The U.S. and Russia Come Together on Syria

Following an eruption of violence in Syria, Russia and the U.S. jointly requested a closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the developing crisis, according to Dmitry Polyanskiy, a top Russian envoy to the UN. That the two adversaries proposed the meeting, which was scheduled for March 10 in New York, is extraordinary, considering how tense their relations had become in recent years. 

That’s a good sign, because extraordinary measures are likely needed in the wake of massacres in northwestern Syria over the weekend. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based group, at least 1,311 persons, mostly civilians, have been killed. Following a Thursday ambush by forces loyal to deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, government security forces responded with brutality. The Syrian authorities called in reinforcements, and thousands of jihadists poured into western regions where most of the country’s minority Alawite community live, slaughtering civilians and militia members alike.

The Alawites are seen as religious deviants by the Sunni Islamists, and as remnants of the ousted regime, and their position is precarious in post-Assad Syria. During the sectarian bloodbath that unfolded in and around the cities of Latakia and Tartous, Syrian forces reportedly also killed Christians.

These events pose the strongest challenge yet to the rule of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose jihadi group the Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS)—an offshoot of Al Qaeda—toppled Assad in December 2024. Many now question his professed commitment to unity and his proclamations that religious minorities have nothing to fear from the new government in Damascus. Coming from Sharaa, a former Al Qaeda leader, the credibility of these promises was always in doubt. 

As The American Conservative’s Andrew Day recently noted, Tulsi Gabbard, the current director of national intelligence, had warned about dire possible consequences of Assad’s removal from power and Al Qaeda’s triumph in Syria. Many prominent U.S. commentators have smeared Gabbard as an Assad apologist, but the events of the last few days tragically vindicated her view.

Politically, Sharaa now finds himself in deep trouble. He plans to unveil a new government this month, with Syria’s western and Arab partners urging a smooth transition to an inclusive, representative structure that would reflect the nation’s ethnoreligious diversity. After the latest massacres, however, Syrian minorities—including Alawites, Christians, and Druze—are virtually certain to be even more reluctant than they had been to trust Damascus’s goodwill. It doesn’t help that the Sharaa-allied Syrian National Army, a pro-Turkish group, has been acting with a high degree of autonomy from the central government, adding to the sense that Syria can spin totally out of control.

A recent statement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio will add more pressure on Damascus. On Sunday he condemned “the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days.” Rubio added that the U.S. “stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities,” and he called on Syria’s interim authorities “to hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minorities accountable.”

Whether Sharaa will deliver on that call remains to be seen, but what makes Rubio’s statement so remarkable is that, for the first time since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, the U.S. position is aligned with Russia’s. More remarkable still is that Washington and Moscow have come together to request Security Council action. The UN organ previously had been an arena of an intense U.S.–Russia rivalry on Syria, with Washington pushing for a regime change in Damascus, and Moscow vetoing any action to that effect.

The fact that the U.S. and Russia now seem ready to cooperate on Syria is an early indication that the easing of tensions—initiated by President Donald Trump’s call to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin—is already paying off. As Almut Rochowanski of the Quincy Institute observed on X, “When you have the beginnings of détente, institutions like the Security Council get defrosted and are all of a sudden functional again.”

This is a major shift, the importance of which far transcends Syria. If the thaw between the U.S. and Russia continues, it could open a diplomatic space for dealing with conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and other problems like Iran’s nuclear program. Trump and Rubio are on the right track.