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Slaves aren’t friends to their masters: Damascus traded sovereignty and regional commitments for illusions of survival

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | November 18, 2025

Many were taken aback by the recent visit of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to the White House, causing immense debate over whether it should have happened at all, if it benefits either side, and if this new relationship between Damascus and Washington will be significant.

Analysts and commentators from across the political spectrum have attempted to grapple with Syria’s collaboration with the United States. On the one hand, a former ISIS commander who went on to lead Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, now joining the official US-led coalition against ISIS, has bewildered many. Yet for those who have a depth of knowledge on the course of the Syrian War, this comes as little surprise.

In the United States, there are what can only be labelled as two camps of liars and lunatics: One being a contingent of anti-Muslim advocates who are obsessed with “Islamic Extremism”; the other is the base of die hard supporters of the new regime in Damascus.

The first group used Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House, at the invitation of US President Donald Trump, to fearmonger about some kind of Muslim plot and that the US leader was being fooled. This narrative, spread primarily by paid Zionist propagandists, is simply part and parcel of a campaign designed to attack all Muslims and fear mongers about “Islamic Extremist” plots as a means of channeling right-wing anger away from the Israelis.

The other group consists of a range of figures, some of whom are paid to espouse their propaganda, then there are the delusional types and sectarian minded people whose tribalism rules their political outlet. Paid agents are slaves to their pay masters, whereas the sectarian tribalists are unreachable with logic. Only the misled can be reached from this crowd, which is who needs addressing.

The White House slave

Now is time to reconcile with the fact that Ahmad al-Sharaa is a creation of the West. This statement is not meant to be provocative, nor is it hyperbole. Syria’s current leader is the product of those who own him, hence why I said Ahmad al-Sharaa and not his former alias, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

For those of us who covered the horrifying and bloody war in Syria, we know the new President as al-Jolani, the man who led Jabhat al-Nusra. This organisation not only committed countless civilian massacres, allied itself in certain battles with ISIS, ran its own torture centers in Idlib, recruited child soldiers, and committed various other war crimes. To some, however, it later became the “saving grace” of a “blessed revolution” to overthrow a tyrant.

These two narratives evidently don’t have many grey areas, but as often has shown to be the case in Syria, nothing truly makes complete sense. The war revealed that almost anything is possible. At the same time, black and white thinking is very much prevalent amongst many when it comes to this issue.

So instead of arguing the merits of whatever side one chooses to fall on, let us deal in facts as means of dispelling illusion.

There was a reason why the United States launched Operation Timber Sycamore, one of the most costly CIA operations in its history, with the intent of backing anyone to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. There is also a reason why the Israelis began backing at least a dozen Syrian opposition groups, beginning in 2013, including al-Jolani’s Jabhat al-Nusra, with funds, arms, and medical support.

Neither the US, nor the Israelis, cared for the civilian population of Syria. Although their propaganda machines churned out nonsense about their opposition to dictatorship, civilian massacres and mass incarceration, their involvement was never to do with any of this.

You want proof that the US, its Western allies and “Israel” didn’t care? They are all normalising, collaborating with and hosting frequent meetings with a man who is not democratically elected, has built a regime that is more corrupt than his predecessor, and is standing by as sectarian violence takes thousands of lives.

Their goals were clear: They sought to collapse Syria into a number of opposing sectarian groups who rule their own territory based upon ethnicity or religious affiliation; loot its resources; bankrupt the country to tie it to the IMF and World Bank [because Syria was previously self sufficient]; conquer the Golan Heights; permanently destroy its strategic military capabilities; end Syria’s role in backing or facilitating the Palestinian Resistance; stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah and end Iran’s role in the country; in addition to installing a puppet leadership. All of these goals were achieved.

The narrative that al-Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the rebrand of al-Nusra) defeated Bashar al-Assad is false. There wasn’t a battle to take Damascus, there was a deal struck that enabled a handover of power. It wasn’t a “war of liberation”; it was a regime transfer.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, nearly 9,000 civilians have been murdered across the country since the new government came to power. These are considered to be conservative figures also, as other sources put the death toll much higher, especially due to the sectarian mass extermination campaign that targeted Alawites and other minorities along the coast earlier this year.

