Syrian civil war

As Washington rolls out the red carpet today for the former al-Qaeda chieftain and now Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s minorities continue to live in terror. An army of destruction, half Mad Max, half Lollapalooza is rolling through the desert somewhere south of the country’s capital, Damascus. Who has ordered these militants into action? No one knows. What do they want? It isn’t clear. But, as a former prisoner of al-Sharaa’s band of jihadists, I can’t say I’m surprised by what is unfolding in Syria. Whatever else might be said about the old regime of Bashar al-Assad, no one was ever in doubt as to who was in charge.

Few career arcs in modern history can be as remarkable as that of Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa – or Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, to give him the nom de guerre under which he fought American troops in Iraq back when he was a firebrand member of al-Qaeda. Twenty years ago al-Sharaa was languishing in a US military prison in Baghdad, held on suspicion of terrorism. Today, as Syria’s new interim President, he shook hands with Donald Trump posing for photo-calls alongside the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman. Trump was evidently impressed by al-Sharaa, who has swapped the turban and dusty fatigues that he habitually wore before taking Damascus by storm last winter for a plain blue suit and purple tie. “He’s a young attractive guy.

Some people are always telling you that the world is soon to end. In the old days many of them would wear sandwich boards describing near-term doom, and not wash. Now, their cousins in the environmental movement glue themselves to oil refineries and don’t shave. In each case, they drip with urgency. The oceans will boil, the land will burn. Your children will fry. Or, alternatively, the Lord will return and take only the righteous to their reward. Be afraid and confess, before it is too late. Public life has these people, too, for this tendency is quite universal. Financial doom-mongering is a profitable little side-line for some economists. The great crash they predict is always upcoming.