Shoresh Darwish
Although the Caesar Act took a long time to explain the details of the sanctions through very clear articles, which in its entirety affect the Syrian regime and foreign companies, private entities, and governments that support the regime, directed laws such as this act raise concerns that sanctions may go beyond their intended purpose and harm civilians, destroying the living and economic conditions of the ordinary citizen.
Since the United States imposed a U.S. sanctions package in 1979 as a result of Washington counting Damascus as “a sponsor of terrorism”, the Syrian regime has practiced adapting to external sanctions. These sanctions came in response to Syria’s interference in Lebanon, which undermined U.S. interests in the region, and Damascus’s programs seeking to possess weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons.
However, the bilateral relationship improved in the wake of the second Gulf War in 1990, and it continued in to twist and turn until the relationship unprecedentedly worsened with the “occupation” of Iraq in 2003, when Washington demanded through its Secretary of State Colin Powell during his visit to Damascus in the same year the closure of Palestinian factions’ offices, the dissolution and disarmament of Hezbollah, the cessation of support for terrorist groups and handing over the remnants of the Iraqi regime.
US pressure, through hinting at economic and political sanctions and using the “Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act”, helped get Syrian forces out of Lebanon, but the regime’s abandonment of its vital cards and its violent practices, means more concessions that will lead to its erosion from inside. Therefore, the regime kept most of its cards, if not all of them.
The course of U.S. sanctions prior to the promulgation of the Caesar Act in 22 January 2019 seems simple if compared to the new act in terms of its comprehensiveness and difficulty in avoiding its provisions, as it includes vital economic sectors and seeks to discourage reconstruction projects and primitive contracts signed between the Syrian government and foreign companies. It also provides for the siege of the Central Bank of Syria by tracking its activities as a “money laundering institution” according to the draft law, monitoring foreign entities and individuals who provide technological services, information, and support to maintain and expand the government’s domestic production in the oil and natural gas sectors, as well as for those who sell or provide military aircraft parts and spare parts, and important engineering construction services for the Syrian government.
The Caesar Act appears to extend mainly to governments and foreign entities sponsoring the Syrian regime, which puts the regime’s allies in the eye of the storm, including Russian companies that have signed contracts for exploration and re-operation of oil wells and those specialized in engineering construction, as well as companies awaiting the start of the reconstruction phase.
The U.S. law links the Syrian regime’s response to U.S. demands and the suspension of the five-year sanctions, which is the expiry period from the date of its enactment, by granting the president powers to suspend the penalties in Article 301 in the event that the Syrian government halts Syrian and Russian air strikes on civilians, allows civilians to depart, allows access to humanitarian aid, permits freedom of travel and medical care, releases political prisoners, allows human rights organizations to conduct investigations with full access, stops bombing medical points, schools, residential areas, and markets, allows for the safe and voluntary return of civilians, and takes responsibility for war crimes.
It is difficult to stop the regime and Russia from confronting armed groups in the northwest and to stop the military solution, since the cessation of organized or indiscriminate bombing means the relief of the pro-Turkish groups and their power with the weapon of economic sanctions. The rest of the U.S. demands are linked, to one degree or another, to the path of the final political solution in accordance with UN resolution 2254. This means that it cannot be implemented unilaterally before the final settlement is reached.
Excluding the Autonomous Administration areas from the Caesar Act does not mean that these areas will be spared unless they are provided with the required means of support, as internal forced trade is still relatively active between its regions and regime-controlled areas, while the declining Syrian pound will be the main currency in daily transactions. Thousands of workers employed by the state may be harmed due to the depreciation of the Syrian pound, in addition to the lack of a market for the disposal of vital products for the region, which will accumulate internal problems, and thus may cause some harm to areas outside the control of Damascus, no matter how targeted the sanctions appear.
According to other experiences such as the sanctions imposed on the governments of Iran, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela, we have not seen the collapse or fall of the ruling regimes, rather, the sanctions have compounded the suffering of civilians, while the official speeches of the leaders of those countries have linked the tragedy resulting from sanctions and economic blockade to the United States instead of seeking to avoid them or accept dictations or demands that ease their impact on their citizens. The same applies to the Syrian regime, which is good at adapting to sanctions, no matter how severe they are. In addition to this, the regime does not pay attention to its social responsibilities as much as it focuses on the issues of survival and conflict resolution in its favor, whatever the material and human costs.
In the light of the regime’s indifference, there is a Russian concern that the sanctions could become an entry point to narrowing Moscow and ending the ambitions of Russian companies operating in Syria and others awaiting reconstruction contracts, in addition to turning the clock back, as Moscow managed, through its management of Syria, to win the sympathy of the European Union and Gulf countries, and accordingly, the activation of the Caesar Act may lead to severing relations with the Russians regarding Syria.
Therefore, the sanctions become a Trojan horse through which the United States penetrates the Syrian political equation again after Russia has tried hard to discourage it from interfering, while the name of Alexander Yefimov, the Russian presidential envoy, will lead the scene managing the current crisis and those that will result from the sanctions. The regime will not be affected with sanctions unless Moscow wants it to be.