is now

00:26running the country, but he's also in the White House visiting President Trump.

00:30What's he done to charm President Trump, do you think?

00:33Look, I think just in general, the situation has changed drastically.

00:38It's not so much about charming President Trump so much as, you know, he's now the leader

00:43of Syria.

00:43This is a really important role.

00:45The stakes are extremely high, you know, in Syria over the next few years, and whether

00:50or not he, if he does not succeed, there will be significant consequences for the region.

00:54So I think President Trump and the United States are giving him the respect and seriousness

00:59that this situation deserves.

01:01His aim, as he stated when he took power, is to end the decades of Syrian isolation.

01:08What will Syria benefit from it if it does do that?

01:14Well, I mean, the immediate goal of this visit and the flurry of diplomatic activity recently

01:20has been to get sanctions removed.

01:22The Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad was under extremely heavy sanctions for many

01:28years.

01:28And, I mean, Ahmad Shahar, too, was under sanctions.

01:31So this has all been wound back over the last week or so, which should, you know, give the

01:36Syrian economy an opportunity to start to rebuild from the extremely violent war that

01:41it's experienced over the last decade and a half.

01:43And it will give the international community and international companies the ability to

01:47assist with that without falling afoul of sanctions.

01:50Dara, one of the other things that's come out from the meeting is that Syria has said it

01:55will have political cooperation with the global coalition to defeat Islamic State.

02:01What might that mean in practice?

02:04I mean, the Islamic State group is a threat to Syria and to the Syrian government so much as

02:09it is to any of its neighbours.

02:11So it's not a surprise that it, too, would want to cooperate with the United States in

02:15this.

02:15Nobody wants to see the Islamic State group resurge.

02:18Yeah.

02:18And haven't they tried to assassinate al-Shahar in the last few months?

02:23Yep.

02:24Yeah.

02:24And I mean, they are, you know, al-Shahar was initially part of the group which the Islamic

02:30State group came from, too.

02:31So they're old.

02:33You know, they used to work together.

02:34That relationship broke down more than a decade ago.

02:36So it's been bad for a really long time.

02:38But certainly the Islamic State group is one of the many threats that the current Syrian

02:42government is facing.

02:44How important in all of this, Dara, is a potential security pact, if you like, that involves Syria

02:51and Israel?

02:53Yeah.

02:54I mean, look, I think we need to be careful with that.

02:56I'm not sure that the Syrian government is going to be running open arms into some deal

03:04like that.

03:04So I think we're going to have to wait and see.

03:06But certainly there is talk of security cooperation in a way that Syria and Israel have not cooperated

03:12in ever, frankly.

03:13And how might that affect the relations that Syria has with its neighbours?

03:17Because we know that Donald Trump has been keen to nurture those relationships.

03:22Look, I mean, I think we really need to see whether anything comes of this now.

03:27I mean, there's a lot of animosity within Syria towards Israel and elsewhere.

03:34So I think we probably need to watch and see.

03:36Just on a more domestic front in Syria, is there popularity for Ahmad al-Shara?

03:42Does he still have the backing of the people and indeed the military?

03:47I mean, look, it's very difficult.

03:48Obviously, you know, you can't conduct an opinion poll in Syria the way that you can conduct

03:52one here.

03:53But he seems to have, you know, strong support, certainly in the military elements, because

03:59most of them come from his, a lot of them come from his own groups and from parts of

04:03the population.

04:04Now, he has, his government has faltered in the past 12 months.

04:08It has faced an enormous challenge.

04:10And there have been incidents of violence, including sectarian violence in the coastal regions

04:15in March, in which his own security forces have been implicated in.

04:19So, you know, he certainly has a growing number of critics and a huge task ahead.

04:24But for the most part, I think at the moment, most Syrians seem to believe that this is the,

04:29you know, he's the best person for the job right now.

04:31Just one final quick thought.

04:33His visit to the White House didn't have all the fanfare and trumpets that a world leader

04:37usually gets.

04:38Does that suggest to you that the White House is treading very carefully?

04:42It was all, it was all behind closed doors.

04:44They've released photographs.

04:45But President Trump did a news conference on his own afterwards.

04:47Look, I mean, I'm not going to read too much into the psychology of the Trump White House.

04:53There may or may not be reasons behind that.

04:55I mean, I'm not going to read too much.

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