Al-Sharaa’s turn away from the Nusra Front upon his seizure of power needs to be treated with prudence by the United States.
When former al-Qaeda leader Ahmad al-Sharaa rose to power in Damascus with the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, the Muslim Brotherhood believed that its fortunes had changed. Long banned under the Assad regime, the Islamist group expected to stage an easy comeback because of Sharaa’s jihadi background. Instead, the former leader of the Nusra Front (which adopted the name Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) in 2017 in a rebranding effort to distance itself from its violent past) has sidelined the Muslim Brotherhood. Sharaa has even refused their request to reopen their offices. He is working overtime to consolidate his own power and also to potentially align Syria with anti-Brotherhood regional and Western powers.
The history of the Syrian government and the Muslim Brotherhood is marked by a tumultuous series of events. What began as a political struggle between the Islamist movement and the secular, pan-Arabist Ba’ath Party began just after the Ba’athist coup in 1963. Disagreements over the role of Islam and politics in Syrian society ultimately escalated to an armed insurgency by the Brotherhood in 1979. That conflict culminated with the government’s 1982 massacre in the town of Hama, which left thousands of militants and civilians dead in the Brotherhood’s largest stronghold in Syria. The Ba’athists leveled the town, crushed the Brotherhood as a political force inside Syria, and forced the group to establish a presence outside of Syria.
Exile undoubtedly disrupted the group’s ability to organize and operate, but it also allowed the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to organize a robust opposition movement abroad. This was made abundantly apparent during the early days of the Arab Spring, the wave of protests that swept the Arab world in late 2010 and early 2011. As Islamist movements across the region positioned themselves as alternatives to the entrenched authoritarian regimes that were suddenly under duress, the Syrian Brotherhood sought to assert its dominance.
On the ground, the number of Brotherhood groups participating in the protests was “negligible.” Still, the Muslim Brotherhood found that it could assert its influence through the Syrian National Council (SNC), headquartered in Turkey. The Turks, along with the Qataris, had emerged as the top sponsors of the Brotherhood surge during the Arab Spring.
The SNC claimed to represent 60 percent of opposition groups in Syria. Qatar and Turkey hailed it as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people before eventually merging with the Qatari-based Syrian National Coalition. Interestingly, this external influence never translated into real power during the civil war.
The lack of real influence stemmed from the fact that the Brotherhood did not back any of the major rebel groups fighting Assad. In other words, the movement lacked hard power. However, it did openly support Turkey’s 2019 ground invasion of northern Syria and urged rebel factions to join Turkish forces in seizing areas held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Despite clear signs of influence at varying points throughout the internecine war in Syria, the Brotherhood’s footprint remained relatively small. Expectations changed, however, with the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December of last year. The collapse of the Assad regime, coupled with the rise of Ahmed al-Sharaa, appeared to present the Syrian Brotherhood with a golden opportunity to return to the political scene.
It was immediately clear that Turkey and Qatar, two regimes that continue to support the Muslim Brotherhood, held significant sway with the nascent government. Sharaa’s past leadership with the Nusra Front also appeared to be a sign of changing fortunes for the Brotherhood. Al-Qaeda, after all, draws heavily from the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and doctrine.
Since the downfall of the Assad regime, however, the new leadership in Damascus has been reluctant to grant the Brotherhood an opening in the evolving political system. Local Syrian media sources indicate that Sharaa informed the Brotherhood’s general comptroller, Amer Bousalamah, of the government’s intention to freeze the group’s activities. The ban on the Brotherhood, set since 1963 following the Ba’ath Party’s rise to power, remains in place.
The influence of the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and even Israel looms large. The United States lifted sanctions on Syria in June of this year to buttress the pragmatism and moderation articulated by the new regime. The Saudis and the Emiratis have lent further support in the hopes of steering Syria away from Islamism and extremism. The Israelis, meanwhile, continue to conduct military operations in Syria to neutralize jihadi advances that could imperil Israel or even the Druze minority in the southern regions of the state.
Collectively, the messages from the region are getting through. Even as Qatar and Turkey continue to exert real influence in the new Syrian regime, Sharaa has repeatedly denied any connection to the Brotherhood. However, it would be a mistake to attribute this to an ideological shift for the former al-Qaeda leader. Empowering the Brotherhood is a direct threat to his power consolidation. The group’s historic network and influence within Syrian opposition groups abroad could easily rival his own power, which right now is quite shaky.
