Powerful policy proposal to foreign aid agencies/govs by @SynapsNetwork arguing they must boycott Lebanon's gov agencies, political class, banks, & front NGOs in providing aid. The objective is to assist the revolution, demanded by demonstrators.
The big difference b/n the proposed Lebanon aid boycott & Syria boycott is that @SynapsNetwork stops short of proposing legal sanctions against Lebanon's elites. Only Hizbullah is presently targeted w sanctions. All transactions are to remain legal. The stick remains moral.
The big question is whether political pressure will build for legal & economic sanctions on Lebanon's gov, business & faction heads. A few thinktanks, such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies @FDD, are recommending broad sanctions on the Lebanese gov. Will this catch on?
Many Lebanese don't share US & France's political agendas, but that doesn't mean that they won't turn to Wash/Paris for help against their tormentors. Hopefully Lebanon can achieve regime-change peacefully & w/o foreign agendas taking over, avoiding the SY, IQ, AF, LB, model?
Direct M. fr friend
"Not sure why avoiding to pump money into existing factions amounts to supporting "revolution", imposing sanctions, & pushing regime change. Money would simply be wasted in hands of a political class that has never made any use of it other than toline pockets
Yes, I understand these objections to my tweet, but isn't the point of boycotting Lebanon's gov in order to support "a form" of regime-change? We have heard calls for "Isqat an-Nizam. I think it is legitimate to point to the possible slippery slope.
Lebanese need to be careful not to allow their country to fall into the model of LB, SY, IQ etc. It is easy to see where revolution can lead. The Tunisia model is the rare bird on our region. Allowing foreign agendas to become dominant is easy.
National unity and producing alternative elites that share a common vision for the country are key. That is what the Syrian & Iraqi oppositions lacked and is one - only one - of the reasons why the revolution turned out so badly and failed.
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As Joel Rayburn explained: US sanctions immiserate average Syrians because the Caesar Act "lowered the bar" for imposing them.
"With sanctions, oftentimes there can be a very high hurdle for the evidence that you have to gather in order to prove legal sufficiency under certain… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
US policy makers had decided by 2013 that they did not want to see the Syrian military destroyed b/c they feared that the opposition was dominated by radical Islamists & the country might fall apart.
The US chose Assad over the alternatives.
Blaming Russia is disingenuous
Read the Deputy Director of the CIA in 2013
"it's going to take the institution of the Syrian military and the institutions of the Syrian security services to defeat al Qaeda when this is done."
“The international sanctions on #Syria must be lifted, and Jordanian-Syrian economic relations must return to the status quo ante,” wrote Musa Al Saket, a member of the Amman Chamber of Commerce.
“The sanctions are unfair to our economy & the Syrian people,” he wrote. “Twelve years since the war broke out, more than 90% of the #Syria population lives below the poverty line, with limited access to food and medicine. This is a major catastrophe,” Saket added:
Russia wants us to seek an agreement #Syria, Kobani told Zaman
“As for the U.S., they need to articulate a policy on Syria. They have no strategy beyond fighting [ISIS] and have failed to formulate a clear policy with regard to the future of the areas under our control.
"The absence of this policy makes it harder for us to negotiate successfully with Damascus,” adding that the US does not oppose talks with Assad’s government.
But Syria’s not ready, “and Russia is not applying enough pressure on them,” adds Kobane.
Shifting energy import patterns enhance China’s clout in the Middle East
China became in 2016 the largest investor in the Arab world with investments worth $29.5 billion, targeted at infrastructure, industrial parks, pipelines, ports, and roads.
Total bilateral trade b/n Saudi Arabia & China grew from $42.4 billion in 2010 to $76 billion in 2019, quickly making China the top trading partner for Saudi Arabia.
In 2020, China replaced the European Union as the GCC’s largest trading partner.
The logic of Turkey and Syria returning to the Adana Agreement of 1998 or something approaching it is overwhelming.
Both Turks and Americans are learning that ruling hunks of Syria and unruly Syrians, is a thankless task that will sink them into ever growing trouble.
1. Idlib & N Aleppo cannot be made into a viable state. Neither can Kurdish led N.E. Syria. 2. ISIS is strengthened by Syria's partition into 3 waring parts. 3. There is no internat'l legitimacy to the N. Syrian statelets, which means that no oil company will undertake repairs.
4. The US gains little by its control of N Syria, save the knowledge that it has yet to forsake the Kurds. Turkey is the more important ally, causing the US to turn a blind eye to Erdogan's excellerating attacks on the SDF/YPG. It is a matter of time before US soldiers are killed