The interim president’s historic U.N. address and outreach to Syrian Americans mark a new chapter for the country and its diaspora.

On Wednesday, September 24th, 2025, Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa gave a historic address to the United Nations General Assembly. It was the first time Syria had done so since 1967, prior to the military coup that began fifty-four years of iron-fisted rule by the Assad family. After fourteen years of isolation during a brutal civil war, Sharaa’s address was a clear indication that Syria was once again welcomed onto the world stage. His tightly packed five-day visit to New York was a flurry of diplomatic activity with a focus on making the case to policymakers in the American administration to lift Assad-era sanctions on the beleaguered country, and efforts to find an agreement to stop Israeli bombings and incursions that began shortly after the fall of Damascus. Syria’s focus, as he said in his speech, was “to create a new chapter of peace, prosperity, and development.” Alongside diplomacy, the Syrian delegation prioritized making inroads with the Syrian American community through several events, aiming to meet Syrian Americans of all sects and denominations.

Background and History 

In November 2024, Sharaa’s forces (HTS or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), in conjunction with other rebel groups, launched an initially limited operation aimed at pushing back the frontlines of the war. Instead, it shocked the world by taking Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, which Syrian rebels had lost to a combined Russian-Iranian assault in 2016 that saved Assad’s government. In late 2024, the strategic situation had shifted as demoralized regime conscripts capitalized on promises of amnesty. Without the backing of Russian air support, Hezbollah auxiliaries, or Iranian advisors, they surrendered or fled en masse. Pressing onward after taking the country’s north, the blitzkrieg swept through cities long-lost to the regime, capturing Hama, Homs, and, after 11 days, the capital Damascus. On December 8th, 2024, the Syrian civil war, which had begun from protests in March 2011, came to a dramatic end.

The unprecedented turnaround of the rebellion from seeming defeat to total victory was mirrored by Sharaa’s own history. Sharaa, captured by the United States military as a low-level militant in 2005, was one of thousands who went to fight American troops after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was imprisoned by the Americans, including at the notorious facility Abu Ghraib, during the worst sectarian bloodletting of the war. In confinement, he wrote a thesis on how to topple the Assad regime and avoid the mistakes of the Iraqi insurgency. He was released in 2011 as that war wound down and the Syrian uprising began. With seed money from former al-Qaeda allies, he founded Jabhat al-Nusra (the Support Front), quickly turning theory into practice. Nusra became one of the most effective rebel factions and was designated a terrorist organization by Washington in 2012.

Although Nusra’s primary focus was toppling Assad, the United States targeted it with drone strikes and demanded that other nationalist rebels turn on it as a condition of limited support. The policy was embodied in the Train and Equip program, which collapsed in 2015 after Nusra routed American-backed units and seized their weapons.

Meanwhile, the insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq exploited chaos in Syria and the American withdrawal from Iraq to rebuild. Rebranding as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (hereafter Daesh), they declared war on Syrian rebels in 2014. Fighting drove them from the north, but rebels lost the county’s east to the extremists, who continued to capture parts of western Iraq. After a series of terrorist atrocities, the U.S. led an international coalition to dismantle the group. Beginning in 2015, the campaign stripped Daesh of its territorial control by 2019. With both US and Russian entry, the conflict in Syria became internationalized, and effectively partitioned as a ground of proxy war. During his rise, Sharaa confronted regime loyalists, rival rebels, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran, Daesh, Kurdish proxies, and  Russia.

In the late 2010s, millions of Syrians fled the Assad regime’s Russian-backed reconquest of most of the country, crowding into the small province of Idlib. It was the last stronghold of the opposition. Defeats and setbacks forced once-divided Syrian rebel groups to evolve and unite. In 2016, Sharaa formally broke remaining ties with al Qaeda and aligned with mainstream rebels in the cause of national liberation, founding HTS.  The realities of governing three million internally displaced people in the region counseled moderation and pragmatism. He imprisoned extremists and consolidated rebel groups (sometimes against their will). In 2020,  HTS enforced a ceasefire when frontlines of the conflict were frozen by agreement between Turkey and Russia. 

Capitalizing on the pause in fighting,  he set up a technocratic government. This “Syrian Salvation Government,” staffed with civilian ministries, ran day-to-day life in Idlib. It began pursuing diplomacy as a recognized actor, inviting journalists, opening backchannels with foreign governments, and reaching out to loyalist areas to build ties for a post-Assad reality. This blueprint of rebel governance allowed for a smooth transition in the final offensive. A unified chain of command and discipline prevented the mass retribution many had feared from a rebel victory. The same structure also allowed basic services like policing and garbage collection to resume the day after.

