The United States will likely use sanctions relief leverage to de-escalate tensions between Syria and Israel and support Syria's economic and reconstruction recovery efforts, while continuing to provide sufficient, albeit diminished, support to the Kurds, enabling them to slow-walk integration with the Syrian government. In recent weeks, the U.S. envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, has met with Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and visited the Kurdish-majority northeastern city of al-Hasaka to discuss mechanisms to facilitate the integration of the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, into the Syrian central government. In March, the SDF and al-Sharaa reached an agreement to integrate SDF institutions into the state, but little progress has been made after separate outbreaks of violence between government forces and minority Alawites and Druze communities led the SDF to seek to maintain their arms out of concern for similar clashes with government forces. However, following Barrack's visits and...
