Guerrilla History - The History and Impact of Sanctions on Syria w/ Greg Shupak

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

This episode of Guerrilla History is a continuation of our Sanctions As War miniseries.  In this important episode, we bring on Greg Shupak to discuss the history and impact of sanctions on Syria, and how these sanctions continue in their brutality despite the ongoing humanitarian disaster unfolding.  Get the word out and share this with comrades involved in the anti-sanctions movement. Greg Shupak teaches English and Media Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber and is the author of the book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media (OR Books, 2018).  You can follow him on twitter @GregShupak. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You remember Dinn-Bin-Bin-Brew? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history. the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history

and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined as usual by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussain, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? Hi, Henry. I'm doing great. It's wonderful to be with you. Absolutely, nice to see you as well. Also joined as usual by our other co-host, Brett O'She.

who of course is host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are you doing? I'm doing very well. Thank you very much. Absolutely. It's great to see you. We have a great topic lined up for today with a great guest, and this is going to be a continuation of our sanctions as war series, which is our ongoing mini series focused on the text sanctions as war. Listeners, if you're new to this series, we definitely recommend you going back and listen to some of the previous installments in this series. including introductory and more theoretical discussions, as well as these case studies that we're carrying on here. Today's episode is going to be based on the chapter written by Professor Greg Shupak, titled Writing Out Empire, the Case of the Serious Sanctions. And we are joined by Professor Greg Shupak, who is an English and Media Studies professor at the University of Guelph, Humber, and author of the book, The Wrong Story, Palestine, Israel, and the media. Hello, Greg. How are you doing today? I'm fine. How are you? Terrific. Really glad to have you on. And I think that talking about sanctions in Syria right now is a particularly timely topic.

And I'm sure that we'll get to talk about the timeliness of this topic later on. But before we turn to those more contemporary issues, let's talk about the history first. So most people that are listening to this episode probably have seen Syria in the news relatively frequently, but this really only dates back to about 2011. of course there was basically a civil war that broke out in Syria in 2011 it has been ongoing to certain degrees since then but the story of Syria and sanctions against Syria goes far before 2011 so I'm wondering if you can start the conversation as you do in your piece by taking us through the story of the history of sanctions on Syria before 2011 yeah um so Syria uh

It has been on the list of the U.S.'s so-called state sponsors of terrorism. Since that list was first created in 1979, Syria is a supposed support for terrorism mainly has to do with its relationship with Isbal of Lebanese armed group and political organization, as well as the Palestinian resistance groups, particularly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad. So that framing has persisted out of Syria as a supporter of quote of terrorism for, well, more than my lifetime for more than 40 years. countries that are on this list cannot receive foreign assistance funds from the United States

and that's significant because there was a brief period in the in the mid-70s to late 70s where the United States and Syria's relationships had something of a thaw then the United States actually worked with Syria on a few projects inside Syria relating to its water supply, you know, irrigation, improving rural roads, developing electricity, some health and agricultural research. But putting Syria on this list of supposed sponsors of state terrorism, you know, really signaled that that relationship was coming to an end. You know, Syria was sort of in the Soviet sphere, which was one of the major reasons for U.S. hostility just to the Syrian government.

But also it was Syria's orientation toward Arab nationalism that even outside of a Cold War context was a problem from the U.S. standpoint of view for the same reasons that historically Egypt had been and for some of the reasons that Iraq had been and has been at various points in its history as well. So Arab nationalism, you know, it had something of an element of economic redistribution. It involved resistance. to Zionism and colonialism and imperialism. So, you know, these are things that the U.S. opposes sort of root and branch, right? Like they're anathema to capitalist accumulation and imperialism.

And they were the Arab nationalist governments, including Syria, were always at loggerheads with the pro-U.S. regimes that existed and continued to exist as monarchies, primarily. And so this is kind of the backdrop for claiming that Syria was a, you know, a sponsor of terrorism. And the sanctions ratcheted up from there in the years that followed, particularly alongside the war in Lebanon, in which both the United States and Syria were players, but often not on the same side. So, for example, the United States Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of State would, as of the mid-80s,

have to be notified before any significant licensing of the export of goods or technology from the United States to Syria. As of the mid-80s, that was lowered to the threshold for that was any investment over $1 million, so really initially it was $7 million, and then by $85,86, it was lower to $1 million. And then by 1989, any investment coming from, or excuse me, any export of goods or technology coming from the United States to Syria would have to involve notifying. Congress. And so that's a significant drawback because, I mean, you know, people who, for business

reasons or any other reasons might want to be, you know, engaging in a relationship with Syria would have this significant deterrent, this meaningful barrier to doing so. And so that's the, the terrorism listing was the kind of initial shots fired on sanctions. And that sort of gradually led to tougher and tougher measures throughout the 80s that just made it harder and harder for people in the United States to do business with Syria in really any realm. But, you know, particularly in the realms of, you know, basically advancing technologies that existed in Syria. I say in any realm because, you know, the language is so vague. It was, I think, the export of goods or technology to Syria.

So that means effectively anything. The hostility towards Syria, you know, increased in the 90s under the Clinton administration. There was an amendment made to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, and this involved the United States withholding a share of contributions to international organizations for programs that would benefit Syria as well as other countries affected by this act. So basically the United States was ensuring limits on the amounts of value that international organizations could move into Syria. Further steps in 1996, the U.S. president became required under new legislation to withhold aid to third countries that provide. assistance or lethal military equipment to countries on this terrorism list, including Syria. So, you know, we have sort of an effort here to isolate Syria and the other

supposedly states that supposedly sponsor terrorism. There's an effort to isolate them militarily and undercut their military capacity, whereas their, rivals in the region, such as Israel, for example, would not be subjected to anything comparable. You know, these, these sanctions, they, you know, they weren't totally insignificant in terms of their impact, but they were limited compared to what would follow later. It was really under the, and I say that because Syria relied on a trade with all already pretty heavily on non-U.S. states.

And so it was only in the Bush administration that these really, the sanctions really started to have a significant effect. And part of this is to do with, again, Lebanon and Syria's role in Lebanon. And also with the, you know, inclusion of Syria in sort of the kind of second tier of the access of evil, if you want, in the post-9-11 world. So, of course, the, you know, the original main so-called axis of evil was Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. But there was this second tier that people in the Bush administration alluded to, which included you know, Syria, Libya, sometimes even Cuba, Sudan. So these were, you know, Syria was never kind of very far off the radar, even when it had some level of cooperation with the United States in the early 90s on things like

extraordinary rendition. But, you know, the Bush administration pretty clearly consider the Syrian government to be an enemy despite that kind of limited cooperation. I mean, they've had, the U.S. has had limited cooperation with almost any at all enemies over time, right? Like they sometimes work with Iran, for example, to a limited extent in the early days of the Afghanistan War, the 2001 Afghanistan War or with Iran on fighting ISIS. So, you know, just because the United States worked with Syria a little bit on something like extraordinary rendition, they also did with Libya and ultimately the U.S., of course, attacked it over through the Libyan government. So, you know, even though there was some kind of some like post-9-11 cooperation between Libya and Syria and the United States that shouldn't, I think, be taken to need, well, see, actually their relationship was rosy.

