Selling Syria's Reconstruction
My new piece in Foreign Policy on Sharaa's murky investment campaign to rebuild the country, pitching high-rises amid all the rubble.
On a recent visit to Europe, Syria’s former rebel leader-turned-president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, had a pitch that would have been hard to imagine just a year and half ago. He told a packed audience at Chatham House in March that his government was trying to “transform Syria into an economic destination” for the entire Middle East. By investing in Syria’s reconstruction, Europe could tap into what Sharaa called the country’s “strategic geopolitical location in the region” while allowing millions of Syrian refugees to finally return home.
Sharaa has been busy making a version of this pitch ever since he toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024. Whether hosting foreign officials in Assad’s old presidential palace, or traveling abroad to meet heads of state such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and …
