Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa's White House meeting [24] with Donald Trump followed the removal [25] of his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS [26]) from the list of designated "terrorist organizations" both at the State Department and at the UN [27]. It also coincided with raids against [27] ISIS by his security forces, raising the prospect of his government being invited to join the US-led [28] Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS [29]. The Washington visit also came just a month after al-Sharaa's similar trip to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow [30], where a deal was brokered allowing Russia to keep [31] its military bases [32] in Syria. Amid all this, Syria continues to see forced disappearances [33] and other abuses [34] targetting Druze [35], Alawites [36] and Kurds [37]—pointing to the looming threat [26] of an ethnic or sectarian internal war. The US troop presence [38] in Syria is largely embedded [39] among the Kurdish forces in the east. As al-Sharaa becomes a new "anti-terrorist" partner (or proxy) for the Great Powers, will these troops be withdrawn—providing a "green light" for the Damascus government to attack the Kurdish autonomous zone [26]? In Episode 305 [40] of the CounterVortex podcast [41], Bill Weinberg weighs the risks at this critical moment in Syria's transition process [26], nearly one year after the fall of the Assad dictatorship [42].
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Production by Chris Rywalt [45]
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