WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Tuesday that without robust US engagement, Syria’s government may collapse within weeks, potentially triggering a civil war of “epic proportions.”
Rubio spoke a week after President Donald Trump met with Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and announced he would be lifting sanctions on Syria in a major reversal of US policy.
He said it was the US assessment that Syria’s transitional authority “given the challenges they’re facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse, and a full scale civil war of epic proportions … basically the country splitting up.”
Rubio made the case for engaging the new Syrian government and Sharaa, a former insurgent who five months ago led a coalition of rebel groups to topple Syria’s longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
The Trump administration had previously avoided official engagement with Sharaa, whose militant group — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — remains a US-designated terrorist organization due to its past association with al-Qaeda.
“The bad news is that [Syria’s] transitional authority figures, they didn’t pass their background check,” Rubio said. If the United States had not engaged with Syria, “it was guaranteed to not work out.”
The White House has tasked the interagency with proposing options for easing certain sanctions via waivers or suspensions, according to US officials. There are various sanctions and export controls Trump can rescind via executive order, though the Caesar Act and Syria’s 1979 designation as a state sponsor of terror require congressional action.