QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Arab League summits do not make for must-see television. Yet on May 19, millions of eyes were peeled on the organization’s summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After over a decade served as an international pariah, Bashar al-Assad was being welcomed back into the fold of Middle East politics.
In November 2011, eight months after pro-democracy protests began in Syria, the Arab League took the decision to suspend the government in Damascus over its brutal response. By 2023, nearly half a million people had been killed in the Syrian Civil War, mostly by the government and its allies. It was only the third time the League took this measure: in 1979, it had penalized Egypt for normalizing ties with Israel; in February 2011, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi was banished for equally violent measures against protestors.
The Arab League had briefly given Syria’s seat to the opposition Syrian National Council at the 2013 Doha summit. One year later, the League said it would keep the seat vacant until the opposition government “completes the formation of its institutions.” But it was al-Assad, nearly a decade later, who filled the seat once more.
A number of regional powers – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan among them – had long pushed for rapprochement with Damascus. Some Middle Eastern states – like Lebanon and Iraq – have never quite cut ties with al-Assad.
The Syrian President travelled to Saudi Arabia himself to mark the country’s triumphant return. During his speech at the summit, al-Assad lashed out against “modern liberalism,” the “crimes of the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people,” and the “danger of the Ottoman expansionist mentality.”
Al-Assad has previously shown himself combative against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The latter had pushed for a normalization of ties between the two countries in order to resettle millions of Syrian refugees and coordinate attacks against the Kurdish administration in Syria. Al-Assad has so far dragged his feet.
As Erdogan seems poised to win re-election on May 28, the two heads may well meet each other this year. However, Turkey still keeps hundreds of soldiers in Syria, occupying around 4.5 percent of the country and funding dozens of anti-government militias. Al-Assad has made any face-to-face meeting dependent on a Turkish withdrawal, yet Erdogan recently said his troops would not leave Syria. Furthermore, Turkey’s Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu repeated Ottoman-era claims to Aleppo and Syria’s Turkmen minority this week, while hinting at another invasion of Kurdish-held territory.
The Emir of Qatar, Turkey’s closest ally in the League, reportedly left the meeting before al-Assad’s speech on Friday. The Gulf country has been one of the last holdouts against normalization with Damascus, though it has said it would “not be an obstacle” to rapprochement.
Al-Assad’s speech at the meeting furthermore stressed the need for Arab countries to manage their own internal affairs and prevent foreign intervention. “We are in front of a historic opportunity to rearrange our affairs with the least amount of foreign intervention,” he told his peers on Friday.
Just as well. Washington, which is often singled out by Damascus for interfering in Syria’s internal affairs, seems to have little appetite to get involved. US officials, speaking to the Washington Post, protested the accusation that its Middle East allies were acting against their will. Yet the League member states seem to have extracted no concessions from Syria in return for normalization, which has increasingly frustrated Washington officials.
While openly rejecting any kind of rapprochement, the US had quietly asked its allies to ensure that Damascus divests from Iran, stems the flow of captagon, and makes some political concessions. It has gotten none of it.
According to the Washington Post, US officials have reassured reporters that the US support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is ongoing. But few think that support will translate into a political backing of the Autonomous Administration (AANES) against al-Assad’s government. In a recent interview with Al-Monitor, Salih Muslim, co-chair of the PYD party, a part of the AANES, said that the Americans “have never” engaged with them politically. Instead, Salih said, the AANES will seek to find a settlement with Damascus directly or through Arab state intermediaries, such as the UAE.
On Friday, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Faysal bin Farhan, said his government would hold talks with “Western allies” over Syria. But the Middle East rapprochement with al-Assad will keep going with or without Western approval. The UAE has already invited al-Assad to the November UN Cop28 climate conference in Dubai. It will be al-Assad’s first appearance on the global stage.
Western incomprehension at the sudden speed of normalization with a man most of their regional allies wanted overthrown just a decade ago misses an essential point: no narcotics regulation or Iranian containment can rival the message underlying Syria’s return to the world stage. Nearly all current Middle East leaders (or their fathers) were in power in 2011; nearly all of them faced popular protests. In a region featuring no real democracies, the message sent by these governments to their citizens is clear: we will do what is necessary to keep in power, and, eventually, we will be welcomed back.