ISTANBUL — From the pulpit at a mosque in the besieged Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syrian rebel leader Zahran Alloush denounced democracy last December as a corrupt system and left no doubt that he seeks an Islamic state to succeed the government of President Bashar Assad.
But in his first interview with U.S. news media, Alloush was the model of pragmatism.
Gone were his previous calls to expel members of the ruling Alawite sect from Damascus. In the interview he called them “part of the Syrian people” and said that only those with blood on their hands should be held accountable.
Abandoned, too, was the talk of an Islamic state. Now he said he favored allowing Syrians to decide what sort of state they wanted.