Sharaa’s experience reinforces this point. In Idlib, during the civil war, he consolidated control by sidelining other Islamist factions, despite their ideological similarities with his own Hayat Tahir al-Sham. It is now conventional wisdom that Sharaa still envisions a significant role for Islamism in Syria. He simply wants to define the parameters.
At the same time, Sharaa’s stance is also pragmatic. Saudi Arabia and the UAE — opponents of the Brotherhood and champions of a more moderate Islam — are important regional players. Moreover, they have ensured that they have significant political and economic stakes in Syria’s future. It should also be noted that they have helped encourage the efforts in Washington to formally designate the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. As Sharaa works to shed his reputation as a jihadist leader, including with a forthcoming speech at the United Nations General Assembly, distancing himself from the Brotherhood very much appears to be in his interest.
Despite these headwinds, the Syrian Brotherhood has not ruled out a future return to power. Crucially, the group no longer fears the kind of brutal repression it once faced under the Ba’athists. This may embolden the group to continue pressing for entry into the Syrian political sphere.
The group’s political messaging seems to suggest exactly that. On August 7, the group released its first official statement outlining its vision for post-Assad Syria. The statement pledged that the Brotherhood would act as a “faithful advisor, keen on the success of the process of building a modern civil state with an Islamic frame of reference,” adding that it would “always seek to fill gaps to ensure the success of the revolution.” The group further stressed that it would “remain, as the Syrian people have known it, a national Syrian group, independent in its decision.”
The timing and tone of the statement were deliberate. It came during a time when Syria had jihadists who populated the rank and file of the new Syrian military engaged in military action with the country’s Druze community. The Brotherhood thus positioned itself as an experienced and pragmatic Islamist actor that was able to adapt to the country’s fragile new political reality. By casting itself as a “faithful advisor” rather than a competitor, the group still seeks to distinguish itself as a loyal opposition player that is politically and ideologically distinct from the current ruling coalition, which is dominated by HTS members.
Sharaa has indirectly addressed the Brotherhood’s outreach through his media advisor, Ahmad Muwaffaq Zeidan, a former bureau chief of Al-Jazeera. In an August 22 Al-Jazeera editorial titled “When Will the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria Dissolve Itself?” Zeidan argued, “… with all due respect to my brothers and friends in the [Muslim Brotherhood], dissolving the organization today, as other components have done, will serve the country.”
Zeidan’s op-ed provoked a rebuttal from Osama Abu Irshaid, a radical activist closely tied to the US campus protest movement. Abu Irshaid dismissed Zeidan’s call as an attempt to demonize the movement, claiming that calling for the Brotherhood’s dissolution is an attempt to “subdue Arab societies and their political and social forces.” He labelled Zeidan’s argument as an American and Israeli effort to “reshape the Middle East” by eliminating “resistance” groups.
The debate will undoubtedly continue over the role of Islamism in the new Syria. For now, the central question appears to be centered around whether Islamism in the state will be exclusively defined by Sharaa’s new framework or by the Brotherhood’s claim to relevance. In some ways, it is a choice between bad and worse.
The only way out of this Islamist destiny for Sharaa is a full-fledged alignment with the Saudis, Emiratis, and the United States. Sharaa is already taking the proper steps to sideline the Brotherhood, but Washington should not reward him for it. At least not yet. His actions are not rooted in his ambition to undermine the influence of challenging Islamist factions. They stem from pure realpolitik and are geared toward his own survival.
The United States must not get swept up in the excitement of a long-awaited change in Syria until Sharaa’s endgame is clear. While stability in Syria is a United States interest — as emphasized by President Donald Trump and his envoy Thomas Barrack — this should not translate into enabling Sharaa to rebuild another authoritarian regime in Damascus. Nor should it translate into green-lighting yet another Islamist power in the region.
In short, Washington must not confuse exclusion of the Brotherhood with reform. Moreover, exclusion certainly should not be mistaken for a rejection of Islamism.
The Trump administration coughed up its leverage early on when it came to sanctions relief and diplomatic engagement. Washington should wield the promise of aid or reconstruction and other remaining inducements deliberately. Sharaa must be pushed to take tangible steps toward building a pluralistic system that protects ethnic and sectarian minorities and minimizes the role of jihadis and political Islamists alike. Concurrently, the United States should coordinate with its Gulf allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to ensure that the post-Assad order reflects inclusive governance rather than authoritarian and Islamist consolidation.
About the Authors: Jonathan Schanzer and Ahmad Sharawi
Jonathan Schanzer is the executive director at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @JSchanzer.
Ahmad Sharawi is a research analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Image: Shutterstock/Mohammad Bash
