On May 14, President Donald Trump stood smiling with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and Syria’s self-declared leader, Ahmed al-Shara’a, on the sidelines of the President’s visit to Riyadh. After the get together, the President declared that the United States would lift sanctions on Syria and re-establish diplomatic relations between the two countries.
For some observers, Trump was creating an environment that would facilitate badly needed aid and reconstruction assistance. For others, normalizing al-Shara’a—the leader of an al-Qa’ida offshoot who once served time in prison in Iraq for anti-American violence—was a potentially dangerous development. Al-Shara’a’s moderation was something to be tested, not accepted at face value.
Although the Saudi Crown Prince brokered the Trump-Al-Shara’a encounter, some analysts regarded the meeting as a victory for Turkey, vindicating the bet Ankara made on al-Shara’a and his Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham beginning in 2017. But declaring someone or some country the victor or loser in geo-politics is not useful.
The more interesting issues for Syrians and their new leader are what kind of country do they want and which regional actor is going to be the one to get them there? With all the fanfare around the President’s meeting with al-Shara’a, it may seem banal to suggest that it remains very much up for grabs. But the struggle for Syria has just begun.
A number of countries seek to influence Syria’s trajectory, but only two, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, matter. Israel’s buffer zone, its commitment to protect Druze, and the Netanyahu government’s not-so-secret talks with the new leadership in Damascus are important. But Israeli influence will not be decisive in Syria’s future path. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are generally wary of the new order in Syria (despite Dubai Ports World’s recent agreement to develop the port of Tartus), but they have neither sought to shape it nor disrupt it. For Washington’s part, the Trump White House seems content to help Syria by lifting sanctions, normalizing ties, and declaring the country “open for business,” all of which are important. But the administration seems wisely intent on avoiding deeper involvement in Syria’s transition.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are different. They both have the resources, interests, and incentives to influence Syria’s post-Asad path. Some of those interests are shared, such as pushing Iran out of the Levant, but it might be too optimistic to suggest that Syria can be a shared Saudi-Turkish project. Indeed, despite a rapprochement between Riyadh and Ankara dating back to 2022, mistrust lingers. In Riyadh, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ambitions to be the leader of the Muslim world rankles the custodian of the two holy mosques and Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood is an outstanding concern. In many ways, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are moving in opposite directions, which is why Ahmed al-Shara’a and Syrians would be better off under Riyadh’s tutelage than Ankara’s influence.
In a variety of ways, Saudi Arabia is the more inclusive of the two countries. Admittedly, it is a low bar, but where Saudis are enjoying the benefits of liberalization, albeit top down and controlled, Turks are contending with a long slide into authoritarianism.
Turkey has regularly scheduled elections, which Saudi Arabia does not, but this democratic practice is increasingly fraught. When Erdoğan has not liked the outcome of elections, he has made sure mayors are stripped of their power or put their municipalities in receivership. He has also used the coercive apparatus of the state to weaken his rivals, notably the arrest of Istanbul Mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on spurious charges of corruption, raising suspicions that the Turkish leader may no longer be interested in elections as a means to remain in power.
The Saudis still have a way to go toward equality, but women in the Kingdom are enjoying new freedoms and entering the work force in droves. In Turkey, they may be comparatively better off, but the trendlines are troubling. Women face increasing pressures to exit the workforce and become homemakers. A decade after signing onto the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, Erdoğan pulled his country out of what became known as the Istanbul Convention claiming that it contradicted Turkish family and social values.
Christians cannot build a church in Saudi Arabia, which is bad for religious pluralism, but Turkey is hardly better. In the last decade the government has taken over churches and turned them into mosques, including the world famous Hagia Sophia. A variety of Christian sites—some of which were also museums—existed without controversy for a long time, but they have met a similar fate. The Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) is clearly sending a message that religious pluralism in Turkey is now something of the past.
The Saudis have also become less rigid in enforcement of religious principles whereas the Turks have become more doctrinaire. In 2017, the Turkish primary education system banned references to evolution theory in the national curriculum and the share of religious schools has dramatically increased at the insistence of the AKP.
Saudi Arabia’s religious police have been broken, much to the delight of many Saudis; the religious establishment no longer has the power it once did, though the courts remain a redoubt of reaction. Saudi religious representatives have in recent years preached tolerance and respect for the man-made laws of the lands in which Muslims live. In contrast, Erdoğan and the AKP, which come from a different Islamist tradition than the Muslim Brotherhood, have nevertheless embraced the Brothers’ style of Islamism, which is uncompromising in its drive to Islamize society. As Erdoğan did in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, he seeks in Syria to entrench an Islamist regime that is both ideologically and geopolitically aligned with Ankara.
On human rights, both countries come in for scathing criticism from the US State Department, but Turkey leads Saudi Arabia in the number of journalists jailed and political prisoners.
Syria is, of course, a diverse and complicated country. Some Syrians will want to live in a more conservative environment, and some will want to live in a more pluralistic one. If Ahmed al-Shara’a is true to his word about building a new Syria that is for all Syrians, he and his people will be better off with the Saudis at his side than the Turks.
