Understanding Syria's Pleasantly Surprising New Ruler Sharaa

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While defending it, Sharaa showed one of the important ideas that set him apart from Islamist rulers.“If we scare people into living by Islam, they will pretend to be Muslims when we show up, and stop believing when we leave,” he said .

Sharaa seemed aware of the uselessness of religious coercion, a conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman had arrived at, and started implementing, in 2015, thus socially liberalizing Saudi Arabia at a breakneck speed.

During his rule of Idlib, Sharaa took pride for his team's ability to run a government that proved to be successful in collecting taxes, balancing its books, reconstructing war-damaged infrastructure and maintaining adequate services – from trash collection and supply of water and electricity to management of public schools and colleges. It is this success that Sharaa has been promising the rest of Syria, ever since he emerged as the new de facto leader since Assad fled to Moscow and his regime collapsed.

Because Sharaa is a man with a plan, and because he is someone who believes in his ability to transform Syria into a successful state, he seems to have given up on Islamist populism that stands on the promise of endless Jihad, liberation and warring against non-Muslims, especially Israel.

In his earliest media hits, Sharaa told CNN that he had joined Al-Qaeda because at the time he was still young and immature, and that his views have evolved and changed since. He also said that he believed in democracy and pluralism.

In that interview, like in the first appearance of Sharaa's Idlib Prime Minister Muhammad Bashir as the chief of a transitional Syrian cabinet, both men erected behind them two flags – the Syrian revolution and the Jihadist flag of their Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia. The HTS flag caused an uproar on social media. The next day, Syria's new rulers nixed their faction's flag and stuck to the Syria one only. Sharaa and his lieutenants had a plan, but they also listened.

Sharaa's most encouraging statements, so far, have come during his meeting, over the weekend, with Arab journalists, in which he said that Syria under him had no problem with the Iranian people, but only with the“dangerous project” of the Iran regime. He added that Syria would not opt for war with Israel, that Israel's strikes on Syria are no longer justified (since the Iranian militias are gone) and that he would instead seek diplomatic solutions for any problems with the Jewish state.