A year ago, the war that President Bashar al-Assad seemed to have won was turned upside down.
A rebel force had broken out of Idlib, a Syrian province on the border with Turkey, and was storming towards Damascus. It was led by a man known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, and his militia group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
One year later, he is interim president, and Bashar al-Assad is in a gilded exile in Russia.
Syria is still in ruins. In every city and village I have visited this last ten days, people were living in skeletal buildings gutted by war. But for all the new Syria's problems, it feels much lighter without the crushing, cruel weight of the Assads.
Sharaa has found the going easier abroad than at home. He has won the argument with Saudi Arabia and the West that he is Syria's best chance of a stable future. In May, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia arranged a brief meeting between Sharaa and US President Donald Trump.
At home, Syrians know his weaknesses and the problems Syria faces better than foreigners. Sharaa's writ does not run in the north-east, where the Kurds are in control, or parts of the south where Syrian Druze, another minority sect, want a separate state backed by their Israeli allies.
On the coast, Alawites – Assad's sect – fear a repeat of the massacres they suffered in March.
A year ago, the new masters of Damascus were mostly armed Sunni extremists. Now Sharaa is trying to project a more conciliatory image as he navigates a nation still divided by sectarian lines.
The mixed assessments of his leadership, the ongoing violence, and uncertainty regarding international recognition add a complicated layer to Syria’s prospects as it moves into this new chapter.
