On Wednesday the US State Department and Treasury Department released 39 targets for sanctions, including Assad and his wife Asma al-Assad, marking "the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue and support it uses to wage war and commit mass atrocities against the Syrian people," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "We anticipate many more sanctions and we will not stop until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war against the Syrian people and the Syrian government agrees to a political solution to the conflict as called for by UNSCR 2254," he said, referring to a UN Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire and political settlement in Syria. The first tranche of economic penalties come as part of the newly enforced Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which is expected to trigger the most wide-reaching and aggressive economic penalties ever imposed on Syria, potentially targeting its energy, construction and banking sector. The bill was named after a former photographer for the Syrian military, codenamed Caesar, who leaked a trove of photographs showing dead and mutilated prisoners in Assad's jails. US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft told the Security Council on Tuesday the move was a bid to "prevent the Assad regime from securing a military victory, and to steer the regime and its allies back toward Special Envoy (Geir) Pedersen and the UN-led political process." China and Russia criticized the plan on Tuesday. China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun called the sanctions "inhumane." Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused Washington of attempting to "overthrow the legitimate authorities of Syria," according to Reuters. The Caesar Act, a bipartisan Congress bill, has received broad support from Syria's diaspora community, many of whom were driven into exile by Assad's brutal oppression of largely peaceful protests that began in 2011. Assad has been repeatedly accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in his military campaign to quash Syria's armed opposition. He is also widely believed to have been behind multiple chemical attacks in rebel-held areas. Assad's government has repeatedly denied the charges.
But even among Syria's opposition, many expect that the US sanctions will also deal a crushing blow to Syria's civilian population. The poverty rate stands at over 80%, according to the UN. Syria's currency collapsed rapidly in recent months on the heels of an economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon, where many Syrian businessmen circumvented international sanctions during the war. Much of Syria lies in ruin. "(Syria's) economy has become something similar to the economy of the West Bank, an economy reliant on aid," Syria analyst and nonresident scholar at the DC-based Middle East Institute Karam Shaar told CNN. "It's not really a functional economy. It's basically something that survives only because the West keeps injecting money into it." US sanctions threaten to cut off injections of cash from donations and remittances that keep the country afloat. Because the Caesar Act includes secondary sanctions — punishing non-US people and entities for transactions with regime-held Syria — they will likely create "phobia" and "panic from banks" around dealing with Syria, said Shaar, choking off financial transactions to the country. He also warned that humanitarian exemptions for food and medicines included in the Caesar Act may have no effect, a situation that would be similar to Iran, which has also struggled to obtain medicinal supplies despite US waivers. "When you have an act that destroys the exchange rate of a country — and you know that 60% of the inputs for the pharmaceutical industry are actually imported — you are affecting medicines," said Shaar. "The Caesar Act will affect everything.""Unless the Syrian regime accepts to negotiate, I project a famine and it's going to be terrible."The sanctions' knock-on effects in neighboring Lebanon are also expected to further cripple its collapsing economy. Lebanon's banking sector, which is buckling under a severe liquidity crisis, is believed to possess billions of dollars of Syrian assets. Because of this, the international financial system may soon deem Lebanon's banks untouchable, said Shaar. Tensions in Lebanon have reached fever pitch in recent weeks, as its currency continued to tank, stoking riots across the country. On Tuesday night, the leader of the Iran-backed militant and political group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, delivered a fiery televized address vowing to prop up Syria economically and calling on Lebanon to spurn US pressure to abide by the Caesar Act. Nasrallah also accused the Trump administration of "laying siege" to Lebanon's economy in an effort to pressure Hezbollah, and suggested that Read More – Source
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