President Donald Trump greets Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House. The new Syrian administration has established cordial ties to the Trump administration, but will need to shore up its relationship with the Democrats as well. (Truth Social/@realDonaldTrump)

Syria’s Washington Window Won’t Stay Open Forever

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Syria has won over President Donald Trump, special envoy Tom Barrack, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Now Damascus must institutionalize this progress—or watch it slip away for good.

Few foreign policy decisions by President Donald Trump have generated the kind of rare bipartisan consensus that his removal of sanctions on Syria and normalization of relations with Damascus has. That decision was welcomed by leaders of both parties on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and backed by otherwise ideological opposites in the House, from progressive Democrats to hardline Republicans.

When Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa made his historic visit to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump—the first such visit by any Syrian head of state since the country’s independence in 1946—he also traveled to Capitol Hill and met with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-ID) and Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who declared that under Sharaa’s leadership, Syria was “becoming a US partner.” The mood outside the White House, where Syrian-Americans waved flags and cheered Sharaa’s motorcade as it passed, captured something genuinely historic in the air. Just as importantly, it was a reflection of how quickly Washington’s posture toward Damascus had shifted from deep suspicion to open friendship.

Despite the goodwill on both ends, Syria’s newly cordial relationship with the United States rests on a remarkably small number of individuals rather than any durable institutional foundation. Worryingly for Damascus, that foundation is already beginning to erode. Trump, of course, is term-limited. Special Envoy Tom Barrack, whose personal diplomacy was instrumental........

© The National Interest