Syria's president Ahmad Al-Sharaa will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday. Mehmet Ali Ozcan/Anadolu/Getty Images

Less than a year after his lightning power grab, Syria’s president is capping his transformation from jihadist to global statesman in a historic visit to the White House that says as much about the young leader as it does his push for his country’s diplomatic reinvention.

Ahmad al-Sharaa’s meeting on Monday – the first ever visit to the White House by a Syrian head of state – will be his 20th foreign trip since appointing himself as president of Syria in January, and his second visit to the United States, following his attendance of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.

But this meeting will be the most high-profile and hig

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