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Comment by yesfitz

4 hours ago

Video, roughly 2.5 minutes long.

Summarized for those already familiar with al-Shara: "He disavowed Al-Qaeda in 2016".

The video itself is propaganda because the West wants new Syria to align with them instead of Russia and Iran. (Putin's also met with al-Shara.) You can tell because it's free, edited for mass distribution via TikTok and Instagram, and the controversies/ongoing criticism is vastly understated, while still being present. A kind of innoculation of the mind to soften the blow of future, harder criticism.

Even the long(er)-form article from yesterday is outside of the paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/world/middleeast/syria-al...

This is not to say that al-Shara is worse than al-Assad, but this video is shockingly reductive.

The country controlling the trump political movement wants him in power so maybe that’s why the PR campaign