And we see that when we look at the trajectory of the sanctions. So in the 2003 Syria Accountability Act, we see a real escalation of U.S. efforts to isolate and subvert Syrian sovereignty. So this act reduced U.S. diplomatic contacts with Syria and limited Syrian diplomat. about's ability to travel inside the United States. And crucially, it banned U.S. businesses from operating or investing in Syria. Maybe less significantly, but nevertheless, important is that this act also prevented landing in or overflight of the United States by Syrian aircraft. So this was done because of what the law called Syria's occupation of Lebanon. The Lebanese government didn't see Syria's role as an occupation.

Rather, they said we have invited Syria to have a presence in Lebanon. However one interprets that, the Lebanese situation at the time, It's worth noting that we know, of course, the United States has no, you know, in principle, opposition to occupation since, I mean, that very year, the U.S. itself invaded and occupied Iraq. In 2003, the U.S. itself was occupying Afghanistan. It, of course, is underwriting the Israeli occupation to give only a few examples. So I'm emphasizing that because I think that. that a lot of the legislation surrounding the sanctions on Syria is couched in sort of humanitarian language about either human rights violations carried out by the Syrian government, pre-2011 war, and certainly during that war. but also when it comes to things like supposedly protecting Lebanese sovereignty.

I don't think these claims can be taken seriously coming from the U.S. Empire, which, as I said, is itself a routinely an occupier and supporter of same. Likewise, it's absurd to take seriously any United States claims about protecting human rights or humanitarian welfare because we see it violating human rights on a global scale, a mass global scale, everywhere we look. So it's not a claim that stands up to even the least bit of scrutiny. There were a few more steps leading up to the 2011 war, and I'll pause before I get to the 2011 war to, in case you have any follow-up comments or thoughts or questions. But it's in 2003, 2004, there was a lot of talk about Syria supposedly having weapons of mass destruction or seeking to develop them, I should say. This was also part of the justification for sanctions. We have, you know, there was no evidence of Syria pursuing anything like nuclear weapons, certainly. And we have a Western diplomat on record saying this.

They likewise said that Syria did not have the capability or intention of developing nuclear weapons and that they have. had no biological capabilities. So this Syria accountability act that I'm talking about from 2003, alongside the Lebanon issue and the supposed WMD's issue, likewise blamed Syria or criticized Syria for apparently importing Iraqi oil, grave sin evidently to import natural resources from a country, which which you share a border. This at a time, again, 2003, when the United States was, you know, unleashing this cataclysmic war on the people of Iraq and indeed the whole region. Likewise, the 2003 Act quite explicitly cited Syrian support for Hezbollah Hamas and the popular front for the liberation of Palestine, the Marxist group.

in Palestine and also has a presence in Syria and likewise the popular front from the liberation of Palestine General Command, another sort of left-wing Palestinian resistance group. So what we're having here is the United States saying pretty nakedly that it's sanctioning Syria because of Syria's support for anti-imperialism. And I don't suggest that Syria has always been, you know, formally consistent or principled in that support, but it is worth noting that at this time they were in the United States' view guilty of supporting Palestinian liberation movements and also Hezbollah, which is, you know, functioned as the Lebanese, or excuse me, was only the only or the most effective, rather, Lebanese organization

for a resisting Israeli invasion and B, driving Israeli occupations out or driving the Israeli occupiers out of Lebanon in 2000 after having been there for 18 years. So this bill also brought up the rather, you know, strange claim that. Syria is in the realm because it allows Isbalah and other militant organizations to attack Israeli outposts at Shibah Farms, which is a territory inside of Lebanon, according to both Lebanon itself and Syria. So it would be quite peculiar to think of any justification as to why Israel has outposts there at all. So essentially, again, what Syria is being accused here was of supporting efforts to drive Israel out of Lebanon. Apparently, this is a grave sin. So we do get some insights into how, you know, U.S. planners and policymakers see the world in this language that they used. So the next year, 2004, the Bush administration drove up the sanctions further by using an executive order.

that claimed Syria supposedly constitutes a, quote, unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States. And so it was supposedly necessary to declare a national emergency to deal with this, frankly, made-up threat that Syria opposed to the United States. Syria never claimed it was going to invade America or attack America in some way. This order, though, this executive order declared that all property and interests in property be blocked or prevented from being transferred if the United States government determines that they belong to people who contribute to Syria's support. for persons involved in supporting in any way groups like, you know, Haba, Sizbollah, P-I-J, again, Spal Muslim Jihad, or PFLP, or again, PFLP, General Command. So, in other words, there was a really concerted effort to block the investments or properties of those who were Syrian and or going through Syria to to in some way aid these

organizations in Palestine and Lebanon. So likewise, we saw in parallel this claim that Syria was supporting the Iraqi resistance groups, Iraqi insurgencies, against the United States. And that is another thing that really frames U.S. sanctions in the period, this notion of Syrian support for Iraqi resistance, as if the Iraqi resistance is some, you know, unjustifiable horror unleashed on American forces who were merely minding their own business in Iraq, where they inaugurating this war that, through its various effects, has killed upward of a million people. Another really significant measure in this era is a 2008 executive order that said that the Syrian government and others contributing to what the United States called.

public corruption related to Syria were, you know, guilty of, of, or any, excuse me, I should say, anybody who, who in the Syrian government or outside of it was, you know, contributing to these regional activities that the U.S. didn't like in Lebanon and Palestine and a Iraq, that anyone that the U.S. says was either helping Syria do this by being a member of the government or, you know, being involved in financial transactions in what the U.S. deemed to be a corrupt way, had to be, was going to have their property or interests in property blocked. So in other words, this period where the United States is escalating its claims against Syria by saying that it had been involved in the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, and the deaths of 22 others. The United States added in anyone that they alleged was involved in that assassination, was going to be sanctioned as well. So, you know,

this is similar to earlier measures, this 2008 executive order. They're basically saying that anybody connected to the government or in the government that was engaging in what America calls corruption in order to aid these organizations that, uh, that, uh, that, uh, have an agenda different from Americas, that doing that was grounds for sanctioning. So, you know, these kind of variety effects that I won't, I want to stop and give you all a chance to talk. But these sanctions were all starting to have significant effects on various sectors of Syria's economy. And I'll leave it to you to decide whether you think it makes more sense to go over that a bit more or to get into where.

