The Necessary Leader
He may not be ideal, but he can deliver

When Syria’s transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa stepped out of his palace for an evening meal in an upscale district of Damascus last month, he was met not with staged applause but with something rarer: a spontaneous crowd chanting for his good health. The scene was raw and unscripted. For many Syrians, Sharaa is no longer merely a political figure but a symbol of deliverance: the man who ended the war with a minimum of blood and restored a semblance of order. That this outpouring of affection was directed at a former jihadist commander would have once seemed unimaginable. Yet in a country battered by dictatorship, insurgency, and collapse, it speaks to a deeper truth: despite – or perhaps because of – his past, has become the only figure capable of holding the fractured nation together. 

In an ideal Syria, shaped by democratic revolution and visionary politics, such a man would not be necessary. Syria, however, is not a land of ideals. Legitimacy is not earned through purity but through strategic indispensability. Sharaa’s ability to bully or convince the disparate rebel armed factions into accepting his leadership meant that he was by default the obvious alternative to Bashar Assad. For all his sins, he commands enough grudging respect from enough key constituencies – Islamists, regime remnants, Sunni communities, regional actors – to stitch together a fragile, functional peace. 

The cards dealt to him by external powers were handled skilfully. His diplomatic breakthroughs on the regional and international stages in the past six months were impressive. He has overseen the lifting of core US and EU sanctions, secured reconstruction funding pledges from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, and even met with President Trump. These are not minor achievements. They reflect careful backchannel negotiations and a canny ability to speak multiple political languages at once. Much remains undisclosed – several clauses of the US-Syria understanding reportedly remain classified – but  key facts are clear: Sharaa has won over the West’s realists and the Gulf’s cheque books in record time. That, in itself, is a major act of statecraft.

Internally, Syria’s recovery needs more of Sharaa’s attention. Reconstruction cannot only be physical. It must also be institutional, moral and political. In March, a Constitutional Declaration was issued, offering a provisional legal framework for the transition. It was a necessary first step. For Syria to move beyond presidentialism and personal rule, however, the Declaration must be amended. The legislative assembly must be strengthened, granted real oversight and the power to shape law, not merely ratify executive decisions. A clearer separation of powers is essential as a practical safeguard against a return to autocracy. The creation of an empowered prime ministership, tasked with overseeing service delivery and day-to-day governance, would help distribute responsibility and reduce decision-making by the presidency.

Administrative decentralisation must also become more than a slogan. Syria’s state machinery is increasingly hyper-centralised and paralysed by bottlenecks and a deeply embedded culture of micro-management. Decisions that could take weeks are taking months. Provinces and municipalities are forced to wait for approvals from Damascus on matters as trivial as school repairs or waste management. This is not governance; it is gridlock. Empowering local authorities with real fiscal and decision-making autonomy would not be a concession to separatism. Local government, properly managed, constitutionally guaranteed, and not affected along ethnic or sectarian lines, can unlock overseas investment and strengthen community ownership of the reconstruction process.  

Equally critical is the moral architecture of transition. A Transitional Justice Commission was announced in mid-May but its mandate remains opaque. What is required is a genuine truth-seeking process that is Syrian-led, internationally supported, and transparent. The immediate objective should not be to prosecute, but to document. Syria is not yet ready for Nuremberg-style trials. But it can be ready for a formal space in which victims are heard, perpetrators are named, and the historical record is preserved accurately. Such a commission would not unify Syria overnight; but it could draw a moral line between the past and the future, and ensure that memory, not amnesia, will underpin the republic to come.

As Sharaa begins to reconstitute the institutions of the state, he must remain wary of reviving the Baathist Fierce State. Effective change cannot be implemented by Islamist cronies or Assad loyalists. The latter, initially relegated to the margins, have grown more visible in recent months. Networks of power that flourished under the ancien régime are quietly reasserting themselves and forging cynical alliances with segments of the Islamist elite in a bid to protect old privileges and frustrate real reform. Sharaa must break this pattern. Rebuilding the state will require new blood and a leadership that places some measure of trust in its people. The growing pushback on social media and in town squares against the emboldened Assad-era old guard is a healthy reawakening of political life that should be welcomed, not feared.

A place in history
What will define Sharaa’s place in history is whether he acts as a bridge or as a throne. If he steps aside once a new constitutional order is in place, he may be remembered as the man who held Syria together long enough for something better to emerge. He may become Syria’s Adolfo Suárez. If, on the other hand, he continues to consolidate power he will be recalled as just another strongman in a region already full of them.