What's in store for Syria after US drops Damascus's terror designation?

For nearly half a century, Syria carried Washington's most damning label. Now, it is officially gone. President Ahmed al-Shara celebrated the US decision to remove his country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and thanked Donald Trump personally. >> Today, Syria is shaking off a dark burden and tearing out a painful chapter of its past to embark on a path of development, reconstruction, and rebuilding. The sanctions have been lifted and the restrictions removed. >> The decision took effect following a 45-day congressional review. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it recognizes positive actions and further commitments by al-Shara's government to fully distance Syria from international terrorism. The designation had restricted US assistance, defense exports, and financial transactions and remained one of the biggest deterrents for banks and foreign companies considering business in Syria. >> We hope that removing this final obstacle will open the way, improve the economic situation, and reconnect Syria to the global financial and economic system. This would also help increase investment in Syria. >> But Washington's embrace of Syria's new leadership remains controversial. Al-Shara, known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani during his years commanding al-Qaeda's Nusra Front in Syria, once had a $10 million US bounty on his head. Washington withdrew it only after he ousted Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive in December 2024. And his record in power has only deepened concerns over Syria's minorities. 1,500 Alawites were killed in sectarian massacres in March 2025 involving forces under the new government's command. Months later, 1,700 people, most of them Druze civilians, were killed in Sweida. Israel has repeatedly warned against legitimizing al-Assad's government. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar previously said Syria's new rulers were jihadists and remain jihadists, even if some of their leaders have put on suits. For Washington, removing the designation is a bet that investment and international engagement can stabilize Syria after years of civil war. For its critics and many of Syria's minorities, the question is whether al-Assad and the former jihadists around him have truly reformed. >> Well, joining us now is Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Brian, this is really a remarkable turnaround. The US is essentially moving from freeing Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism to now opening the door to investment. So, how much confidence do you think Washington should really have in Ahmed al-Assad and his government given his past, his al-Qaeda linked past? >> Well, it is a roll of the dice, but it's one that President Trump has taken essentially since he returned to office. If you recall on his trip to the Middle East in May of last year, one of his first moves was actually to meet with uh President al-Assad, and he's said many uh positive and favorable things about al-Assad. And I think their strategy here is to try to help offer a series of carrots to induce and incentivize the Syrian leadership to actually rule more inclusively, but it's a roll of the dice given uh his background and the background of many people in his government. And it divides, as we know, key countries in the region. Israel is very skeptical about this. Turkey and Saudi Arabia uh have encouraged this move. So, it it it it'll be it'll time will tell whether this roll of the dice actually pays off and and offers stability to the region. >> Right. I I mean, I want you to break this down for our viewers because I think there is a lot of confusion as to why Trump would be so ready and willing to accept al-Shabaab as a leader and and and literally, you know, send the messaging that he's been sending out that he is a changed man given the jihadist past of this individual. >> I think for two reasons. Number one is we see with President Trump's dealings with every global leader, he doesn't really care about values. He's not a democratic values kind of person. There's even skepticism here in the United States about whether he's preserving America's own values. So, he's happy to meet with North Korea's leader. So, in that sense, he admires power as opposed to those that actually support the same sort of values that we have and quite simply, you know, al-Shabaab was on the run from the United States just a few years ago, but now he has power and President Trump will work with him. Second, I think that President Trump's vision for the region, you know, people focus on his goals of expanding the Abraham Accord, his confusing zigzags on Iran policy, but he actually has placed a lot of time and attention on Syria and Lebanon in the Levant and he wants to actually help the leaders there stabilize their own situation and that has put him at odds with some of the views we hear coming from countries like Israel. >> Speaking of Israel, Defense Minister Israel Katz is reiterating that the Israeli military is not going to leave its buffer zone in southern Syria. Brian, stick with us. I want to hear what he has to say first. >> We look down on Damascus from here, a distance of 35 km. We look down on the valley in Lebanon, on Hezbollah's stronghold from above. And of course, we look down on and protect the communities of the Golan Heights and the Galilee against the jihadist forces that are here beyond. Many jihadist forces that are also within the Syrian regime, some in various terrorist organizations. From every direction, their goal is to attack the state of Israel and the IDF, which is here and will remain here and will not move from here, guaranteeing that these things will never happen again. This is the major lesson of October 7th. >> Syria is essentially condemning the so-called illegal entry of the Israeli defense minister into the south of the country, where we saw him make these statements. Brian, I want to talk to you a little bit about Israel and how you think Israel's going to be impacted by the decision by the United States to essentially remove Syria as a terrorist state from its list. >> Well, as I mentioned, this is a roll of the dice for the United States, but the risk is really going to be born by countries like Israel that have to live with it in their neighborhood. And quite frankly, you know, the Israeli government that currently is in place is more or less the same Israeli government that failed to protect its own citizens on October 7th nearly 3 years ago, and it has done, I think, tremendous things to try to defeat Israel's enemies in Lebanon, in Tehran, and in Iran, and in Syria. But it also has conducted, I think, a policy of strikes without strategy. It's not clear to me what the sort of end goal of the current Israeli government is, and it's really interesting to see that on the Syria file, at least, there's really, I think, dissension between the United States under Donald Trump and Israel under the Netanyahu government. I think it's because of that absence of a vision coming from Israel right now. >> You know, I think the final thing that I just want to ask you is really about Israel refusing to withdraw from, you know, the the border with Syria, from that buffer zone. We know that, you know, Washington has been pushing Israel and Syria to agree to some type of peace deal, I guess that's what we can call it. But do you think the, you know, attempt to establish a broader security arrangement with Syria is ultimately going to be deemed impossible if Israel is unwilling to withdraw from this area? >> Oh, absolutely. I mean, any government's number one responsibility is to protect its own citizens. And again, the the memories of October 7th and the invasion from Gaza live strong in the minds of many Israelis. So, unless there's trust and confidence built between the two parties, Israel and Syria, and here's the problem with President Trump's mercurial performative diplomacy, it often doesn't build trust and confidence between the parties. It's why he can't solve the the Russia war against Ukraine or he's sort of zigzagging on Iran in an erratic way. So, I understand why Israel will want to try to maintain some sort of buffer zone to try to protect its citizens because of the uncertainty that it sees in the region, but also the uncertainty that comes from US policy today. >> All right, Brian. I'd like to thank you so much for joining us. We're going to be turning to our next topic now. Azerbaijan. Could Azerbaijan be the unlikely player that is keeping Israel and Turkey from a direct clash in Syria? Well, as tensions rise over Turkey's expanding military presence there, Azerbaijan is stepping in to mediate between the two countries and keep their forces from coming into conflict. Israeli [snorts] sources say Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev helped establish a direct dialogue between Israel and Turkey last year, including a mechanism designed to prevent military miscalculations. And joining us now to break this down is our correspondent Balazs Szaladin. So, Balazs, Azerbaijan is taking on this kind of unusual mediator role. Why do you think Baku is so invested in keeping Israel and Turkey from clashing, and how effective do you think this backchannel actually is? >> Well, they have many interests here, of course, because first of all, they are one of the biggest buyers of Israeli arms, especially during the Nagorno-Karabakh war. And of course, they are the suppliers of Israeli oil. That's actually that goes through Turkey, which is the other player here, the other party here that is very close to Azerbaijan also militarily but definitely ethnically as well because Azerbaijanis are Turks first and foremost and that's why it is very important for Azerbaijan not to see any conflict between these two nations that they need to take a side if something escalates in the uh the uh context of the conflict right now in Syria if we can call it already a conflict. Also, Azerbaijan wants to be you know a more important player in the region of Central Asia. We are talking about the nation that uh just recently have uh emerged with this new project of the Zangezur corridor backed by the US and of course they want to play a major role in the area in general. Now, regarding the effectiveness of this whole um uh uh track that we see that Baku is taking, it first needs to be clarified that it comes alongside the US track as well. But there's one more advantage for Ilham Aliyev over the US track which is the fact that he is not Tom Barrack, someone that the Israeli side doesn't trust at least um uh what we see publicly from Tom Barrack, something that absolutely Israel does not um get along with and that's why Ilham Aliyev now is more trustworthy for the Israeli side specifically and that casts a doubt right now on how much Israel actually trusts or sees that the US track, especially Tom Barrack, is actually neutral uh in this uh um Turkey-Israeli um uh controversies in general. >> Just looking ahead, what do you think Israel's biggest concern is right now? Is it Turkey's growing military presence in Syria or at least attempted presence in Syria or you know the possibility that a miscalculation between these two countries could spiral into something much more serious? >> Well, there's the tactical aspect of it which is of course the most you know um uh fearful of all cuz if something happens when we see an Israeli aircraft over Syria and then the Turkish uh military thinks that this aircraft was actually heading toward Turkish territory and they shot it down. That's definitely a situation where you can't de-escalate from. And of so of course the whole, you know, confrontation that could happen if Israel attacks a Turkish asset at some point in Syria, that's also something that would be very very difficult to manage. Now, this is the, you know, tactical aspect of it, but there's also the strategic one which is Israel's, you know, um you know, in the future how they see the region that includes Syria. If Turkey puts on Syrian grounds radars, advanced radars, including of course air defense system, that limits Israel's ability to operate in general, especially when we are talking about the situation with Iran that is still not finished and apparently is not going to be finished soon. So, Israel uses Syrian airspace, by the way, it used the Syrian airspace also before the fall of the Assad regime, but definitely right now they want to seize this opportunity and use the Syrian airspace in order to attack Iran if something of course happens in the future. >> Mhm.