The unloading of Bashar al-Assad in December was a hopeful moment for Syria. The installation of his successor, jihadist commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, was a more nervous one. We discuss the mood among civilians with journalist Zaina Erhaim and Monocle’s Hannah Lucinda Smith, following the latter’s trip to Damascus in February. We also hear Slovenia’s foreign affairs minister, Tanja Fajon, who has met Syria’s interim president, and consider the implications for the country’s neighbours with Faysal Itani, the senior director of Middle East programs at the New Lines Institute.