Joshua Landis Profile picture
Sep 18, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Sanctions on Syria must be "restructured to mitigate their impact on the population & make them more effective against the regime"

By Zaki Mehchy of Chattam House

Many good suggestions included.

Thread =>
arab-reform.net/publication/pu… @ArabReform_ARI
"Indicators show sanctions are hitting ordinary Syrians the hardest"

What can be done?

"Western countries should agree on a set of detailed objectives within the agreed framework of 2254 to resolve the conflict and tie sanctions to measurable and attainable goals. [such as =>
To tie sanctions to specific improvements on human rights, such as releasing detainees, setting up independent visits to detention facilities, and stopping arbitrary detentions by security agencies to give civil society initiatives an appropriate and safe working environment.
Progress on key aspects of the constitution or focus on reforms and accountability efforts in the security sector. The regime will resist this but at least the benchmarks and the expectations will be clearer than they are today.
provide direct financial support for traditional businesspersons and SMEs (small & medium enterprises) in Syria by opening parallel financial channels with them as a substitution of the formal ones which are sanctioned and controlled by pro-regime entities and individuals.

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More from @joshua_landis

Sep 28
5 takeaways from Israel’s killing of Nasrallah

1. This is a turning point for the region and the axis of resistance. Israel has made a stunning show of its power, intelligence capabilities, and of Western technological and military superiority. If anyone had any doubts about Israeli power after Oct 7, those doubts have been dispelled. Iran turns out to be the paper tiger that many said it was.Image
2. The root problem of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians has not been solved, indeed, it will only get worse. There are 7 million Palestinians living in historic Palestine. The 5.5 million living in the occupied territories have no rights, no sovereignty, no hope of self-determination. Netanyahu will come out of his Lebanon gambit a towering hero, who has secured his legacy and life’s work, which is to frustrate the two-state solution, ensure that no Palestinian state emerges in any part of historic Palestine, and that the occupied territories become Israeli territory. It is a great day for the messianic wing of Israel. Israel is likely to lurch to the right, disregard Palestinian hopes, and exacerbate its infractions of international law and norms.Image
3. The Arab World and Middle Eastern states must engage in self-criticism after the defeat, as Sadiq al-‘Azm so eloquently wrote following the 1967 debacle. The root cause of the weakness of Middle Eastern states is that they are not nation states. By this, I mean that their peoples share little common identity. They are not united around common goals and do not accept shared rules of citizenship, which prevents the rule of law from becoming internalized as it prevents the emergence of viable democracies in the region. Middle Eastern countries will fail to modernize or know stability so long as the victor of the moment is unable to accommodate the aspirations of the vanquished. This is true of Bashar al-Assad and the Alawi community that supports him in Syria, as it is of the rulers of Lebanon, Iraq, etc.Image
Read 5 tweets
Jun 1, 2023
Why would @CAIRNational support sanctioning 17 million more Muslims?

The US #Sanctions are designed to keep #Syria in ruins and to stop reconstruction of the country, and stop foreign investment.

There is no U.S. plan to get rid of Assad or his security state.

This bill… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
To understand what's wrong with this bill you have to put it in the context of our current (failed) policy on #Syria

This two minute explanation by Dana Stroul gives a good summary of the policy



As Sproul says, the Assad-controlled areas of Syria are… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
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…
Read 8 tweets
May 19, 2023
WSJ claims that “The Arab League’s about-turn, en­gi­neered by Riyadh, co­in-cides with Wash­ing­ton’s wan­ing in­flu­ence in the region. “

Why?

B/c the “U.S. has of­ten pressed for de­moc­ra­tiza­tion.”

But this is wrong. ==> 🧵 wsj.com/articles/syria…
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."

cbsnews.com/news/the-brief…
Read 6 tweets
May 17, 2023
Jordanians want sanctions on Syria lifted

Jordan's exports to Syria increased by 23% during the first 7 months of 2022, but are not close to prewar levels.

Jordanian economists demand that the Caesar Act that disrupted trade be lifted.

ammannet.net/english/jordan…
“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:
Read 6 tweets
Nov 28, 2022
US tries to thwart Turkish invasion of northern #Syria again

But with no long-term Syria policy, everyone sees the US commitment to the Kurds as weak and vacillating.

SDF Commander Mazlum Kobane insists that the US must do more: =>🧵

al-monitor.com/originals/2022… via @AlMonitor
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. Image
"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. Image
Read 5 tweets
Oct 23, 2022
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.

agsiw.org/growing-china-…
Saudi Arabia was China’s top supplier of crude oil in 2021, accounting for 17% of Chinese oil imports.

KSA beat out even Russia, although since the Ukraine war, Russia may again top the KSA in export of oil to China due to discounting.
Read 7 tweets

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