An Al Mayadeen investigation of July 31st documented how Washington has sanctioned so much of the world, an ever-increasing number of states are seeking alternative economic and financial structures, in the process hastening the US Empire’s demise. Until that glorious day comes, however, for many vulnerable Global South countries, sanctions remain a devastatingly destructive tool in the West’s arsenal. There is no greater testament to their enduring potency than the devastation savagely wrought on Syria since June 2020.

That month, the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act came into effect, having been signed six months earlier by then-US President Donald Trump, with the European Union’s effusive support. It instituted wide-ranging sanctions against Damascus, ostensibly to punish President Bashar Assad and his political and personal associates. A vast array of goods and services in every conceivable field were banned from being sold to any Syrian citizen or entity. 

‘Keeping the Oil’

The legislation’s terms make abundantly clear that preventing ongoing efforts to rebuild Syria, ravaged by a grinding, decade-long Western proxy war, and preventing Damascus from generating foreign income from the sale of its energy reserves, was the chief objective. One passage openly outlines “a strategy to deter foreign persons from entering into contracts related to reconstruction.” Individuals and private corporations anywhere in the world “knowingly, directly or indirectly, [providing] significant construction or engineering services” to Syria are in very serious trouble with US authorities.

The same ignominious fate befalls those who “knowingly sell or [provide] significant goods, services, technology, information, or other support that significantly facilitates the maintenance or expansion of the Government of Syria’s domestic production of natural gas, petroleum, or petroleum products.” At the time, as now, the US military illegally occupied a third of Syrian territory. A month before signing these sanctions into law, Trump bluntly outlined why American forces were present in the country:

“We’re keeping the oil, we have the oil, the oil is secure, we left troops behind only for the oil.”

Theoretically, the Caesar Act will expire five years after implementation - i.e. June 2025 - and so too will its associated sanctions. However, Section 401 of the Act stipulates that the sanctions will only end if six stated requirements are met. These demands are bold and broad, essentially calling for Syrian government officials to electively offer themselves up for prosecution for alleged war crimes. This would amount to surrender, and US proxy war victory, via other means.

The terms of the Caesar Act’s sanctions are likewise bold and broad. Upon the legislation’s passing, Joel Rayburn, then-US Special Envoy for Syria, boasted of the unprecedented ease with which individuals and entities can be penalised and prosecuted for breaching sanctions levied against Damascus. He starkly contrasted the legislation with prior sanctions efforts against US adversaries, which “oftentimes” prescribed “a very high hurdle” in evidentiary terms, before a sanctions breach could be formally proven:

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“The Caesar Act lowers the bar for us. We don’t have to prove a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in [Syria] is dealing directly with the Assad regime. We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link. We just have to have the evidence that proves a company or individual is investing in that sector.”

‘Isolated Damascus’

Of course, in keeping with prior US sanctions campaigns, the Caesar Act’s ultimate victims are average citizens. Immediately upon coming into effect, the value of the Syrian pound collapsed precipitously, sending the cost of goods soaring. In a stroke, almost the country’s entire population was left at best barely able, and at worst completely unable, to afford basic essentials fundamental to human existence. Even mainstream sources typically approving of imperial belligerence towards Damascus cautioned of an inevitably impending humanitarian crisis.

US officials were unmoved and undeterred by these warnings. Contemporaneously commenting on the Western-inflicted catastrophe, James Jeffrey, the State Department’s top official on Syria policy, declared that Washington would not change course. Instead, he unrepentantly hailed the success of the sanctions, and pledged that his “recipe” for dealing with the crisis was “more of the same.”

Fast forward to January 2021, and Jeffrey authored a bombastic op-ed for Empire House journal Foreign Affairs, imploring the incoming Biden administration not to change course on any aspect of Trump’s “Middle East policy”. Along the way, he praised how the outgoing President had “led a large international diplomatic coalition” against Syria, which “isolated Damascus, and crushed the country’s economy through sanctions.”

A month prior, Alena Douhan, UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impacts of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, sounded grave alarm about the Caesar Act’s impact on average citizens. She worried the legislation was “depriving the Syrian people of the chance to rebuild their basic infrastructure,” despite Washington’s assurances “ it did not intend for [sanctions] to harm the Syrian population.” Douhan furthermore expressed “serious concerns” about whether the Act was compatible with international law, due to “its unfettered emergency powers…and extraterritorial reach.”

Under the Caesar Act’s auspices, the US Treasury designated Syria’s Central Bank as suspected of money laundering. Douhan felt this “clearly creates unnecessary hurdles in processing…foreign aid and handling humanitarian imports.” It also “results in the high risk of over-compliance.” In other words, the sanctions produce such a chilling effect, individuals, charities and companies will fail to provide assistance to Damascus, even if that assistance isn’t actually sanctioned. She added:

“What particularly alarms me is the way the Caesar Act runs roughshod over human rights, including…rights to housing, health, and an adequate standard of living and development. The US government must not put obstacles in the way of rebuilding of hospitals because lack of medical care threatens the entire population’s very right to life. Since the economy is largely destroyed, Syria needs to be able to access necessary humanitarian aid and rebuild essential infrastructure in the country, while relying on foreign help.”

On February 6th 2023, Syria was brutally rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, one of the most devastating recorded in the Levant’s history. Douhan’s fears of the Caesar Act’s chilling effect on humanitarian aid were amply confirmed subsequently. While support flooded into Damascus from her neighbours, initially some were reticent to dispatch anything at all. US and EU sanctions make it illegal for planes to land in local airports, and many states eager to provide humanitarian assistance sent none, for fear of dire repercussions.

Due to intensive global public pressure, and despite rabid internal opposition, the US Treasury on February 10th enacted a 180-day waiver on certain sanctions, to allow for vital earthquake relief to reach Syria. Still, neither Washington nor the EU provided any meaningful assistance to Damascus whatsoever, despite the earthquake’s death toll ratcheting daily. Meanwhile, Israeli officials expressed a degenerate willingness to bomb Iranian aid deliveries arriving there by land.

On cue, the sanctions were reinforced once the 180-day grace period was over, and remain in place today. Conditions have only worsened for all concerned in the intervening time. Still somehow exhibiting the fortitude and endurance pivotal to withstanding the West’s decade-long dirty war, the government and population struggle on. For how much longer must they endure this nightmare?