Trump Platforms Former al-Qaeda Terrorist Ahmed Al-Sharaa at White House

America's strange and shifting pieties.

It wasn’t so long ago that the new Syrian President—Ahmed Al-Sharaa (AKA Muhammad Al-Jawlani) was regarded as a top al-Qaeda, “specially designated global terrorist” with a U.S. government ten million bounty on his head.

Yesterday, November 10—the official birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps and National Forget-Me-Not Day (commemorating the sacrifices returning soldiers have made of body, blood, and limb)—President Trump hosted him for an official state visit at the White House.

Ahmed Al-Sharaa began his career with the the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIL), joining the group in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. For those that don’t remember ISIL: the group was formed in 2004 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and was known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

U.S. Marine Corps veterans remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a key leader in the insurgency that fought the Marines during the first two battles of Fallujah in 2004—which included some of the hottest house to house fighting in U.S. Marine Corps history.

Indeed, the fighting got so hot during the first battle in March 2004 that President Bush decided to pause it—prompting the Marines to pull back from the city and give up their initial gains—because it was creating political blowback in the U.S., and “Dubya” was afraid it could hurt his reelection prospects. Two days after he was reelected in November, he sent the Marines back into the Fallujah meat grinder.

Al-Sharaa was detained by American troops in 2006 for planting explosives along a road near Mosul in northern Iraq and imprisoned for five years. As I wrote a few days ago, it was largely roadside explosives that caused the epidemic of traumatic brain injuries among U.S. service personnel (see 450,000 U.S. Soldiers Diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury Since 2001).

Following Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s adventures and prison sentence in Iraq, he shifted his attention to Syria. In 2012, he founded the Syrian group, Jabhat al-Nusra, and worked closely with ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria until purportedly splitting from the former in 2013 and the latter in 2016.

Ahmed Al-Sharaa remained on the U.S. Wanted List with a ten million bounty on his head until November 7, 2025—three days before his White House visit. By all appearances, the U.S. government perceives that he has experienced a “damascene moment,” referring to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

During Al-Sharaa’s White House visit, President Trump emphasized the old idea of letting bygones be bygones.

“He’s a very strong leader. He comes from a very tough place, and he’s a tough guy. I liked him. I get along with him,” Trump told reporters.

“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful, because that’s part of the Middle East. We have peace now in the Middle East.”

Trump acknowledged that al-Sharaa has a “rough past,” but said, “We’ve all had rough pasts.”

Al-Sharaa’s “damascene moment” apparently occurred when he assisted in overthrowing former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad—a medical doctor who received his training in ophthalmology in London.

Platforming the former killer and maimer of U.S. Marines on the Marine Corps’s birthday likely generated some hard feelings amongst the parents and spouses of Marine veterans who were killed or horribly wounded in Iraq, given that these traumatic events of the past continue to affect them.

I understand that expediency and utilitarian considerations have always been a feature of politics. Al-Sharaa is now the CIA’s “Man in Damascus,” and will probably serve western banks and constructions companies well.

I also understand that the ruling classes have always regarded ordinary soldiers as expendable cannon fodder, worthy of zero consideration—that is, until the ruling class wants to call them up to kill and be killed. As Kipling famously put it:

I went into a theatre as sober as could be, 
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me; 
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls, 
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls! 
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide, 
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.  

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap. 
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit. 
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, 
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes,” when the drums begin to roll. 

Such has always been the lot of ordinary soldiers.

What I find extremely irritating is the maelstrom of self-righteous, virtue signaling humbug that has been such a prevalent feature of American public discourse in recent times.

The kind of Realpolitik so garishly displayed in the White House yesterday would now be of great service to ordinary American citizens in the matter of U.S.-Russian relations, but who in Washington ever thinks about them?