Part I: The Idleb CEO


>be me
>Ahmad al-Sharaa
>average Syrian guy with beard level 99
>used to LARP as a rebel leader back when it was cool
>start out preaching to like 12 guys and a goat
>decide to rebrand jihad like it's a Silicon Valley startup
“What if we were like, less ISIS-y?”
>boom, new logo
>boom, new name
>Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham™
>get called moderate extremists
>idk what that means but sounds sexy
>start dressing like I do TED talks in Idlib
>clean suit, trimmed beard, dead stare
>journalists love it
>“He’s the face of the new revolution,” they say
>tfw no one asks where all the CIA money went
>mfw Turkish intelligence pretends they don’t know me
>fast forward
>all rivals mysteriously disappear
>probably moved to Canada or were exploded, who knows
>now I’m the big boss of the last rebel enclave
>basically Syria’s HOA president
>have my own police, courts, press releases
>people say I run a proto-caliphate
>lol no bro it’s just governance with RPGs
>international press starts simping hard
>“Maybe he’s not that extremist,”
>meanwhile I run Friday prayers and drone-evading ops in the same afternoon
>UN invites me to peace talks
>tfw I send my cousin instead
>he just yells “Allahu Akbar” and flips the table
>still get funding
>tfw you win the insurgency by outlasting everyone else
>tfw you realize ruling Idlib is just being mayor of Mad Max town with olives
>tfw it’s not even Friday and you already sentenced 3 people and dodged a missile
>just Mujahideen things

Part II: From cave wifi to interim president

>be me
>Ahmad al-Sharaa
>went from goat-path warlord to transitional president in like 3 speedruns
>Nov 2024: HTS offensive starts
>Dec 7: Palmyra falls
>Dec 8: Damascus taken
>Assad ejects to Moscow like it’s Modern Warfare 2
>declare transitional gov next day
>say “dialogue” like I didn’t just arrest 50 rival commanders
>Israel starts playing missile whack-a-mole
>US busy peacebrokering in the northeast
>SDF backs off, SNA stops yapping
>by Jan I’m president of post-Assad Syria
>put on suit, don’t blink for 3 months straight
>Feb: US drones old AQ boomers to show I’m the “clean” jihadist
>March: SDF dissolves
>I sign a Constitution that gives me executive powers for 5 years
>tfw I’m now legal dictator with UN approval lite™
>drop a cabinet with Kurds, Christians, and one guy who definitely runs a German NGO
>optics maxed
>May: US & EU lift sanctions
>Syria signs $7B oil deal
>tfw I used to smuggle diesel in buckets
>June: Syrian pound stronger than my third marriage
>people coming back
>bazaars open
>World Bank reopens loans
>walk through Damascus
>kids call me “rais”
>not even mad

>tfw the final form of the Syrian revolution is a bearded guy in a suit who speaks like a spreadsheet
>Assad fell
>ISIS fell
>FSA fell
>only I remained
>mfw I won