The end of Assad’s rule makes most U.S. sanctions on Syria obsolete, so naturally hawks in Congress want to keep them in place:
Republican and Democratic U.S. senators say it is too soon to consider lifting sanctions on Syria following the removal of President Bashar al-Assad, an indication that Washington is unlikely to change its policy any time soon.
U.S. sanctions on Syria are among the most harmful of any that Washington has imposed. They not only choke the Syrian economy directly and interfere with humanitarian assistance, but because of secondary sanctions they also discourage outside states and companies from investing in reconstruction efforts. Broad sanctions in Syria are an attack on the people just as they are an attack on the people in Venezuela, Iran, and elsewhere. The U.S. should have lifted these sanctions years ago, and now that Assad is out of power there is no excuse for continuing this policy. If a post-Assad Syria is to have any hope of rebuilding and recovering, the U.S. and its allies will have to stop inflicting collective punishment on the Syrian people.
Aida Chavez reports on the growing calls for sanctions relief from humanitarian activists and experts:
“Not considering sanctions relief right now is like pulling the rug out from under Syria just when it’s trying to stand,” said Delaney Simon, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “I can’t overemphasize the intensity of the effect of the sanctions on the Syrian economy.”
Farah Stockman recently made the case for sanctions relief in The New York Times:
Ordinary people couldn’t get around [the sanctions], so their businesses closed down. But warlords and cronies politically connected to President Bashar al-Assad got a lucrative monopoly on just about everything. Even when al-Assad was still in power, there was a strong case for letting the [Caesar] act expire on Dec. 20 as scheduled.
Broad sanctions are a terrible policy tool because they are cruel and indiscriminate. They make conditions worse for the entire population without achieving anything. They punish the innocent for policies they don’t control and can’t change. Sanctions cause pointless destruction, and more often than not they backfire on the U.S. as well.
Read the rest of the article at Eunomia
Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.