The cost of living in Syria is getting worse, gangsters and sectarian lunatics parade through the streets, kidnappings are rampant, the murder rate is through the roof, and there is still no long promised democracy in sight. Meanwhile, the Israelis are pushing deeper into southern Syrian lands, occupying more territory, setting up checkpoints, bombing wherever they choose on a routine basis, and are even arming Druze separatist militias.

Washington, for its part, is taking over two air bases, openly collaborates with the Syrian authorities on missions inside the country, and CENTCOM is busy playing basketball with al-Sharaa. Israelis, who would once be executed should they step foot in Syria, are openly arriving in Damascus, getting taken on tours around sensitive military sites for their documentaries.

All this as Damascus has cracked down, kicked out, and disbanded all the Palestinian Resistance groups that once operated in Syria, instead choosing to hand over the body of an Israeli soldier captured in 1982, along with the belongings of infamous Israeli spy Eli Cohen.

Now, the argument that some make in favour of this regime, to ignore all of the facts stated above, is that Ahmad al-Sharaa is doing this to lift the sanctions and repair his country.

To address this, let us ask the question: Has all of this collaboration, selling out the Palestinian cause, collaborating with those committing a genocide in Gaza, and meeting for basketball practice ended the sanctions on Syria permanently, or even triggered economic revival? No, of course not.

So you are now left with two possible explanations: Either Ahmad al-Sharaa is so politically incapable that he believes in this so-called “economic revival” master plan, or he is part of a project used to secure the aims of the US, its Western allies, and the Zionist entity. If you chose option one, he isn’t fit to be a political leader and should perhaps be placed in control of a Shawarma store instead.

Under Ahmad al-Sharaa, there is no Syrian leadership, there is simply a group of slaves who were let into the house; in this case the White House. They aren’t to be compared to other Arab regimes either, as they have no autonomy at all, nothing they do is independent as the sanctions are only ever going to be temporarily lifted in order to keep them in line. Under this model, Donald Trump is Syria’s President, not Ahmad al-Sharaa.

In fact, none of this is even about al-Jolani at all. If Bashar al-Assad would have been willing to invite the Americans in, kick out Iran and the Palestinian resistance, stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah, negotiate a deal with the Israelis, hand them the Golan Heights, and give over his strategic weapons arsenal, it would have been him in the White House. This is because the Western powers and Israelis have no standards at all, they will deal with anyone of any ideology that bows down to them.

If you argue this all to those who still back the new Syrian leadership, they will come back with deflective arguments such as “we are tired” and notions about “the Syrian people”. The same such sentiments can be heard from Yasser Abu Shabab’s ISIS-linked gangsters in Gaza, who work with the enemy of their people because they want material goods and are willing to fight against their own nation’s causes in order to secure this for themselves.

This argument is the “being a slave in the house isn’t so bad” argument, but discounts the fact that the majority of Syrians don’t qualify for house slave status, they will instead remain field slaves, some of whom will be abused more than others, but are nonetheless field slaves. The same applies to those who choose to be slaves in Lebanon, or Palestine, or wherever else in the region. Everyone is being subjected to the “Greater Israel Project”, which means that the “prosperity” that US envoy Thomas Barrack carries on about is not in the plan for them.

Keep in mind that even when you are a good slave, you are never actually your master’s friend. You need only look to the example of the deposed Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was only granted asylum and later died in Egypt. Despite his closeness to Washington, his value only came from the usefulness of his regime, nothing less and nothing more.

None of this is to say that there are not legitimate grievances from all sides across regional conflicts, this is undoubtedly true as wars bring out the very worst in people. Yet it is simply delusional to conclude that anything good comes out of being a slave. There is a reason why generation after generation across the Arab World has set the Palestinian cause as the litmus test for whether a government or movement is behaving in their interests, it is because it is a proven fact that collaborating with the enemy leads to chaos and destruction.

If the Israelis and US intended to “let Syrians live”, they would have done so since day one of the new regime. Instead, Washington greenlit the largest ever Israeli aerial assault across Syria and the occupation of more Syrian lands. Why? Because this was always the plan from the beginning, and everyone who fell for the promises of the new Syrian leadership were simply deceived.

November 18, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Israel, Palestine, Syria, United States, Zionism