US should give Syria the chance to get back on its feet

Syria has a chance to get back on its feet after decades of brutal violence and oppression by the Assad family’s regime. But the country’s fate and Middle Eastern stability now hang on what the Syrian government and its partners and the international community, primarily the US, do or fail to do in the coming weeks and months.

Timothy Lenderking, a senior official in the State Department’s Senior Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, put it best last week when he delivered the keynote speech at a Middle East Institute conference on Syria in Washington. He challenged “American policymakers, including myself and my colleagues, to get this right because this is a pivotal moment in Syria and in the broader region.”

It is a critical time because the new administration in Washington is formulating its Syria policy.

The administration can rejoice in the US’ historic strategic gains in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime: Iran was driven out, Hezbollah lost its land route for supplies from Iran, and Russia has been weakened, with the future of its presence in Syria now tenuous at best. The chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jim Risch, last month welcomed the end of the “ring of fire,” which “had encircled Israel with terror proxies and instability for decades” and which “is now in ruins.”

The questions that the Trump administration is grappling with are related to its future relationship with the new Syria and its military presence there.

The questions that the Trump administration is grappling with are related to its future relationship with the new Syria

Dr. Amal Mudallali

Syria experts in Washington believe there is a historic opportunity to stabilize the country and the region. They implore Washington to abandon its caution and engage with the interim government to put the Syrian Arab Republic on the right track by lifting sanctions and strengthening the government while it faces myriad challenges.

Sen. Risch captured the mood in Washington on Syria policy when he said: “There is a very real tradeoff between opportunity and risk. Too much engagement too soon could create more security dilemmas, but no or too little engagement could give Russia and Iran the ability to wield substantial influence again and also signal the US has no interest, which would be an incorrect assumption. Make no mistake, there are very real dangers to lifting sanctions too quickly.”

But a new report, “Reimagining Syria,” which was released by three think tanks at last week’s Middle East Institute conference, calls for giving Syria’s transition the “breathing space to succeed.” It advocates lifting US sanctions and argues that engagement has a bigger chance of “directing the scope and direction of change in Syria” than isolation.

Although the new Syrian leaders have said and done the right things so far, there are skeptics and others who, according to Natasha Hall of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “want this Syrian government to fail and want chaos in Syria.” She believes that, with no sanctions relief, “there is no way this government survives.” Experts warn Washington not to drive the new Syria into the arms of Russia by maintaining the suffocating sanctions. Skeptics, on the other hand, see some of the actions of the government as concerning.

Unfortunately, the violence that recently took place on the Syrian coast strengthened the narrative of those skeptics who oppose sanctions relief. There is now a real danger that what happened might harden the position of Washington regarding lifting the sanctions.

So far, President Donald Trump has not weighed in on this issue, but the administration has been forward-leaning during this wait-and-see period, letting humanitarian aid flow into Syria while limiting other exports.

In January, the Biden administration granted limited sanctions relief for Syria for six months. Last week, the Trump administration gave the nod for Qatar to provide gas to Syria via Jordan to help with the country’s electricity supply, according to Reuters.

Moreover, the White House reportedly played a key role in negotiating the agreement between the Syrian government and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces that it supports, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcoming the move to “integrate the northeast into a unified Syria.”

But Syria is still being tested. Lenderking said Washington has “big questions about the interim authority in Damascus.” He added: “We are watching and cautiously engaging with this new leadership and (interim President Ahmad Al-) Sharaa to see if they are genuine.”

Experts warn Washington not to drive the new Syria into the arms of Russia by maintaining the suffocating sanctions

Dr. Amal Mudallali

One of the tests is accountability for what happened on the coast. Lenderking said: “Accountability in Syria is not only a moral imperative, it is essential for stability and social cohesion. Sectarian violence and foreign fighters must not have any role in Syria’s future government or military.” The US wants the foreign fighters to be expelled from official posts and from the country “as a sign of commitment to Syrian and regional stability,” Lenderking said.

Syria has been under sanctions since 1979, but the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, which targeted Bashar Assad and his government because of their brutality against the Syrian people, is now an impediment to helping the same Syrian people it was enacted to protect. The Syrian regime and its military apparatus have been dismantled, but it is proving difficult to stop the sanctions from tying the hands of the new interim government when it comes to jumpstarting the country and its economy.

Risch last month proposed a “gradual lifting of the Caesar sanctions” and called for the US to monitor how the new government acts. If all goes well, “we will continue in a stream of lifting those sanctions.” He accompanied this conditional and gradual lifting of the sanctions with five “vital security interests” for the US: not allowing the country to become a “launching pad for terror attacks against the United States or our partners;” permanently ejecting Russia and Iran from Syria; destroying Assad’s drug empire; accounting for American Syrians detained by the Assad regime; and ensuring there is no return to dictatorship.

But there are those who believe that the only way Damascus can get sanctions lifted is through starting talks with the Trump administration on joining the Abraham Accords, meaning normalizing relations with Israel, as Thomas Warrick of the Atlantic Council said in the MEI conference last week.

As Washington decides its Syria policy, it is good to remember that it is worth saving the strategic gains and pushing for a Syria that is open and democratic and not part of the Iran axis or a threat to its neighbors. This kind of Syria has not been a reality for more than half a century. President Trump should give Syria a chance and not listen to the old, rehashed views on the country.

• Dr. Amal Mudallali is an international affairs adviser for Think and a former Lebanese ambassador to the UN.