Sharaa in New York

Still the subject of a United Nations travel ban, the Syrian president landed in New York after a five-day special waiver by the Security Council was approved to permit his entry. Soon after his arrival, he attended an event with prominent dignitaries and members of the Syrian diaspora, including Rabbi Yoseph Hamra, brother of the last Chief Rabbi of Syria and head of the Jewish Heritage of Syria Foundation in Brooklyn. The Rabbi later wrote a public letter to the US Congress urging repeal of the 2019 Caesar Act sanctions on Syria. Sharaa told the diverse crowd of Syrians of all faiths: “We must be a united people. We may not agree on everything, but we must unite.” At the event, he was photographed embracing Safouh Barazi, a former opposition politician who fled Hama in 1973 and was sentenced to death in absentia by Hafez Assad. Dr. Barazi had been in exile for more than fifty years and had several members of his family executed. Hama later saw an uprising in 1982 that was brutally crushed by the regime, killing tens of thousands and ushering in Assad’s police state.

On Sept. 22, Sharaa headlined the UN-adjacent Concordia Summit in a public interview with his former captor, retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who commanded all American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011. Petraeus directed the 2007 surge in Iraq and the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, and it was his forces that once held the Syrian leader. As CIA Director in 2012, Petraeus played a significant role in designating Jabhat al-Nusra, HTS’ predecessor, a terrorist group. The US placed a $10 million bounty on Sharaa’s head and sent drones after him. Yet when the pair met, they had a cordial conversation acknowledging the past but focused much more on the future.

Left to Right: Ahmad Sharaa and his former captor, David Petraeus, Sep 22 2025. (PC: Mustafa Majeed)

“At a time, we were in combat, and now we move to dialogue,” Sharaa said with a smile, adding that people who have gone through war know the importance of peace. “We cannot judge the past based on the rules of today and cannot judge today based on the rules of the past…,” Comparing Sharaa’s leadership as commander and now president of the war-torn country with his personal experience of commanding troops during the war, Petraeus drew gasps from the crowd when he called himself “a fan”. Sharaa quipped that his task in Syria was much harder than Petraeus’ had been in Iraq. He drew attention to the immense task of reconstruction Syria now faced. The interview dismissed rumors that Syria would join the so-called Abraham Accords, with Sharaa saying the states that signed them had no territorial disputes with Israel or faced a direct military threat from it. His focus was instead on reviving the 1974 ceasefire agreement or something similar. Despite speculation of a possible agreement being signed during his visit, nothing materialized after Israel inserted new conditions to the tentative draft, causing negotiations to fall apart.

After the Concordia Summit, the Syrian delegation was hosted by the Middle East Institute at the New York Yacht Club. Inside this historic social venue of America’s East Coast establishment, Sharaa addressed diplomats, researchers, businessmen, and journalists. Also in attendance were the American ambassador to Turkiye and envoy to Syria Tom Barrack, Syrian foreign minister Asaad Shaibani, and Syrian representative to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi.

Interviewed by Charles Lister, an expert on the Syrian war, who pressed him to reflect on his past. Sharaa argued that the radicalization of the early 2000s grew as a response to Western foreign policy and the “disturbances in Afghanistan and Palestine that affected the mood of the Arab and Muslim world,” emphasizing that repression and tight control of information fueled resentment. He contrasted that era with the present, where freer information flows and stronger local agency created a new reality, keeping with his theme of looking forward rather than dwelling on the past.

Sharaa sought to calm fears about minority rights and outlined judicial plans to prosecute both former regime war criminals and those accused of extrajudicial killings. These assurances come after Syria faced renewed unrest, including clashes sparked by insurgent remnants of the old regime on the coast and separatist groups backed by Israel in the south. He pledged that all crimes committed since December 2024 would face accountability in public trials. Noting that judicial capacity is still being built, the interim government was reluctant to make arrests public at this phase,  but stated that such arrests were ongoing. Syria’s delegation also stressed the transitional nature of the current administration, referencing parliamentary elections to be held this month.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly, Sharaa reflected on the pain and struggle of the Syrian revolution and civil war, in his case for lifting sanctions. “The Syrian story is a story of struggle between good and evil. For long years, we’ve suffered injustice, deprivation, and oppression. Then we rose to claim our dignity.”  He also appealed to the international community, “for the complete lifting of sanctions, so that they no longer shackle the Syrian people.”

A banner held aloft with an amalgamation of the American and Syrian flags. Sep 24, 2025 (PC: Mustafa Majeed)

Voicing support for Palestinians, he emphasized that Syria stood “firmly with the people of Gaza, its children and women, and all peoples facing violations and aggression.” Referring to Syria’s own years of violence-“Let me affirm: the suffering Syria endured we wish upon no one. We are among the people most deeply aware of the horrors of war and destruction”,  calling for an immediate end to the war. “Syria today,” Sharaa declared, “is establishing a new state, building the laws and institutions that will guarantee the rights of all without exception while turning the page on a wretched past.”

