Warlord, jihadi or nation-builder?

In his first interview since assuming the Syrian presidency on January 29th, Ahmed al-Sharaa sat down with The Economist and laid out his vision for rebuilding Syria’s smashed and bankrupt state. Forty-eight hours into his tenure, the former al-Qaeda leader in Syria outlined a timetable for taking Syria in “the direction of” democracy and promised elections. Many outsiders hoped that his rise would mark Syria’s strategic shift out of the clutches of Iran and Russia and into the Western fold. In fact, he spoke harshly about America’s “illegal” military presence in Syria, welcomed talks with Russia about its military bases and warned Israel that its advance into Syria since the fall of the Assad regime “will cause a lot of trouble in the future”.