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In a major shift in policy, Washington is welcoming Syria’s new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, to the White House even as it distances itself from Lebanon.
The twin signals - a thaw with post-Assad Damascus and a public rebuke of Beirut as a “failed state” - are a shifting US calculus in the Middle East.
US To Host Syrian President
United States President Donald Trump will host Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa for talks, reported AP. This will be the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the White House. The meeting is likely to take place on November 10.
Al-Sharaa is expected during his visit to sign an agreement on joining the US-led coalition against ISIS, the official said, as quoted by AP.
Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May in what was the first encounter between the two nations' leaders in 25 years. Al-Sharaa in the May meeting became the first Syrian leader to meet an American president since Hafez Assad met Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000.
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Al-Sharaa, now being hosted by the US, had a $10 million US bounty on his head. Under the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, al-Sharaa had ties to al-Qaida and joined insurgents battling US forces in Iraq before entering the Syrian war. He was even imprisoned by US troops there for several years.
US Turns Cold on Lebanon
Washington is frustrated with Lebanon, with US' special envoy for Syria publicly calling it a failed state.
Speaking at the Manama Dialogue summit in Bahrain during a panel on'US Policy in the Levant' on Saturday, Thomas Barrack hailed developments in Syria following the downfall of Bashar Assad in December, adding that the only state "not jumping in line" with the new Middle East realignments is Lebanon.
"Lebanon is a failed state... The state is Hezbollah," he said, noting that the Iran-backed group provides for its supporters and fighters in ways the Lebanese state cannot, in a country where basic services like electricity and water are chronically unreliable.
Barrack asserted that the US would not intervene in regional disputes but would support its ally if Israel stepped up aggression toward Lebanon.
(With AP inputs)
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