What The Barrack Just Happened?

Issue #260

It’s official. Here’s the first footage of a cow breaking loose before Kurban Bayramı. Protect ya inek.

Announcement: We’ll host a live webcast with Alexander McKeever, author of the newsletter This Week in Northern Syria, to discuss the state of play six months after regime change and take questions from the audience.

Join us at this link Monday, Jun. 2 at 0900 EDT / 1300 UTC / 1600 TRT.

In this week’s recap:

• US envoy implements Syria policy

• DEM delegation meets MHP, AKP

• Erdoğan revives constitutional debate

• Fourth wave of arrests hits CHP

• Domestic and diplomatic wraps

• Premature unbucklers criminalized

Also from us this week:

• Our news tracking tools got an upgrade! Check our timelines and calendar.

• Diego Cupolo reports on pending enforcement law reforms.

• Trying to keep up with news from parliament? Meclis recap is on it.

Some say it’s bad taste to pun with names. We don’t Sharaa that view. Source

Two short weeks after Trump said he’d lift sanctions on Syria and labelled Pres. Ahmed al-Sharaa a “young, attractive guy”, regional dynamics are changing.

Implementing that change is US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, who recapped developments better than we could after meeting Sharaa and the Syrian FM Assad al-Shaibani Saturday.

“Sharaa praised America’s fast action on lifting sanctions, welcoming Secretary Rubio’s landmark announcement yesterday waiving Caesar Act sanctions for 180 days and the US Treasury Department’s announcement of General License 25 and other sanctions relief measures,” Barrack wrote in a statement.

Normally, it’s hard to tell when ambassadors change, but Barrack is making his presence felt after arriving in Ankara earlier this month and assuming the Syria envoy role Friday.

Along with guiding the transition, his social media posts also appear to be guiding discourse with commanding references to news items like:

• “NYT: Israeli airstrikes on Syria have subsided” on May 25, and;

• “AP: Syria's government and Kurds reach agreement on returning families from notorious camp” on May 27.

Additionally, he has outlined Trump’s vision for a prosperous Syria here, and possibly the grand strategy behind it all by framing the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement as a “mistake” that “we” will not repeat in this X post.

It’s a subject requiring nuance, as Nicholas Danforth, a fellow at Century International, has argued over the years. Asked how he interpreted Barrack’s comments, Danforth told Turkey recap:

“This kind of Sykes-Picot reference risks wrapping soft prejudice in the mantle of cynical realism. In criticizing western intervention, it also hints that the region’s national, tribal or sectarian divisions are so deep and inscrutable they defy foreign efforts at resolution.”

The reference comes after years of discussions about a potential US withdrawal from Syria and a scaled-down military presence in the Middle East. As Barrack’s X post seems to imply, Washington’s policy may involve more delegation of regional politics to regional actors like Turkey, the Gulf states and Europe.

Though Danforth noted the Trump administration remains difficult to predict and seems to “swing between his own corruption fueled personal enthusiasm for regional dictators and his administration’s ideological alignment with Israel.”

“As a result, at any moment he could be bombing Yemen and calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza or trying to sell F-35s to Turkey,” Danforth added. “The good news now is on Syria the administration seems to be listening to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, lifting sanctions and trying to manage tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem.”

Next: A delegation of Syrian Kurdish parties will visit Damascus tomorrow, May 30, to coordinate the implementation of the March 10 agreement signed between SDF head Mazloum Abdi and Sharaa.

The meeting will come after a planned prisoner exchange between the SDF and Damascus was reportedly postponed Wednesday evening.

MHP and DEM Party met Tuesday in a Wes Anderson movie scene. © DEM

Subtle diplomacy: DEM delegation meets MHP, AKP