things really, really heat up, which is once the 2011 war started. So I hope that overview of the background. Oh, yeah. That overview, Greg, is really helpful and really thorough to lay out. You know, one thing that you mentioned from the outset is that Syria, from the very beginning of the existence of the state sponsors of terror list, you know, was named. And for listeners, we plan to have an episode looking at the history of the state sponsors of terrorism. to go further into detail and background there. But one thing I noticed in your, you know, overview there is how many different kinds of rationalizations or justifications, you know, were made for keeping or expanding and, you know, enhancing sanctions against Syria, whether

it's, you know, support for his Bala. And so it seems that every moment in the history, despite even serious cooperation with the global war on terror, at least, you know, as you pointed out, rendition and torture and interrogation. And, you know, I think it was a period where many of these, you know, kind of secular military dictatorships in the region of the Middle East thought, oh, great, this is an opportunity for us to rehabilitate ourselves because the U.S. is going after these jihadists now, which have been an enemy to, you know, our regimes, you know, and actually the U.S. has in the past supported, you know, but in fact, actually, you know, kept maintaining these sanctions. So that was very, you know, helpful. But I did want to turn to the impact. And maybe you can characterize, you know, the consequences of these sanctions for Syrians and on Syrian society from this late 2000s period to the, you know, post-2011 period. And the reason why is because I think you made clear in the article that while there were sanctions, you know, mostly on government officials, these themselves may not have had the biggest impact in, you know, the 80s and 90s. They were significant, but maybe not in the same way. I myself as a student of Arabic in Syria in the early 90s, you know, I mean, it wasn't common for foreigners to be there, you know, at the time. And it was isolated. But it seemed like it was isolated in a way that it was mostly much more. connected to non-U.S. allies as trading partners and so on. But the situation changed so much as a result of the reforms, the neoliberal reforms that take place under Hafiz al-Assad's son, you know, in the late 90s and, you know, 2000s. And so maybe you can talk a little bit about the impact when they get ratcheted up really much more seriously in the late 2000s. And then

what happens in the 2011s, in terms of the effects on Syrian society and Syrian people. people. Yeah, for sure. So the two things are happening in parallel. The Bashar al-Assad's neoliberalization of the economy was happening alongside the intensifying of the intensifying of Bush-era sanctions in the early and mid-a-a-a-a-auts. And, yeah, these effects were starting to get to be pretty meaningful. So you can see in 2005, for example, there was a major gas project that had been awarded to Petro Canada. The Canadian company, of course, and as well as Occidental and PetroFax. So, you know, that's a meaningful blow right there to the Syrian economic activity and also the way that it works.

It's energy economy. We also had in that period businesses like Conoco Philips and Marathon oil pulling out of investments in Syria. So again, these were, it seemed to be sanctions related. In 2008, the Turk cell, the Turkish cell phone company, withdrew. its bid on Syria tell I believe it's a Syrian

cell phone company or telecom company I should say because the U.S. government sanctioned Syria tells primary stakeholder

so you can see how these things have ripple checks they may say oh well it's the sanction targets you know

this what they would call in say the Russia case an oligarch right so some member of the

you know a Syrian capitalist or Syrian official in Syrian government or perhaps both. But when it comes to, you know, derailing a lucrative telecom deal, then we're getting into things like jobs that affect the lives of ordinary Syrians. So, you know, and I guess also having to do potentially with the quality and reliability of the telecom system in Syria if it can't have access to kind of international trade. In 2010, we see a Congressional Research Service report. So this is the body that does research for the United States Congress to update members of Congress and their staff about what's happening in various parts of the world. So 2010 report that they put forth said that the U.S. sanctions on Syria have clearly dissuaded some U.S. and some foreign businesses from investing in Syria, end quote, on the basis.

that these trade restrictions have, for example, prevented Syrian air, which is Syria's national air carrier, both from repairing the bowling planes that they had or have perhaps still in their fleet. And it also, according to this report, it is also the case that the sanctions prevented Syria air from procuring the new planes from Europe because Airbus uses American content in its planes. So again, now we're talked about undermining telecom in Syria. Now we're seeing the airline industry get hit. These are important sectors of a 21st century economy.

The thing about Airbus is significant because, I'm not sure if you've done an episode of Cuba yet, for example, but you see this with the Cuba sanctions and a lot of countries sanctions that as they affect or out they are applied to third countries, the effects really start to become exponentially more harmful because if it's just saying American firms can't do business in Syria, well, Syria just can deal with 100,000. some other countries,

190, whatever the total is now on earth to do business. But once the U.S. starts saying if there's American components anywhere in the supply chain, then considering that the U.S. is the preeminent economic power, then that's really preventing

Syria or whatever the targeted countries from getting the goods that they want and need. So that was what happened with this, with Airbus, as Airbus couldn't be sold to Syrian air because there was American content in the Airbus planes, even if the planes themselves are broadly seen as European.

So the same period, December 2008, the Patriot Act sanctions, excuse me, I said 2008. What I meant to say was in the 2010 congressional report, it noted the Patriot Act sanctions against the commercial commercial bank of Syria deterred private Western banks from operating branches inside Syria. So again, we have now meddling in the Syrian banking sector. sector and travel, aerospace, and additionally, telecom. So we're getting major, major components of the Syrian economy that are starting to get hit. The things really started to, if I should get into 2011 now, the sort of economic warfare against Syria really escalated that we have the war starting you know in the well I should say the war is I guess

preceded by protests and an uprising against the Syrian government which has a multitude of causes behind it I quote Ali Khadri and Lyndon Matar's book here or in my piece as pointing out that in you know in the run up

to the to the protests in the war there was this mass sort of reduction in the Syrian social safety net

I'm paraphrasing what they said but through things like reduction in agriculture agricultural, you know, agricultural subsidies and, you know, supports for energy. The Syrian population was experiencing significant deprivation.

There was a large migration from the countryside to the urban areas to do, in part with drought and in part with the removal of agricultural subsidies and other neoliberal measures like that. So this was a major impetus to the uprising against the government, the sanctions and also helped bring about the economic crisis as I've just detailed that economic crisis that helps fuel the uprising, as did the lack of democratic rights. and the up risings in other countries at the time. The U.S. had sought to foster opposition in Syria for years leading up to that as well. It's difficult to, you know, demonstrate or prove how much of a role that did or did not play in 2011. The WikiLeaks cables on that are interesting. So when you have these large-scale protests

and you have some violent repression of them and the evolution of the protests into an armed struggle within months it's a full-blown civil war which already is partially at any rate a pro-gun international proxy war. And that's the period where the sanctions really started to get that much more intense. So, for example, you have in 2011 the oil boycott of Syria, which started to have a really major impact, or more or more or less from the start.

you know, Syria is not the kind of, you know, it's not, it doesn't rely on oil alone the way that some countries in the region do, or at least some countries in the region rely on little other than oil. But, you know, it was significant. So, you know, by, according to the estimate of the Syrian Center for Policy Research, 28.3% or 6.8 billion of Syria's total GDP loss in 2011, 2012, was because of sanctions. And more than half of that reduction, $3.9 billion, was from the oil sector. So this has had a lot to do with the EU's role in the oil boycott because of almost all of Syria's pre-war 150,000 barrels per day, went to the EU, particularly on Italy and Germany. So in 2005 to 2010, roughly 20% of Syria's total budget revenue came from oil. So having that oil trade or the oil sector, the energy sector, have that major of a dent was a serious blow to the Syrian economy.

