Gulf monarchies scramble in Syria as ghosts of the Arab Spring return

Gulf states who spent years trying to crush Islamic political movements viewed as a threat to their rule are now reconciling, potentially working with a government in Syria headed by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) that is backed by rival Turkey and courting the US. 

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt have been caught off guard by what one Egyptian diplomat characterised to Middle East Eye as the “quick rebranding” of HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate. 

The UAE has also been unnerved by the US’s maneuvering to open backchannels of communication to HTS via Turkey, according to a senior western official. 

MEE spoke with a senior western official, one Egyptian diplomat, and a Gulf official working on Syria to discuss sensitive diplomatic discussions as Syria’s transitional government takes shape. 

Before HTS spearheaded a rapid offensive to take Damascus, the UAE was brokering talks between the government of Bashar al-Assad and the US. The UAE wanted to strike a grand bargain to keep the Assad family in power and facilitate relief from US sanctions in return for Assad closing Iranian arms supply lines. 

“The Emiratis are livid,” a senior western official working on Syria told MEE. “The Americans are running to the Turks. The UAE invested so much in Assad and are empty-handed.” 

The brewing distrust carries similarities to the time after the 2011 Arab Spring, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE opposed popular demonstrations against Middle Eastern autocrats and accused Turkey and Qatar of backing the Muslim Brotherhood. 

“Rulers already paranoid about Muslim Brotherhood-type Islamists will suddenly need to deal with something that’s like the Muslim Brotherhood on steroids, and also just way more dangerous and unpredictable,” Aron Lund, a Syria expert at Century International, told MEE. 

In recent years, leaders in the Middle East who found themselves on opposite sides of proxy wars in places like Libya sought to patch up ties. Saudi Arabia has moved closer to Qatar, but Doha’s relations with Abu Dhabi, while friendlier than during the latter’s blockade, remain strained.  

‘Rulers paranoid about Muslim Brotherhood type Islamists will suddenly need to deal with something that’s like the Muslim Brotherhood on steroids’

– Aron Lund, Century International

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who ousted Egypt’s democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammad Morsi, met twice with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2024.

Erdogan backed Morsi and famously declared, “I will never talk to someone like him,” referring to Sisi. 

The fragile detente between Sisi and Erdogan could be tested now that HTS controls Damascus, a cultural and former economic hub of the Arab world. 

“Turkey’s power is on the rise, clearly,” the Egyptian diplomat told MEE. “And HTS is more Muslim than the Muslim Brotherhood dreamed of being. The Muslim Brotherhood could flourish in Syria.”

Only game in town

With Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s strategy of rehabilitating Assad now over, analysts say the Gulf states have few options but to engage HTS and accommodate Turkey’s influence. 

HTS’s political affairs office reportedly met with the ambassadors of Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. 

Qatar, which opposed normalisation with Assad, said it will reopen its embassy in Damascus. Qatar has mediated between the US and other groups considered “Islamist”, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hamas in Gaza. 

Gulf rulers are concerned that small arms and Captagon left over from the Assad government in Syria could spill across their borders.

Assad’s removal is also a historic strategic setback for Iran, which used Syria as a link to the Mediterranean and to supply arms to Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran’s embassy in Damascus was one of the rare diplomatic posts ransacked by rebels before HTS stamped out looting. 

The oil-rich Gulf states also have leverage with HTS, which has inherited Syria’s collapsed economy. Turkey has backed Syria’s rebels but is also distracted by its focus on stamping out Kurdish armed groups backed by the US in northern Syria. Turkey’s cash-strapped government does not have the funds to contribute to what the UN says will be Syria’s $400bn reconstruction bill. 

“This looks to be an invaluable opportunity for Arab governments to engage, shape and support some form of transitional authority that would consolidate what is a huge strategic blow to Iran’s place in the region,” Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute, told MEE. 

US sends a message

US actions and rhetoric since the collapse of Assad’s government signal the US is ready to work with HTS, at least for the time being.

But Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and even Qatar have urged the US to be cautious as it assesses whether to remove sanctions on HTS, a Gulf official told MEE. 

HTS is designated a terror group by the US, UN and Turkey.

On Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller publicly stated that the US had asked HTS to help locate and free missing American journalist Austin Tice, who is believed to have been abducted in Syria in 2012. 

“In all of our communications with parties that we know talk to HTS, we have sent very clearly the message that as they move through Syria liberating prisons, that our top priority is the return of Austin Tice,” Miller said.

This is in stark contrast to how the US treats other groups it designates as terrorists.

MEE previously reported that US officials discussed the merits of removing a $10m bounty on HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. A senior US official told reporters that Washington was in contact with “all Syrian groups”. 

In the Gulf, there is already a sense the US is signalling to HTS that it will be rewarded if it aligns with US interests. HTS has reassured Syria’s minority communities, like Christians, Kurds, and Alawites, that they will be included in Syria’s new political framework.

On Sunday, the US launched widespread air strikes across Syria targeting the Islamic State (IS) group. US Central Command said it hit 75 IS targets in territory previously under the domain of Russia. 

Regional officials say the US likely built the target bank over the years and that Russia’s pullout allowed the US to hit IS, but they added that it sent a message to HTS also. 

“The size and scope of those strikes was a clear indication of preferences by the US – and HTS is desperate for US support,” the Gulf official told MEE.