Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

On Wednesday, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa will deliver remarks to the world at the United Nations General Assembly, marking Syria’s first presidential address there in nearly 60 years—an end to decades of diplomatic isolation. Yet the mere return of a Syrian leader to the world stage is not the most astonishing part of his appearance.

Once a radical Islamist with ties to al-Qaida and ISIS, Sharaa broke with jihadist networks in 2016. Sharaa “then began steering toward the West,” write Patrick Haenni and Jerome Drevon in their new book Transformed By the People . The book makes the persuasive case that Sharaa was forced to bend to local, less radical sensi

See Full Page