We have a report in 2012, June 2012, that says, from the Commodity Intelligence Report, I should say, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that says the sanctions have triggered a major depreciation of serious currency of 50% loss of value, which has, quote, dramatically increased domestic inflation. and significantly, you know, depleted government reserves and seriously restricted trade. The report goes out to say, though current sanctions do not officially target food or agricultural commodities, restrictions imposed on Syrian banks and trading firms have somewhat impeded the country's ability to finance needed imports. So, you know, we're seeing what are called Nothon effects, right? The sanctions may not say Syria can't, you know, import food. But it has the sanctions have effects, perfectly predictable ones, that undermine Syrian food security in really, really major ways. So that early, in that early phase of the war, we could already very quickly see the effect of the sanctions for the, frankly, broader Syrian population, regardless of whether they were on the government side or supported the opposition.

So, Greg, let me hop in for one second here. So you're talking about knock-on effects. I want to lay a finer point on one example that you bring out, which is the pharmaceutical sector. And this is one that we've seen in several other cases, not only case studies within the sanctions. This is where a series that we're running, but also just broader. So, you know, I live in Russia right now. We've seen disruptions in several pharmaceutical products, even though these are supposedly exempt from sanctions to Russia under most of the past. We have seen disruptions to things.

But a much more instructive case, I think, would be the Cuban example where the United States is putting this embargo on Cuba. But most other countries themselves actually say that the embargo is not just and that the embargo should be overturned. Just look at the UN votes on this. You know, it's the United States and usually Israel and sometimes, you know, in the past, Australia and Canada. But right now it's just the U.S. and Israel that say that the embargo. should be allowed to be carried out. Every other country in the world says no. We see that despite this, Cuba is still unable to import many pharmaceuticals.

And keeping in mind, they have a robust pharmaceutical sector in the country. They are able to produce much of what they need, but they still are quite limited in terms of what they are able to produce just based on economic constraints, technological constraints, etc. This is not a slight on their pharmaceutical sector. It's just the fact. But one thing that people have to understand is that while the U.S. would not allow Cuba to import American pharmaceuticals, I mean, this is fairly obvious because it's an American embargo. They also are unable to import pharmaceuticals from many other countries that do not say that they are trying to prohibit pharmaceuticals from getting there because, as you mentioned, American components often are integrated into these products. And as a result, you know, one American component in one pharmaceutical drug makes it so that these countries, these third countries and their pharmaceutical companies present within them, in particular countries like Germany, they become very worried that they're going to become subject to U.S. sanctions themselves or other punishment as a result of, quote, unquote, subverting these sanctions by having an American product as a component of a drug that they're putting in. So this is a case that we see in Cuba, and as you mentioned in your article, and I'm sorry

for the long preamble, but this is something that we see in the case of Syria as well. We see that in these sanctions packages, pharmaceuticals are explicitly exempted, and yet we still end up with pharmaceutical insecurity. We still end up with drug insecurity within Syria. So I don't know if there's anything else that you want to add on that. I just figured I might as well lay a finer point on that before we continue. Yeah. No, thank you.

I mean, I appreciate that, and I certainly totally agree. And like Cuba, Syria prior to 2011 had a quite strong pharmaceutical industry of its own. But, you know, two years into the war, we have a report found from MetaSalle-South Frontier, saying that despite Syria having had its... own quite robust pharmaceutical industry, they say, quote, health networks have broken down because of supply problems and drug shortages resulting from the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry or indirectly from international sanctions imposed on Syria. So there's, you know, in the era of, you know, globally integrated supply chains and

in de-globalization, it's very difficult for any one country to have an entirely self-reliate industry, you know, something like pharmaceutical certainly can work better, the more there is for international collaboration, whether that's sharing of physical resources or knowledge. So, yeah, this was one of the areas in which the Syriot, social safety net was really quite decimated. I think that in, we have in 2017, the World Health Organization saying that doctors in the Damascus Children's Hospital cancer ward faced a critical shortage of specialist drugs to treat their patients because of Western sanctions, as well as the military conflict itself, severely restricted pharmaceutical imports.

So again, the medical supplies are largely exempt from the sanctions, but there was a 90% drop in the value of the Syrian pound, which made pharmaceuticals prohibitively expensive. And likewise, the sanctions prevented many international pharmaceutical companies from dealing with the Syrian government, and it hindered foreign banks handling payments for imported drugs. So, yeah, they don't, you know, in 2017, the sanctions to that point didn't say, we bar cancer drugs from children from going to Syria. But that's the effect, or at least the sanctions are one of the factors that the World Health Organization identified. So, yeah, pharmaceutical, the lack of access to pharmaceuticals as a result, at least partially even sanctions, has been one of the ways in which the sanctions have helped to really devastate the economy. during the war even more so than

might have otherwise been the case and you know it's worth noting that the United States is helping fuel the war by flooding the country with weapons for opposition groups so you know I think it's worth considering the sanctions as one part of a U.S. offensive

against Syria or at least the Syrian government that had major effects on the entire population, keeping the war going and indeed escalating its violence, should be seen alongside sanctions as part of the effort to bring the country to ruin, which is what has in fact happened. And we saw, you know, similar in terms of how serious the problem is to what we saw with pharmaceuticals. We saw an issue on or major issues with regard to food. And so by even, I think we have documented from 2014, so the third year of the war,

Wind and Da, he point out that one impact of the sanctions has been to further, as we've noted before, drive down or I should say deplete Syria's foreign exchange reserves. Maybe I didn't say that before. I'm saying it now. The government, you know, has had to draw heavily upon that cash because the oil revenue dried up. And so we see that the sanctions were having the most impacted with the Dahi report on the lower classes because of the rise in prices of food staples such as bread and the higher cost of heating oil.

So, you know, food was severely affected over the course of the war. You see this happening a year later. The journal European Security published a piece with the noted the role of U.S. sanctions and more than doubling the price of basics like milk, eggs, rice, and again, a threefold increase to heating. oil. We've seen some evidence that sanctions led to difficulties importing to return to the pharmaceutical issues, the treatment of chronic illnesses, including diabetes and respiratory diseases, and even just common contagious illnesses. So this is all by 2015, so we're now four years into the war, but also

eight years ago now the sanctions exist and in fact have been tightened since then. So the war had by you know, 20,

2020, continued, of course, to be fought with varying degrees of intensity, but 2020 I highlight because this is when the United States brought into effect the Caesar Act, which is a major escalation of sanctions on Syrians. The Caesar Act, I'm going to just highlight a couple of the specifics in it. it was folded into the U.S.'s that supposed national defense authorization, if you can believe that.

The Cesar Act imposes sanctions on a foreign person, so a non-U.S. person who knowingly sells or provides significant goods, services, technology, information, or other support that significantly facilitates the main. or expansion of the of the government of Syria's domestic production of natural gas, petroleum or petroleum products. So again, with at this point it being clear

that the Syrian government was firmly in control over of most of the Syrian territory, albeit Idlib was and is under the control of opposition groups and portions of Northeast, Syria are under the control of the U.S. and its local allies that the U.S. policy the U.S. carries out under the pretext of, you know, protecting the Kurdish population in Syria. So this limiting of selling goods or

technology or services or information. So in other words, selling literally anything to the, to anything that, quote, maintenance or helps maintain or expand the Syrian government's production of natural gas, that's really an attack on the, you know, this major factor in the entire Syrian economy that, as I said before, affects anybody in the country, regardless of who they support. whether that's the Syrian government or opposition groups. The Act, the Caesar Act also, quite crucially, says that the U.S. President will sanction any foreign person, any non-American, as well as, of course, Americans under previous sanctions. If these foreign persons, quote, knowingly, directly or indirectly provide significant. construction or engineering services to the government of Syria. And so this act goes on to explain that that's part of its, and this is the word they use, strategy, to, again, I'm going to quote directly, quote, deter foreign persons from entering into contracts related to reconstruction in the areas that the Syrian government or its allies, Russian and Iraq.

body enforces control. So they explicitly say that their strategy is to prevent reconstruction, in effect. So these Caesar Act sanctions really help further emissorate the Syrian population by, according to a report against, excuse me, a report. from August of 2020, so two months after this came into effect, poverty had, poverty and deprivation had worsened dramatically. Because of the act, we have the fact, this is a report from Patrick Colburn of writing in the Independent. He writes that the U.S. government is stoking a humanitarian catastrophe and a bid to deny a victory.

to Russia and Iran, two of Syrian government's main supporters. As Coburn points out, the U.S. Special Representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, says that the U.S. policy is to turn Syria into a quote-unquote quagmire for Russia, like the U.S. faced in Vietnam. And to give the U.S. a degree of control over Syria, similar to what it had at the end of uh or similar to the control it had over japan at the end of the uh the second world war so a couple months later by october 2020 the uh caesar act had uh you know really brought off essentially a full blown economic siege to the country um it had according to uh to cope to uh coburn it was uh it was uh it

had, quote, led to the collapse of the Syrian currency and a steep rise in the price of basic foodstuffs with meat, rice, and bulgird shit-tripling in price. This happened in a country where the World Food Program said in June, just as the seizure sanctions are being applied, that famine could very well be knocking at the door. So, you know, this is just, this is leading, the Caesar Act is leading to these major increases in the cost of foodstuffs, but those costs had already gone up massively throughout the previous years of the war. On a report in foreign policy, not exactly a, you know, the sort of go-to source for anti-imperialists, even there, there was. It was noted that, according to the world's food program, 9.3 million Syrians were unsure where their next meal is coming from as sanctions were forcing the country into famine. So this is, this is, you know, roughly the picture that has continued since that Syria has been in a state. state of humanitarian calamity

that the sanctions have been one important contributor to causing in the first place and now they continue to be a major factor in putting an end to the crisis

in the availability of particularly food and medicine but also other quality of life indicators. Yeah, we really appreciate the in-depth explanation. It's really wonderful to hear everything laid out in such great detail. You talk about the U.S. official using Syria as a quote-unquote to create a quote-unquote quagmire for Russia that has incredible relevance to the current situation between Russia and

Ukraine as we on this show, and I'm sure you know quite well. But one of the other things you touch on in your piece that I think is really important is the role of mainstream media. And the role of mainstream media is really worth digging into here because it's the major purveyor of information for all of these conflicts and so much more. And you say it in the concluding paragraph, you say, quote, the three highest circulation American newspapers have obscured how the sanctions undercut Syrians' ability to get food in medicine. These economic measures should be understood not as a form of collective punishment inflicted on the Syrian population in addition to the war, but as a dimension of that war. And the Wall Street Journal,

USA Today and the New York Times as purveyors of war propaganda by a mission. I think this is a really crucial part of your overall piece and I would like you to kind of just quote in a little bit more detail about the role that mainstream media in the United States plays in specifically, of course, the warfare against Syria. Thanks, yeah, for your kind words about the piece. Yeah, so I looked at the way that those three publications,

The Wall Street Journal USA Today in New York Times covered food shortages, for example. And I found that in the period that I looked at, which was between May 2012 and the end of 2020, because May 2012 is when we started getting. clear proof that the sanctions were affecting food shortages. What I found is that there were 972 articles in the three papers that, excuse me, in the journal, I should say, 972 texts that in some way combined the word Syria with food and either the word short, as in shortage, or something. scarce. And so there's 972 basically

articles that address Syrian food shortages or scarcity. When you add sanction to the mix, the number of texts goes down to 155. So that's 15.9% of the articles on Syria's

food scarcity that mentioned the sanctions were a factor, as they demonstrated were. The USA Today had a similar case or similar results. They had 70 pieces on Syrian food shortages, just 11 of them. And again, that's 15.7 percent mentioned some form of the word sanction. The Times had 1803 stories of Syrian food shortages. So, by far the most. And only 165, which is the lowest percentage of the 3, 9.1% that mentions some form of the word sanction.

So really small minorities. And, you know, we see the same thing when we look at how the papers dealt with pharmaceuticals. So when I search roughly the same thing, variations of the words Syria with, in the instead of food, pharmaceuticals or medicine, and something did indicate that they were in short supply or scarce. I did so looking at the period from 2013, March 2013 to the end of 2020. I say I began specifically on March 6th because that was the day that MSF noted that sanctions had a clear role in the collapse of Syria's pharmaceutical industry.

So in that period and I should say also that another source had documented the same relationship a few months earlier, the relationship between the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry in Syria and the sanctions. So 282

journal articles in that period contained versions of the words Syria with the words short or scarce. And some version of the word pharmaceutical or medicine. So 282, when you add the word sanction, then you get 61 results. So that's only 21.6 of the results. For USA Today, sanctions are only mentioned in 15% of the articles on pharmaceutical shortages in Syria. For the

Times, it's 11.9%. Again, the lowest percentage comes from the Times, the most liberal of the three vapors. 11.9% of the articles on the damage to, or the hardships, I should say, facing the Syrian pharmaceutical industry, just 11.9% of them bother to mention the sanctions. So, you know, this is really significant. This is one of the major ways that propaganda works in United States media, Canadian media, British media. It's not so much that you have outright explicit falsehoods made up in the newspapers, which you do sometimes. the dominant or one of the more common elements of propaganda is leaving out really key information

that ought to be central to the audience's understanding of the issue being covered. I say ought to because the audience is primarily American for these American papers. the secondarily countries with close relationships with America who have similar policies. So Canada, for example, where I live, has also pursued or followed along with the sanctions on Syria. And, of course, here we consume a lot of American media alongside the Canadian press, which is simply a way we flawed. So, you know, I mean, it'd be one thing if we said that the papers were not, were like improperly covering. an issue that has to, that has nothing to do with the misdeeds of the American government. But when American papers are failing, are covering a crisis and not noting that American policies are causing that crisis or a major contributing factor to that crisis, that's propaganda by omission because it's covering up the sins of the United States ruling class.

and is therefore also highlighting the extent to which an official enemy in the United States government is responsible for it. So if they leave out the role of the U.S. in exacerbating or helping cause the crises in, say, food or medicine, And they're not only, you know, failing to inform the audience about something the U.S. has done wrong, they're making it look as though it is only the bad guys, in scare quotes, in the Syrian government or its close allies, which are also official enemies like Iran and the Russian government. they are deemed to be solely responsible when this other important factor sanctions is not brought into the equation. So you have here a downplaying of the malevolence of the United States and a heightening of the malevolence and or incompetence of enemy countries. you know, before we get to some of the more contemporary issues, and I know that this is also a contemporary issue,

but, and perhaps we can be a little bit more brief with this because otherwise we really could get sucked into this topic for quite a while. But we've mentioned a few times Russia and the Russian relationship with Syria. And now you see why we can get sucked into this topic for quite a while because there's a history there, there is ongoing relations there, there's trade there, there's military relations there. We could even talk about how the case of Syria has really been one of the factors to the rise of private military companies like the Wagner group, which, you know, they're mercenaries, of course, but because of their experience in places like Syria are a very, both brutal but also very effective mercenary force at this point. And if, you know, if it wasn't for that relationship between Russian Syria, groups like that would not have had that experience.

And also we have the aspect of the relationship between Russia and Syria then contributing to justification. So called justification for the United States to continue to impose more and more brutal sanctions on Syria. You know, it's just another arrow in their quiver in building this supposed case for sanctions against Syria. So without getting too mired in this, and I don't know, Brett, if there's anything that you want to add on, this feel free. But without getting too mired in this, perhaps you would like to talk a little bit, just a little bit, about, you know, why are Russia and Syria integrated with one another economically, militarily, politically, and why is this an important factor? And again, I know that we've touched on this a little bit, but why is this an important factor for, again, the U.S. so-called justification for sanctions on Syria because it is something that is frequently trotted out in the media. Assad is a Putin puppet in the Middle East, and therefore the United States has to take swift action against him, which completely ignores the history between the two countries. So, yeah, anyway, that's that's that. Yeah, I mean, as you say, the history long predates both Putin and at least Bashar al-Assad, but in fact, also father.

I mean, it's, you know, it has to do with the Cold War era where the Soviet Union was allied with Syria and with Egypt prior to the 1979 treaty, or at least it was much more heavily allied with it prior to that. and also with Iraq as another Arab nationalist government and South Yemen with its socialist government and you know other sort of like Palestinian movement in various ways these were kind of folded into Cold War politics it's not to say that that was the by any means the only or even necessarily dominant feature of the politics at play but that was one dimension.

Likewise with the Syrian war, the Russian relationship or the U.S. Russia proxy war in Syria is one dimension of the conflict, but not the older one. The fact is that that that Syria-Russia relationship with the Russian naval port in Syria survive the collapse of the Soviet Union and remained intact despite the various shifts in Syrian policy over time.

So this is something that, you know, has led to even more, you know, personal and cultural ties as, say, Russian, you know, technical workers and advisors have spent time in Syria over the decades, for example, or Russian troops have spent time there. This kind of integration has been cemented over the decades. And I think it's worth considering as well, another factor here, which is Libya, and Russia had similarly had, you know,

mostly... relationship with Libya over the period of since Qafi had come to power, you know, with some twists and turns again. But the Russian government saw what NATO did in Libya and Russia had not exercised its UN Security Council veto to prevent the fig leaf of a United Nations resolution that allowed for. the invasion of Libya and the destruction of the country. And I think the Russian government regarded that as a mistake and thought it wasn't going to lose another ally. And that's why in 2015 they significantly stepped up their operations in the country and had been sort of in a tit for tat with the United States and its partners up to that point where, you know,

similar to what we've seen, as you say, in Ukraine, but I'm okay, you know, the U.S. give this type of weaponry to the opposition groups while Russia therefore ramps up its supplies to, or its assistance to, I shouldn't say, to the to the to the asset government and so uh in 2015 in 2015 russia you know just had i think partially with a view to Libya and partially with a view to its long-term relationship with Syria and in particular its desire to maintain access to the Mediterranean um through its base in syria naval base um russia said that it was you know not to go

going to allow, in effect, the Syrian government to be overthrothed. And that, I think, is what was a big part of the impetus behind the Russian government's decision. You know, I'm not a Russia scholar. So there are those who would have greater insight into the nitty, gritty details of the kind of thinking and debates that went on within the Russian government. But as far as I can tell, those were at least a couple of major driving forward. forces. And so, you know, they carried out this bombing campaign alongside the Syrian government. And it, no doubt, it afflicted serious costs on the Syrian population and also had the effect of preventing total state collapse. So the, that's how I see the issue.

That was great. I mean, there are so many dimensions of that and to the geopolitical position of Syria, you know, in the contemporary Middle East, but in the wider scheme of things. And you're pointing out that in La Dejia, the Russian naval base is like one of two warm water ports that they have and can use. Of course, the other one is in Crimea. So we see that the two locations where there is a very serious Russian military investment and strategic. bases, naval bases, that there are now, you know, this kind of pressure and sanctions. But one thing I wanted to pick up on your account here that you've been mentioning is, you know, firstly, just that clearly this has been designed to try and foment regime change by, you know, the U.S., and that's partly the reason why the Russians have backed the Syrian government is because they cannot afford to have this regime fall and take the risk that an unfriendly government would then, you know, refuse to allow them to use this naval base and so on. So this regime change has been this goal of U.S. sanctions. But I liked how you pointed out during the Civil War.

There also was, you know, kind of proxy war support flooding with weapons. And so that it was sort of part of, you know, part of U.S. warfare on Syria was sanctions, providing weapons, but now as something that probably should be mentioned coming to the contemporary situation is that U.S. forces working, of course, with, you know, Syrian Kurdish, you know, groups and so on, do have troops still in, you know, actively in Syria and control a third of the country, notably the oil-producing part. You mentioned that it wasn't, you know, a huge oil producer on the order like Iraq, Iran, and some of those Gulf monarchies. But, you know, it's significant for Syria's economy. And they control that as well as the wheat producing. So when we talk about the situation of famine, the rise in, you know,

the staples, price of staples and inflation as a result of sanctions, it's combined with the fact that, you know, Syria has denied the ability to use its own internal, you know, resources, agricultural resources, by continuing U.S. occupation. And so I wondered if you could talk a little bit about those conditions, but also the way in which continuing and maintaining these sanctions is involved in some of the more recent and notable contemporary developments like the earthquake that just happened, the fact that Israel just bombarded, you know, Damascus. And so if we think about what is the kind of way in which sanctions are helping to perpetuate the subjugation of Syria and exacerbating, you know, even natural

disasters. I wonder if you had any thoughts on the sort of more contemporary situation, you know, that has developed after your article's been published, there have been these significant kind of continuing developments, you might say, as well as the earthquake. Yeah. So I think, thanks for your thoughts and the question. I mean, I think that the, no, for sure. I mean, I think I ought to have given more time to the rather significant fact that the United States is occupying a third of Syria territory and indeed has troops and bases, the military bases in Syria, which are always a big part of U.S. Empire, dotting globe. with as many bases as possible. And we should really emphasize that a major concern of the United States and in Syria is Iran. And having these bases there is as much about Iran as anything else. And so the same can be said for the Israeli bombardments.

