{"id":235450,"date":"2023-05-15T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=235450"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:38:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:38:45","slug":"as-arab-states-seek-peace-us-insists-that-syrians-suffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/05\/as-arab-states-seek-peace-us-insists-that-syrians-suffer\/","title":{"rendered":"As Arab States Seek Peace, US Insists That Syrians Suffer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Damascus, May 2021. (Aaron Mat\u00e9)<\/p><\/div>\n

After the Arab League re-admits Syria, Washington threatens new sanctions to prevent reconstruction.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 May 2023 – <\/em>Syria\u2019s re-admission to the Arab League is a milestone in the country\u2019s continued recovery from a decade-long war that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, and widespread destruction.<\/p>\n

For the US, the move has different implications. \u201cThe decision to readmit Syria to the Arab League represents a rejection of U.S. interests in the region and shows that Middle Eastern countries are forging policies independent of Western concerns,\u201d the Wall Street Journal observes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having spent billions of dollars on a dirty war to overthrow Syria\u2019s government, and then imposed crippling sanctions to prevent the country\u2019s reconstruction, Washington is not pleased with the Arab League\u2019s new expression of independence toward Damascus.<\/p>\n

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has responded with a measure<\/a> that would intensify US sanctions and punish states who engage with Syria any further. \u201cThe readmission of Syria to the Arab League really infuriated members and made clear the need to quickly act to send a signal,\u201d a senior Congressional staffer told Reuters<\/a>. Accordingly, \u201cThe legislation is a warning to Turkey and Arab countries that if they engage with Assad’s government, they could face severe consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those severe consequences include US sanctions on any country that lets a Syrian airliner land at its airports. Given that Syrian civilians travel on these flights, the bill\u2019s authors are effectively seeking a global \u201cSyrian Ban\u201d in the image of Trump\u2019s original \u201cMuslim Ban.\u201d The Congressional measure also calls for a review of \u201cany grants of $50,000 or more to Syria,\u201d — a warning shot to anyone helping Syrians in need.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration meanwhile insists that it \u201cwill stand by our core sanctions principles\u201d, and that \u201cour sanctions remain in full effect.\u201d Secretary of State Anthony Blinken explained the core sanctions principle in October 2021: \u201cOur position is oppose the reconstruction of Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

US officials apparently see no contradiction in expressing concern for the Syrian people while imposing policies that inflict mass suffering on them. According to the United Nations, