Concrete U.S. Support Can Help Syria’s Transition, Fight the Islamic State, and Contain Iran

Later this month, Ahmed Al-Shara will appear in Syria in front of the United Nations General Assembly-the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967. The world will watch to find out how he plans to move in the religious and ethnic scene of a country that still has five decades of brutal authoritarian rule under the Assad family. The challenge that Shara faces is Haruban, and it is in the interest of the United States and its partners to help him succeed.

Since he became the temporary president of Syria, Shara has sought to build a strong central government. However, sectarian violence has challenged these plans, which raised fears that different factions can play the spoiler in an organized transmission. In June, a Sunni extremist striker was killed 25 people and 60 others were wounded in the Greek Orthodox Church in a suburb of Damascus. In March, the Syrian forces and militia groups killed the government 1500 Alawits along the western coast. Recently, collective violence between the Druze and the Bedouin Sunni erupted in the Soyoa province in southern Syria, with the intervention of Israel and its saying that it did so to protect the Druze.

Later this month, Ahmed Al-Shara will appear in Syria in front of the United Nations General Assembly-the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967. The world will watch to find out how he plans to move in the religious and ethnic scene of a country that still has five decades of brutal authoritarian rule under the Assad family. The challenge that Shara faces is Haruban, and it is in the interest of the United States and its partners to help him succeed.

Since he became the temporary president of Syria, Shara has sought to build a strong central government. However, sectarian violence has challenged these plans, which raised fears that different factions can play the spoiler in an organized transmission. In June, a Sunni extremist striker was killed 25 people and 60 others were wounded in the Greek Orthodox Church in a suburb of Damascus. In March, the Syrian forces and militia groups killed the government 1500 Alawits along the western coast. Recently, collective violence between the Druze and the Bedouin Sunni erupted in the Soyoa province in southern Syria, with the intervention of Israel and its saying that it did so to protect the Druze.

Any heavy attempts by Sharaa to subjugate forced disorders in the upper societies, Druze and Kurdish are a recipe for disasters. With remaining questions about transitional justice and reconciliation for the crimes committed against the Syrian people, Shara should not be surprised by a doubt about minority groups in the state.

The SR government promised to be comprehensive, and in September, Syria will hold the first parliamentary elections since Assad’s prolongation. Shara also placed the technocrats in major positions, such as the economist Mohamed Yazar Barne as a financial minister, as well as an electrical engineer and professional Mohammed Al -Bashir in the energy sector as Minister of Energy.

More more, however, it is still done. The United States cannot solve sectarian tensions in Syria on its own. But it can help build a more prosperous economic climate that is easy to manage these tensions. Keep in mind, Washington must take three concrete steps to support the transfer of Syria: reopening its embassy in Damascus, using the global fragility law to stimulate economic development, and support a multi -site trust fund to facilitate financing for critical services and technical assistance.

For nearly five decades, the Syrians carried the burden of comprehensive sanctions and forced economic measures. Even with the lifting of sanctions, many investors are still likely to think twice before doing business in the country. By making and facilitating investments, the United States will not directly help build its future but also send a strong signal to the country and international investors.

This will help in maintaining Syria’s transfer on the right track and increasing the chances of building Shara to a stable and safe country. For Syrian citizens, this will finally present the future they deserve. For Washington, it will be important to weaken Iranian influence and win the battle against the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

The success of any political process in Syria depends on the ability of Shara to solve a set of intertwined institutional and economic problems. Like other countries with long brutal regimes, such as Muammar Gaddafi in Libya or Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Syria has seen its institutions and civil society completely hollow. Mixed experiences in Libya and Iraq in moving away from authoritarian rule indicate that rebuilding institutions will be long.

One of the main ongoing challenges is related to the business community aligned to the previous regime. An expensive committee is explored to re -allocate assets and restructuring assets associated with the sewage system, granting them immunity – for financial crimes and corruption, but not war crimes – in realism to deliver their assets. The relevant question is whether complex investigations in financial crimes against the wealthy loyalists should be conducted-at a time when the courts are still equipped with many judges of the Assad-or or simply seizing their assets and securing them at the risk of reducing foreign investment.