not only the most recent cases, but the hundreds that have of times that Israel has bombed Syria over the since 2011. Also, before that in 2007, when it destroyed alleged chemical weapons facilities. But, you know, anything Israel does has to be seen as something it does in partnership with the United States. because whatever frictions sometimes pop up between a given U.S. government and a given Israeli government, we know that Israel could not do what it does in Palestine or in the region or beyond without the virtually unlimited political and military support and economic relationships and so forth. So, yeah, I think that the holding of roughly a third of Syria territory with very valuable resources is all about, like, I think that there seems to be a recognition that they can't bring down the Syrian government anytime soon at this point, but the goal is to keep Syria as weak and dysfunctional as possible. that is what it means to create a quag wire for Syria, to make it a burden for Russia or Iran,

to make it harder for Syria to facilitate arms shipments to Palestinian groups or Hezbollah. Or even to recover and reconstruct after the devastation of this. Civil War, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I was going to get to that, that they can, you know, or the earthquake for that matter, that they can say, well, we're going to suspend some sanctions for six months. I mean, one, sort of ludicrous, because, I mean, he then saying, we're going to pause for six months is sort of like saying, you know, I'll stop brutally beating up this. person for a few days, then I'm going to go right back to it. You know, it's hardly worthy of, of, you know, humanitarian award. But, you know, the, the sanctions, among other factors, but if we focus on the sanctions,

they have really admissorated Syria's ability to, you know, just do any basic social reproduction that is one of the sort of core functions of any government I mean for its population right now I mean I'm not talking about

colonial governments which seek to you know exterminate or drive out indigenous populations but when it comes to you know a sort of post-colonial government including an undemocratic one like Syria or others

there is an element of sustaining the population by providing some amount of basic needs to the people. I mean, even if you want to be this isn't even per se praise, right, for that particular government. I mean, governments that no one would accuse me of supporting, I'll say that, yeah, you know, the Qatari government or

Emirati government use their oil rents to kind of buy off a portion of the population. So this is not, this is just sort of a neutral observation that I don't mean as praise or criticism to just say that, you know, the Syrian government or any non-polonial government provides some measure of reproduction to the population and particularly ones that do have some element of independence and some redistributive character which has been true at least historically albeit less in recent years or in the years leading up to the war in the Syrian case

so I mean you know if you take away the capacity for the state to provide any social reproduction or badly erode that, then one of the things that's lost is emergency preparedness. The fact is that over a decade of war and sanctions, severe sanctions, and pretty serious sanctions throughout this entire century, more or less, have made it quite difficult to provide for the basic needs of the population under the serious sort of baseline current condition, which is at this point kind of relatively low-grade war,

but minimal rebuilding from the apex of the war. And so, you know, that's one major effect. of the sanctions, and there's also just the element of keeping the country, I said weak, and I mean that, you know, economically, but also politically, like it's not cohesive, even territorially, much less politically. And so that's why there's always been, you know, part of the U.S. strategy. If you go back and look at the WikiLeaks cables leading up to the war, you'll see a pretty concerted effort to inflame sectarian sentiment. in Syria, which we know they do based on policies in Iraq, for example,

and support for good governments that are extremely sectarian in, say, Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. So, you know, that kind of political division is anathema to whatever remnants of Arab nationalism exist in Syria. obviously this attempt to leverage the Kurdish population is something that we've seen before with regard to Iraq and Iran and we can again completely dismiss the claims that the United States is really interested in the welfare of Syrian Kurds and there to prevent, you know, Arab racism against Kurds or something. Because you just have to look no further than the U.S. support for Turkey. It's a NATO ally to which it, you know, provides a weapon, and so forth, including very directly participating in horrendous slaughter of the Kurds in the 90s under Bill Clinton. And even in the recent Turkish violence in Afri.

So the United States has not, you know, rebuk. Turkey in some meaningful way for that. It's continued to have its military and so-called security relationship with Turkey. So, you know, I think that we cannot and should not take seriously the claim that the United States is in northeast Syria because it needs to save the Kurds or wants to. I'm not suggesting that sectarianism or racism towards Kurds only exists in Syria because of U.S. intersharance. What I'm saying is that, you know, the U.S. in Syria and far beyond that, we've seen more places that I can list, is attempting to exacerbate existing cleavages, social cleavages, whether those are class-based, race-based, confessional or otherwise right and i think those confessional ones you know very important you know because syria has been ruled by um a military and political elite principally composed for but from a particular sect the ala white sect and so they've associated them with sheism and iran and

exacerbated the sense of connecting you know a kind of sunni religious ultranationalism you know against the Alawites, you know, so certainly the United States has been, you know, very involved. And of course, what that has led to, of course, is the rise of, you know, extreme jihadist groups operating, you know, in Syria, you know, with sort of tacit support, even if this isn't the kind of Syrian religiosity that you would have, you know, noticed in the era, you know, say in the 90s when I was, you know, studying Arabic, I mean, you wouldn't find these kinds of groups, but, you know, now they're very present and they draw upon that sense of grievance against, you know, on behalf of Sunnis as a whole against this al-white minority. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a very unstable situation. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure, seeking to accentuate that sentiment and kind of, you know, paper over the extent to which, you know, the Sunni business class had all kinds of advantageous relationships with the Syrian government before the war. And, in fact, elements of it have since then.

And likewise, the fact that the Syrian, I mean, the Syrian population is obviously, you know, 65 to at minimum, according to the estimates I've seen, Sunni. So that necessarily means, or I guess not necessarily, but unsurprisingly means that the Syrian military is majority Sunni as well. So that doesn't mean that there's no sectarian advantages in Syrian government practices, but it does mean that those who seek to cast the Syrian government practices. purely as a sectarian in its practices and orientation, that that's a dishonest or incomplete picture, just as it was with Iraq. Like, Siddh was saying, I think, was, you know, engaged in significant Sunni supremacism.

