All it took was for the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch) to swap his jihadist turban for military fatigues for him to be rebranded as a “resistance leader.” The moment he dropped his nom de guerre (Abu Mohammad al-Joulani) for his previously unknown civil name (Ahmed al-Charaa), he was hastily declared a “moderate”!

And as soon as the tyrant Assad was overthrown and he established himself (through armed force) as the new master of Damascus, off came the uniform. He now appears as the perfect Erdoganist Muslim Brother gentleman: suit and tie, neatly trimmed beard, and a well-rehearsed smile… And now he’s held up as the embodiment of “post-Islamism” (no less!), by the most zealous “specialists in Islamic expertise”! Endorsed, too, by the champions of realpolitik and geostrategic pragmatism, as the leader of a “neo-jihadism” supposedly “inclusive” and “localized”—tolerant and lacking any transnational agenda. These glaring oxymorons were already served to us in the summer of 2021, during the Doha agreements that paved the way for the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul. We all know how that turned out…

Faced with such absurdities—crafted and spread by pseudo-analysts driven by fake naivety (and real stupidity!) who, at every geopolitical upheaval, try to turn wishful thinking into reality (and thus try to make us believe the unbelievable) —a few basic truths deserve to be restated:

– Can fundamentalist extremism ever be “inclusive”?

The bloodthirsty practices of the “Taliban 2.0”—sold (with millions in Qatari PR funding) as having changed and renounced their medieval worldview (especially regarding women) —prove that totalitarianism and intolerance are part of Islamist DNA. Beyond a few tactical shades of grey, there is no reason to believe things will be any different with the new (jihadist) rulers of Damascus: the questioning of gender-mixed education, al-Joulani’s refusal to shake hands with women (even Western ministers offering support), the requirement for influencers and YouTube groupies eager to take selfies with the new Syrian Raïs to cover their hair…

– Is fanaticism compatible with pluralism?

Despite the (feigned or real?) blindness of Western chancelleries, who attribute to Damascus’s new rulers a will to lead a “transition” that respects freedoms and protects the rights of all Syria’s political, religious, and ethnic communities, the reality is very different: the appointments made by al-Joulani reveal a clear intent to impose a jihadist stranglehold over the country. The current Syrian prime minister, Mohammed al-Bachir, previously led the “Salvation Government” set up by HTS in its Idlib stronghold (2017–2024), known for its zealous enforcement of Sharia law—rivaling the Taliban regime in Kabul. Worse still, his Justice Minister, Shadi al-Waisi, is a war criminal who personally executed adulterous women in Idlib province.

If proof were still needed that there is no worse blind man than the one who refuses to see, these delusions persist, despite the abuses committed by the new Syrian president’s disciples against Alawite, Kurdish, and Druze minorities.

– Can jihadism renounce the transnational caliphate?

Even though the jihadist allegiance of the groups that seized Damascus is clear, many well-meaning souls in the West claim their takeover is less dangerous, because they have supposedly renounced global jihad and no longer intend to conduct or support violent actions outside Syria. According to this logic, they have adopted a “non-transnational neo-jihadism,” perhaps even becoming the forerunners of a “post-Islamism” that embraces the concept of the nation-state, thus abandoning the expansionist dream of a “global caliphate” promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood and later by al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Yet, aside from the indecency of suggesting that jihadist barbarity becomes more tolerable as long as it stays within Muslim borders and refrains from targeting the West, nothing proves that al-Joulani has genuinely embraced this so-called “non-transnational jihadism.” If he had, why would he have granted the rank of general to six jihadists of Turkish, Jordanian, Albanian, Tajik, Egyptian, and Chinese nationality [see also: the (jihadist) organizational chart of the new Syrian army], appointing them to the general staff of Syria’s new army—even though they don’t hold Syrian citizenship?