Lifting sanctions on Syria seems mad, until you consider the alternative
A decade ago Ahmed al-Sharaa was masterminding suicide-bombings as the second-in-command of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. Three months ago he was the commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a blood-soaked rebel group that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s murderous dictator. Today he is the country’s interim president. With a global trade war raging and the transatlantic alliance fraying, you might think that helping Mr Sharaa is the last thing that America should do. But unless it suspends sanctions on Syria now, the country faces economic collapse. It would then surely become a failed state, and spread mayhem to its neighbours.
As we explain in our Briefing this week and an online profile, Mr Sharaa is inscrutable. He switches between military fatigues and sharp suits. He tells Westerners what they want to hear: that he will establish a diverse government based on competence, not ethnicity or religion, and that Syrians should choose their own leaders. Yet he stops short of promising democracy, refuses to say if political parties will be allowed and declines to rule out imposing sharia (Islamic law). Ominously, a pledge to create a transitional government by March 1st has been broken.
As Syria’s politics stalls, its economy is in free fall. Damascus gets only a couple of hours of electricity a day. The price of bread has risen eight-fold since December. People wait hours to withdraw the few banknotes available from cash machines. The flow of imports has risen, but a shortage of physical cash or digital-payment options means few Syrians can buy them.
In large part this economic misery reflects the ruin caused by decades of dictatorship, years of civil war and months of post-revolutionary chaos. But Western sanctions, originally designed to punish the Assad regime, are also to blame. These make the country radioactive for law-abiding foreign financial institutions, businesses and governments. As a result, Syria cannot easily import physical currency. It also has limited access to the global banking system and is struggling to generate export revenues, let alone the investment required to finance desperately needed reconstruction.
The argument for keeping sanctions is that they create leverage to push Mr Sharaa down a more liberal path. The trouble is that, unless they are lifted now, they will cause an economic calamity that shuts off that same liberal path by creating violence and extremism. Anarchy would probably suit Mr Sharaa’s opponents. Other armed Islamist groups chafe at the power he has accumulated. Fearful of an implosion, Israel is trying to impose a demilitarised zone south of Damascus. If Syria collapses, more refugees will surely flood into Europe.
There is an alternative: a one-year lifting of sanctions. That would let pallets of banknotes be brought into Syria, as well as machines and paper to print money. Syria could sell more oil on global markets, generating income. Some of the hoard of capital stashed abroad might be repatriated. Other countries might help. Qatar is considering depositing $120m a month into the central bank to help pay for a promised 400% increase in public-sector salaries.
If Mr Sharaa takes Syria in an even worse direction, for example setting up an Islamist dictatorship, the sanctions should snap back in a year. The White House, which has only a few people working on the Middle East, does not seem to be paying attention. In Donald Trump’s transactional worldview, Syria has little to offer. Yet the choice is simple: disaster or the slim possibility of future success. Lift the sanctions now. ■
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