After a decade-long American effort to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power in Damascus, Senator Lindsey Graham says the US-backed jihadists that now control the country are causing more concern than ever.
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Graham explained that he had “never been more worried about the deterioration of Syria than I am now.” The senator was discussing an outbreak of violence in the country, where forces aligned with the new government are conducting mass executions targeting the Alawites and other religious minorities.
Under President Barack Obama, Washington provided training and arms for Assad’s opposition, hoping to remove him from power and undermine Iran’s regional influence. However, the most powerful rebel factions were violent jihadists, a fact acknowledged in a 2012 internal memo circulated by Obama’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
During Trump’s first administration, he ended US support for the Sunni opposition, but enforced sweeping sanctions on Damascus that prevented the government from crushing Syrian al-Qaeda, led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and then concentrated in the country’s Idlib province.
At least some support for the rebels resumed during the Joe Biden presidency. In 2024, equipped with Ukrainian drones, Jolani’s forces went on the offensive, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to flee the country.
Jolani and his organization – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist umbrella group – then seized control of the country. After dubbing himself the new Syrian leader, Jolani was embraced by Washington and its allies. Last week, when violence broke out in Syria’s coastal region, HTS responded by killing hundreds of Alawite civilians.
The events of the past weekend left Senator Graham questioning whether the US could still work with Jolani and HTS. “Is this al-Qaeda or ISIS-light or is this some new form of Islam that we can all live with?” he asked, adding that before any sanctions were removed, Jolani must comply with unspecified conditions.
Graham has supported the regime change operations against Assad for well over a decade. In 2012, he argued, “We need to form a coalition to help arm the rebels, as well as create no-fly and no-drive zones to stop the slaughter by the Assad regime. I cannot say with certainty what will follow Assad but I can say with certainty that Assad must go, sooner rather than later.”
“If America is seen as being helpful in ending the slaughter of the Syrian people, it will allow us to have a stronger, future relationship with Assad’s eventual successor,” he continued. “Replacing Assad in Syria is critical to regional stability, a major blow to the Iranian regime and will bolster our national security interests.”
The next year, the senator acknowledged that “radical Islamists are hijacking [the Syrian] revolution.” However, that did not sway Graham’s support for regime change.
In 2015, the South Carolina lawmaker argued that the US should prioritize taking out Assad to fighting the jihadists. “How can we train a Free Syrian Army or send any other force into Syria if we don’t first deal with the Assad air threat?” he said, referring to the country’s supposedly “moderate” rebel FSA faction.
During the first Trump administration, in 2020, Graham called for the creation of a no-fly zone in Idlib to protect HTS and its jihadi allies from Syrian government airstrikes. “The world is sitting on its hands and watching the destruction of Idlib by Assad, Iran, and the Russians. This is one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in decades and the brutal aggression of Assad supported by Iran and Russia needs to come to an end,” he said at the time.
“I very much appreciate Turkey’s intervention in Idlib. It is now time for the international community to establish a no-fly zone to save thousands of innocent men, women, and children from a horrible death.” Graham added.