As if this was not enough to complicate his recovery, Syria is still struggling with the dismantling of the Captagon industry, which has already generated $ 5 billion annually. Although production is now up to 80 percent, the drug demand continues, while maintaining smugglers and militias invested in trade.

Human and economic conditions are still very fraught. Since 2011, the Syrian pound has lost 99 percent of its value, and unemployment has recently intends to about 24 percent. Many Syrians are still internally displaced and live below the poverty line. As of June, the country’s electricity network was limited for two hours to four hours of daily supply, leaving the Syrians in a state of insecurity in acute energy and impeding recovery efforts in other sectors that are indispensable, such as water and health care.

The good news is that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have generously paid the World Bank loans suspended in Syria to enable new lending and pledged to pay public sector wages. RIYADH in particular has played a leading role in reconstruction, pledged at $ 6 billion of public and private sectors investments – a generous amount, certainly, but it is much lower than $ 400 billion, which is estimated at some cost of reconstruction. Saudi Minister of Investment Khaled Al -Falah traveled to Damascus in late July to meet with Syrian officials, and Muhammad Aponean, one of the most influential businessmen in the Kingdom, is scheduled to chair the joint Saudi Business Council.

This type of continuous support will be very important, but economic stability will take time and patience. GULF PARTNERS debt on behalf of Syria does not deal with a positive net, overwhelming debts that Syria still owes Iran and Russia, which exceeds its gross domestic product and some accounts range between 30 billion and 50 billion dollars. It is safe to assume that Moscow and Tehran will look forward to turning this debt into a strategic lever.

Chinese companies are already competing for reconstruction contracts. This means that Syria and its ports in the Mediterranean can become vibrant in competing with great powers, especially if the United States and its regional partners do not fill the void.

Those who helped secure these investment deals – including Tom Barak, the US ambassador to Türkiye and the Special Envoy to Syria – offered credit. But investment deals alone are not sufficient to help Syria move to the next stage of development, or to avoid decline and ethnic conflict at the country level that has passed on the surface. More Damascus must be done to stitch the state and its people again.

To make things better for all Syrians, Sharaa and Coterie should focus in Damascus to improve the daily life of ordinary citizens by providing tangible services, facilities and economic opportunities. This is a field in which Washington can do more to help.

First, it is time to reopen the American embassy in Damascus. What the barracks on the floor are valuable. But the best way to advise the new government during this fragile temporary period is with an ambassador who can spend time in the presidential palace and with the ethnic groups in Syria that is carrying out the difficult diplomatic work of giving all Syrians an economic and political voice. The open embassy also provides a platform that people with regional interests such as Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar can benefit to ensure constructive steps within the government.

The recent judiciary of the US Agency for International Development and conflict and stability operations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs led to the complexity of US support for the transfer of Syria. However, Washington still has tools at its disposal and a cadre of trained officers who will be enthusiastic about this type of task.

The Global Al -Harrash Law (GFA), which was signed by President Donald Trump in 2019, was designed to improve conflict prevention efforts and stability in fragile countries. It defines a group of powers that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can use quickly to do so – if the appropriate financing is provided, and if Syria is added to the GFA priority country list.

Under GFA, the United States can play an active role in supporting Syrian civil society by providing financing for small, medium and small institutions. Local reconciliation committees recognized as legal management bodies responsible for providing services, reconstruction, and voluntary return to displaced persons. GFA’s experimental efforts in Libya have already taken such steps with positive results.

The United States can help Syria set structures to provide basic services to citizens in the short term. Providing social services is an important part of building legitimacy with ordinary Syrians. A relatively highway to accomplish this is through a multi -border credit fund, which was also used in other contexts. The International Bank of the Middle East and North Africa (MDTF), whose last tour ended in 2021, is one of the possible models.

MDTF can help financing infrastructure in highly required areas such as electricity and housing with coordination with Türkiye’s reconstruction efforts and Gulf states to avoid double. Moreover, as an international program, MDTF is not subject to US policy fluctuations, in which Syria’s policy in this or future administration should change.

Washington has already spent great political capital on the success of the new government in Syria, including the first personal meeting between Trump and Cara in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May. You must now do everything possible to take advantage of these efforts. To rid Syria in peace with its neighbors and itself, the United States needs seriousness in increasing its investments there – both metaphorically and literally.