Senior International Policy Advisor and former U.S. Ambassador Barbara Leaf recently spoke to Al Arabiya in a televised segment about regime changes in Syria and the international community's role in bolstering long-term peace in the region.
Ambassador Leaf mentioned that Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa's rise to power in December 2024 was a crucial juncture for the U.S., which came as the Trump transition team prepared for its new administration.
"It was a critical moment to lay eyes on and engage with this new leader whom we knew at a distance," she said. "It was quite important for us to have an understanding of what he was about, what he planned, and report back, including sharing that set of impressions [...] with the incoming team."
Ambassador Leaf also addressed concerns that the war in Gaza could lead to ongoing conflict in the entire region, characterizing it as a driver of "permanent insecurity and instability."
"Going back to Syria and Lebanon, for the first time in four or five decades you have [...] the prospect of taking the military winds there and turning them into political capital," she noted. "But that can only happen with a larger effort at stabilization, and Gaza is very much a part of that. It enflames the Arab public and is a seedbed for radicalization of a very dangerous kind for the future."
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