I think that would be hard to dispute. Nevertheless, there were a lot of, you know, a lot of powerful Shia military commanders, for example. So, you know, it's the effort to reduce the character of the government to being Alawite and by extension, Shia sectarian can, I think nobody's, nobody in a position of power is doing that by accident. It's to try to tear apart the social fabric to help keep Syria politically divided and weak. Right. Yeah, well, I speak for all of us, Greg, when I say thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom on this front. It's a really important conversation. It's important to get these facts out there. As a wrap-up question, I kind of want to ask you about

where things go from here. We've covered all the history. We've gotten to the contemporary issues. and just kind of maybe look forward a little bit. You know, one aspect of that is, of course, what can we in the West do about all this stuff? And, you know, there's the, I mean, there's a few things, of course, creating these counter narratives, digging into the facts, you know, enlightening people, the mainstream media is going to lie by omission,

you're going to get a bunch of propaganda. We can set the record straight in these various ways because without good information, there's nothing else we can do. Of course, we always encourage people to engage in any sort of anti-imperialist organizing and internationalism that we can possibly do to push back against the empire from within the belly of the beast insofar as we can do that. I know the left is disorganized and the military empire is highly organized, but of course we have to try and fight. But just kind

of looking forward, what's the outlook going forward vis-a-vis U.S. sanctions on Syria and what situation could appear or could happen that would fundamentally alter this terrain or or change the scenario because, you know, the cynical part of me says this is going to continue on for the foreseeable future. But I'm wondering if you can see any geopolitical events that might throw a wrinkle in the, in the U.S. as plans with this regard. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I mean, I don't see any evidence that such a shift is forthcoming. I would say that it would have to be some sort of, at this point, unforeseen seismic realignment. that I don't see as on the table.

I mean, if Syria and the U.S. struck some sort of a deal where, you know, Syria decided to exit its alliances with Russia or Iran, then I'm sure now that would change things. But I don't see the slightest reason to think Syria is going to do that. probably the opposite after the ways that those countries, you know, basically save the Syrian government. The, you know, I would say the opposite of the U.S. just seeking to relent for, you know, I don't see that any more than I see the U.S. seeking to relent on Iran or, You know, Cuba, like, it's just, even when the U.S. did ease up on Cuba very briefly by slightly reigning in some aspects of the sanctions. I don't see sort of a parallel there with Syria, because Syria is just in too contentious of a neighborhood, for lack of a better word. It's too embedded in alliances that the U.S. sees as sort of threatening to its hegevani. So, I mean, we saw Syria sort of cooperate with the U.S. both through the rendition and torture program, but also even just the neoliberalization.

But that's not enough to ease U.S. aggression. I think you'd have to have a whole scale abandonment. of its international relationships and of its basic political orientation. So, yeah, I don't think that it's going to happen, like an end to the sanctions or meaningful easing of them in the long, in the medium or long term, once this six-month period, post-earthquake happens. I'd say that, you know, I can only think that I can only answer that by sort of restating a lot of what, well, you said, which is that the only way, the answer as to how would the sanctions be lifted or eased is the same as saying, you know, how will any element of, you know, the superiorism be reined in. And that is, it's forced to be to change course.

And that, of course, can only happen through a combination of external resistance on the ground and the affected countries. But for our purposes, within, as you say, the belly of the beast, the U.S. and its close allies, like the one that I'm living in. And so, yeah, I mean, intellectually pushing back in the ways that you've outlined and ultimately getting people into political formations so that we can actually have people work together to find ways to kind of plug in wherever they're socially geographically situated to. develop a kind of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist front. And, you know, it would be quite difficult to just cherry pick issue X versus issue Y and have too much longer term success or any success, really. So I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't be, I'm certainly not against some sort of drop the

End-Seed Judd-Syria campaign. I think that'd be great. I do think, however, that such campaigns require to ultimately be successful, connectedness to other like-minded movements and similar political goals. And so that, I think, can only happen with a really fundamental reconfiguration of the American state and its adjunct countries so that they're governed based on totally different principles. I don't really have a whole lot of hope that you can just talk them into being nicer to Syria or Cuba or Iran.

But maybe in the right climate you can wrench concessions. And I think those are worth pursuing too. But that climate has to be like pitched mass activity like you saw in the Vietnam or anti-war movement because even when we saw a really inspired mass movement against the Iraq invasion, it might have had some effects, but it certainly didn't stop the invasion and the horror that it unleashed. So that sort of case-by-case basis is. useful, but it has to be, I think, connected to the bigger picture goals of, you know, ultimately undoing imperialism, which means undoing capitalism, really. And it's possible.

It just takes a long time and a lot of patient work and a lot of building trust and, you know, kind of intimate relationships among people out of very face-to-face. face local level as well as the international relations too. Yep. Well, on that note, I'd like to echo breath sentiments that we really appreciate that you came on and shared your wisdom. We appreciate you taking so much time to talk to us.

This was a really great in-depth conversation. And yeah, hopefully you had as much fun as we did and the list of got something out of it. So again, listeners, our guest was Greg Shupak, who is a professor of English and Media Studies at the University of Gelf, Humber, author of the book, The Wrong Story, Palestine, Israel, and the media, and authored the chapter in sanctions as word titled, Writing Out Empire, the Case of the Serious Sanctions.

Thanks once again, Greg. Is there anything that you would like to direct the listeners to or anywhere that they can keep up with your work? Well, I mean, I would have said my book, which you sort of will cover that already. It's on the OR books, the OR books website for anyone who's interested in checking it out. Otherwise, I write pretty consistently for a variety of outlets, fairness, and accuracy reporting, Jacobin, Middle East Eye. I'm going to be writing for responsible state craft. I write for Canadian Dimension, Electronic Intifada.

So that's, I mean, again, there are other places too, but those are some of the main ones where you can look for my work if you're interested in. I'm always sharing it on social media, so you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook or whatever. Just search my name and you'll find me. All right. Excellent. Brett, how can the listeners find you in your other excellent podcasts? Everything I do can be found at Revolutionary LeftRadio.com.

Excellent. Adnan, how can the listeners find you in your other podcasts? You can follow me on Twitter at Adnan-A-Husain-H-U-S-A-I-N. And check out my podcast, The Mudgellis, which is about M-A-J-L-I-S. It's about the Middle East Islamic world, Muslim diaspora, Islamophobia, topics like that. And frankly, maybe we should have Greg on there to talk about perhaps some Palestine stuff in the media. That would be great.

I just want to add my thanks as well. Greg, it's great to meet you. And thanks for your work. It's really important to be talking about these, and we've benefited so much from the conversation. so thanks again for coming on. Sure, yeah, it's great to each you all, and I profited from the conversation as well,

so I hope to keep in touch with each of you. Great, and I know I speak for myself when I say, and I'm sure also the listeners, when I say that I would love to see that collaboration between Greg and not on the much list about media coverage of Palestine. That would be a fascinating topic. We could also host that on Gorilla History's spinoff show

as well, Gorilla Radio, just a reminder for the listeners that the spin-up show has launched. We recently had an episode with Palestine Action, the direct action group in the UK, who was working on shutting down Elbit systems and preventing them from selling their weapons of death to Zionist apartheid Israel.

And so check out Guerrilla Radio, and you can find all of that information for Gorilla Radio by going to Gorilla History's Twitter account at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-G-E-R-R-I-L-L-A-U-S-C-Pod. You can follow me on Twitter at Huck-1995, H-U-C-K-1-995, and you can help support the show by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, guerr-R-R-I-L-A history.

And until next time, listeners, solidarity. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.