The Opinions - The One Thing the U.S. Can Do to Help Syria Now

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

In this episode of The Opinions, Farah Stockman, a member of the Times’s editorial board, argues that letting U.S. sanctions against Syria expire, while not without risks, could go a long way to helping ordinary Syrians build a prosperous and stable nation. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. My name is Ferris Stockman, and I am a member of the New York Times editorial board. I also write about foreign policy and domestic politics. So we've just witnessed this incredible historic event where after 13 years of brutal civil war in Syria, the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad has fallen. A coalition of rebel groups has taken over, swept the country, and Assad has fled.

And so there's this window of opportunity. There's this moment of hope that Syria, which has been this, like, bleeding wound for so long in the Middle East, that it could finally turn the page and start to rebuild and welcome its refugees home. But I don't think that can happen unless the United States lifts sanctions. on Syria. Syria is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries on Earth, and there's no way that it can rebuild its economy and open a new chapter as long as those sanctions remain in place. So there's actually been so many waves of sanctions on Syria, starting in 1979 when we sanctioned them as state sponsors of terrorism for invading Lebanon and supporting Hezbollah, and the most

severe human rights sanctions to hit Syria happened about five years ago. It's called the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. And this law was passed after a military defector from Syria came out of the country with like 50,000 photographs of Syrian civilians being tortured by the regime on industrial scale. And it essentially levels third-party sanctions against anybody who deals in construction with the regime, anybody who deals in the oil and gas industry. So it basically tries to prevent the Assad regime from building luxury apartments on land that was stolen from Syrian civilians. And it was considered very righteous at the time, but But a lot of people would argue that these sanctions backfired.

More than 90% of Syrians live in poverty today. And sanctions are one of the reasons. If you didn't have connections with the Assad regime, if you didn't have a way to get around U.S. sanctions, you couldn't operate. Meanwhile, people who were in bed with the Assad regime got richer and richer. The whole economy turned into kind of a black market mafia economy. and it just got a lot less transparent.

So lifting sanctions actually helps ordinary people in Syria. The Caesar Act sanctions in particular are sanctions that were very much about punishing Assad and making sure Assad couldn't hurt civilians anymore. And now that Assad is gone, it's just very hard to justify keeping those sanctions in place. once you put sanctions in place, even if the thing you wanted to sanction originally no longer exists, it's politically very difficult to lift them. No president wants to be known as the person who lifted

sanctions on some murder. So it takes a really long time. And the way the U.S. sanctions work often impede peace building. So for instance, in Colombia, the rebel group, the FARC, did a peace deal with the government. And they were supposed to come out from under sanctions. But it took five years for that to happen. And five years is an eternity when you're talking about a fragile peace deal. I believe that removing sanctions is the right thing for the Syrian people. However, there are political risks to lifting sanctions. So the rebel group that swept Syria, HDS, it was once an ally of al-Qaeda, although it has broken ties, but there was one time that it was a terrorist group, and so it's still under terrorism sanctions. I think there are people right now who are very worried

about whether this group is going to become a new Taliban or a new Muslim Brotherhood. And And there's going to be a reluctance to give it the benefit of the doubt and lift terrorism sanctions for that reason. So, you know, there are risks. Is this new group a group that can lead Syria into the modern world? Is it one that can be tolerant? Can it be modern? Can it respect the rights of minorities like the Druze and the al-a-wold? If I were an al-Aloid right now, that's Assad's group, I'd be terrified.

And I also think there's a big question about whether the Gulf monarchies are going to accept these Islamists leading Syria, because if you're a king of Saudi Arabia or Jordan, you might not love a group of people who just depose somebody that was like a king. And so I think you're going to have people be very wary of this group until they see what they do. But if they do the right things and if they're able to keep control of the country and to bring this very fractured situation to a better place, you know, maybe there's an opportunity to see something that we haven't seen in the Middle East in a long time, which is a Syria that's at peace with its neighbors and not a threat. The Biden administration has indicated that it's going to support our allies in the region

to make sure that Syria doesn't spill over and have negative effects on them. But there's a new administration coming in. And Donald Trump has indicated that he doesn't see this as our fight. But one thing Trump has to acknowledge, and I haven't heard him acknowledge it yet, is that when you heavily sanctioned a country like we've sanctioned Syria, we are involved. We're punishing people for even doing business with them. We're punishing people for drilling an oil well or building a bridge. So when our laws are preventing investment in a country, that's involvement, right?

If you truly wanted to say we don't have a dog in this fight, then just remove your impediments and go. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vichaca, Fiby Lett, Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger.

It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris.

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