Outside the United Nations, thousands of Syrians and Syrian Americans rallied in support of the president’s speech. Some were refugees from the war, while others were second and third-generation citizens. Manhattan, where the United Nations is located, was once home to a thriving “Little Syria” community a century ago, and many descendants of that community still reside in the nearby borough of Brooklyn. The crowd waved flags, chanted slogans from the 2011 protests, and carried banners. Sharaa emerged from the General Assembly to greet the demonstrators, drawing cheers. After his departure, members of the Syrian delegation met with supporters. Among them was Raed Saleh, now Minister of Disaster Management and Emergency Response.  A well-known figure, Saleh had formerly headed the White Helmets, a civil defense organization that had rescued people from the rubble of airstrikes during the war. A small counterprotest of Syrian critics of the president passed by without much incident.

Syrian-Americans React

Syrians and Syrian Americans traveled from across the country, many from long distances, to New York to listen to and meet with the Syrian delegation. Sammy N., a lawyer from North Carolina with family roots in Damascus, attended Sharaa’s event on September 21st and said he was struck by what he described as the “unity of diverse Syrians who greeted the president” — noting the crowd had Muslims, Jews, Christians, Kurds, Arabs, secularists, Islamists, leftists, and conservatives, but “all shared optimism about the country’s future.”

For years, Syrian-Americans have been active in American debates over Syria, but with limited influence. Activists once called for international protection of civilians early in the war, and later lobbied for sanctions against Assad over the regime’s human rights abuses. After 2015, when Russian intervention turned the war in favor of the government, they continued with humanitarian work, built bridges with nascent Syrian civil society, and raised awareness about the human cost of the conflict. Now, with Sharaa’s overthrow of Assad, many of the same organizations are urging Congress to permanently repeal the 2019 Caesar Act sanctions, objecting to senators like Lindsey Graham who wish to keep them as a tool of leverage.  Investment at scale required to rebuild is unlikely while sanctions are only currently lifted by temporary waivers. At the Concordia Summit, representatives of Syrian American grassroots organizations were present, including Syrian Forum USA, Syrian American Council, U.S.-Syria Business Council, and the Muslim American Leadership Alliance, among others.

Azzam D., a former political prisoner of the Assad regime, celebrates Syria’s United Nations speech with his personal twist on an American political slogan. Sep 24, 2025 (PC: Mustafa Majeed)

Sumaya Malas, a Syrian American PhD candidate and researcher from Pennsylvania, attended Sharaa’s interview with Petraeus. “It’s important to listen to the president and see his thoughts on his governance strategy since the fall of Bashar Assad,” she said. Her reaction was one of cautious hope: “[Sharaa] has been as pragmatic and middle-grounded as he possibly could be, given all the interests pulling him in different directions. He’s proven to be a good statesman, rational, and those are good signs for what’s to come — though it’s not been perfect.” She continued: “The former regime was so insidious and toxic to not just the political environment but the social culture. It will take more than a few months and some speeches: it will take hard work and the talent of a lot of Syrians who left.” Though Syrians had been “forgotten and demonized in the post-9/11 era and since the beginning of the revolution,” she added, “now we are no longer invisible.”

At the rally, high school student Ahmed L., who emigrated from Idlib in 2011 as a child refugee, expressed pride in Syria’s new course. Speaking with a clear New Jersey accent, the young man state,d “We never thought it would happen. I feel Syria will develop and grow, and the president’s speech showed that freedom could happen. As long as you believe in it, it will happen.”

Fowzi M., another high school senior from Lowell, Massachusetts, who drove down with his family, voiced a similar optimism. He had spent childhood years in Turkey as a refugee before coming to the US, “I wanted to support the new government. I see a new vision, a new opportunity to rebuild the country again. It means a lot — we are getting recognized again by bigger countries, and that is a big step. I believe we are going into a better future… I would invite everybody to go and visit Syria and see it differently than what’s been shown on the news.”

Conclusion

Ahmad Sharaa’s visit to the United Nations General Assembly was symbolically significant, with the Syrian delegation holding at least thirty-six diplomatic engagements. Despite the absence of an agreement with Israel to withdraw from Syrian territory, and with permanent sanctions relief still pending before the American Congress, the visit nevertheless underscored international recognition of the new state. The expectation of a unified Syria is accompanied by an understanding that the new government is committed to protecting its pluralism. The Syrian president’s next diplomatic stop is Moscow in October 2025.

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