After a decade-long American effort to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power in Damascus, Senator Lindsey Graham says the US-backed jihadists that now control the country are causing more concern than ever.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Graham explained that he had “never been more worried about the deterioration of Syria than I am now.” The senator was discussing an outbreak of violence in the country, where forces aligned with the new government are conducting mass executions targeting the Alawites and other religious minorities.
Under President Barack Obama, Washington provided training and arms for Assad’s opposition, hoping to remove him from power and undermine Iran’s regional influence. However, the most powerful rebel factions were violent jihadists, a fact acknowledged in a 2012 internal memo circulated by Obama’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
During Trump’s first administration, he ended US support for the Sunni opposition, but enforced sweeping sanctions on Damascus that prevented the government from crushing Syrian al-Qaeda, led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and then concentrated in the country’s Idlib province.
At least some support for the rebels resumed during the Joe Biden presidency. In 2024, equipped with Ukrainian drones, Jolani’s forces went on the offensive, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to flee the country.
Jolani and his organization – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist umbrella group – then seized control of the country. After dubbing himself the new Syrian leader, Jolani was embraced by Washington and its allies. Last week, when violence broke out in Syria’s coastal region, HTS responded by killing hundreds of Alawite civilians.
The events of the past weekend left Senator Graham questioning whether the US could still work with Jolani and HTS. “Is this al-Qaeda or ISIS-light or is this some new form of Islam that we can all live with?” he asked, adding that before any sanctions were removed, Jolani must comply with unspecified conditions.
Graham has supported the regime change operations against Assad for well over a decade. In 2012, he argued, “We need to form a coalition to help arm the rebels, as well as create no-fly and no-drive zones to stop the slaughter by the Assad regime. I cannot say with certainty what will follow Assad but I can say with certainty that Assad must go, sooner rather than later.”
“If America is seen as being helpful in ending the slaughter of the Syrian people, it will allow us to have a stronger, future relationship with Assad’s eventual successor,” he continued. “Replacing Assad in Syria is critical to regional stability, a major blow to the Iranian regime and will bolster our national security interests.”
The next year, the senator acknowledged that “radical Islamists are hijacking [the Syrian] revolution.” However, that did not sway Graham’s support for regime change.
Hellbound and Down 