The Promise of Al-Jolani

I am a largely assimilated American Jew. I was born a month after the end of Europe’s most catastrophic war, and two months before the nuclear incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended its counterpart in Asia. For most of my near-eighty years I have enjoyed the safety, security, rising standards of living and hope of the pax Americana that followed.

Now that pax Americana is dissolving before our eyes. A brutal war of conquest rages in Ukraine. Civil and tribal wars rage in the Middle East and Northeast Africa.

Atrocities rarely seen since the days of Nazi conquest and Japanese imperialism are becoming daily occurrences. And the threat of real “battles” with nuclear weapons—rather than limited use by their sole possessor to end history’s most catastrophic war—is growing daily. I see our species making the same disastrous blunders all over again, but this time with species-extinguishing weapons.

Against this background, the feats of a man named Abu Mohammed al-Jolani brought tears of hope and joy to my eyes.

Al-Jolani, of course, is the primary liberator of Syria from the bestial butcher Bashar al-Assad. Starting from his base in Idlib Province in the northwest, he and his rebels liberated Syria from the butcher in eleven days.

Except for some desultory air strikes by his enemies, al-Jolani’s victory was remarkably bloodless. Russian killer planes were preoccupied in Ukraine, and Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets had been largely destroyed by Israel. So all the Syrian people who had not already fled their homeland were free to “vote” with their hearts and hands.

Syrians of all tribes cheered the rebels on. Forced conscripts to Assad’s army abandoned their posts, laid down their weapons, and tore off their uniforms. With Assad on his way to refuge in Moscow, the rebels’ “reconquest” of their homeland was more a welcoming celebration than a pitched battle.

If anything tells us that democracy can, at last, come to the Middle East, this is it.

The very name of al-Jolani’s movement is indicative. It’s “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham,” or HTS. The Arabic word “hayat” is a high-level, versatile abstraction that can mean such things as “life” (including “family life”), “mortality” or “purpose.” “Tahrir” means “liberation”— a fact that only highlights the cruel irony of Egyptian dictator El-Sisi’s massacre of Muslim Brotherhood protestors in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

You will note that neither word has any reference to “jihad”, or “holy war,” or even to “Islam,” the religion. The only possible sinister implication is the breadth of the word “al-Sham,” which loosely translates into “for the Levant.” The word in Arabic is an old one, which one online authority interprets as encompassing “modern day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Cyprus and Turkey’s Hatay Province.”

Should we then presume that HTS is out to conquer the whole Middle East, including today’s Israel? Absolutely not.

Syria and Syrians are utterly exhausted by thirteen years of civil war and decades of brutal despotism before it. The huge Syrian diaspora, which is straining Turkey’s resources and provoking right-wing anti-immigrant and anti-Islam sentiment throughout the EU, is eager to come home, rebuild their houses from the rubble of Russian and Hezbollah bombardment, and live as free people.

The US government has labeled HTS a terrorist organization. But I’ve never read any—let alone a coherent or convincing—reason for the designation. All the nay-sayers can cite is amorphous, unsubstantiated fears.

Meanwhile al-Jolani has built on his success in governing Idlib Province well in several ways. He’s worked on repairing and building new civilian infrastructure. He’s ceded control to competent experts and civil bureaucrats within their areas of expertise. He’s kept the secular prime minister in Damascus, at least for the time being, to make sure the infrastructure (such as it was under Assad) keeps running and can improve. He’s made noises about bringing all tribes together as equal Syrian citizens: majority Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Alawites (some of whom supported Assad). He has proposed reserving punishment only for the worst offenders and apologists for the Assad regime, presumably after fair trials.

All the surrounding groups have axes to grind: Lebanese (with Hezbollah), Israel, Turkey and the Kurds. We Americans are a continent and an ocean away. We desire only peace, security, stability, trade, and a bulwark against terrorism and Russian expansionism.

So what should we do? President-elect Trump thinks we should stay out. Our Army, which has some 900 troops in Syria to fight the remnants of ISIS, thinks they should stay and act quickly to wipe out what’s left.

But the last thing we should do is wage more war or send more troops, let alone after our debacle in Afghanistan. The last thing we need to do is make even a single Syrian compare us to the Assad regime.

We must first understand that al-Jolani represents the best chance for rational, non-tribal, and non-despotic rule in the Middle East (outside of Israel) in my near eighty years. With luck and a push in the right direction, his movement might produce a popular democracy. By encouraging the Syrian diaspora in Europe to come home and rebuild that shattered country, we have a chance to relieve the immigration pressure that is even now threatening to restore Europe’s dangerous pre-WWII right wing.

Based on that understanding, we should, to use a favorite phrase of over-the-top extremist Steve Bannon, “flood the zone” with aid, experts and help of all kinds, but not troops or weapons. Our aim should be to get Syria back on its feet and trending towards democracy and Reason as quickly as possible.

We have 31 days to make enough of an impact to move the ball toward peace and stability, and away from war, and perhaps to set a course of American and allied policy that might stick for the long haul. In vast sweep of human history, that effort might have far greater impact than whatever lame-duck President Biden can do with last-minute pardons.


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