The al-Nusrah Front was removed from the U.S. terror list on July 7, 2025. Officially, it marked a shift. But under the surface, it looked a lot more like a pattern we've previously seen. America has been here before. We saw this exact playbook in Iraq: regime change, a rush to legitimize the replacement, sweeping sanctions relief, and a premature declaration of stability. It didn't work then. And it won't work now.

The backdrop to this sudden policy shift is the meteoric rise of Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new president. Less than a year back, al-Sharaa was still going by his old name, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. For years, he led al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate. That group eventually rebranded as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and now holds real control over large parts of the country. His troops helped remove Bashar al-Assad. And now, he's being treated as a legitimate head of state by Washington.

This normalization has come fast and without accountability. The Trump administration's May 2025 announcement in Riyadh, and subsequent

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