Pragmatic relations: according to Mohammed Fahmi, it would be out of pure opportunism. “He used them, at least at the time, to continue to seduce certain segments of the population by saying that he continued to wage jihad. But at the same time, he collaborated with MIT (Editor’s note: the Turkish intelligence service) to give information to the international coalition on the cadres of Al-Qaeda He played on both fronts He was also the friend of Erdogan (Editor’s note: the Turkish president). for that that he is called pragmatic. He is clearly an opportunist. He speaks about national unity. He does not want to represent all Syrians in all their faiths.
Syrians in Belgium divided on the situation in Syria: “We are replacing a dictator with a terrorist”, fears one of them, others are jubilant
Al-Jolani, however, has not abandoned his Islamist profile. “He cannot abandon this status because the majority of factions in Syria are Islamist. It is thanks to them that he managed to overthrow al-Assad. And he cannot get rid of them smoothly. Just to For this reason, he will never be able to abandon his Islamist profile. But he is now trying to present himself as a moderate Islamist, a bit like his international referent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Islamist in a suit and tie.”
Clearly, al-Jolani will try to smooth out his image for the international community. “He likes to be friends with people who can help him. Given the profile he has shown us for 13 years (Editor’s note: date of the outbreak of the civil war in Syria), he has shown that it does not bother him not to compromise to get positions He seems to have understood that if he wanted to appease the country and stay in power, he had to ensure that the international community accepted him and no longer considered him as a terrorist but as one. a true democratic leader. show himself as a leader who can be worked with.”
A facade speech? “If al-Assad earned his nickname of the Butcher of Damascus, it is not for nothing. Syria is completely on its knees today. If the Syrian army collapsed in two weeks, it is for a reason. The soldiers were almost no longer paid. Bashar Al-Assad and his regime saw no problem in not building public infrastructure, in not providing public services. So worse than that, it’s difficult to imagine. , because Syria is a country today in ruins But it will not be easy to rebuild the country al-Jolani will have to make compromises internally and compromises externally.
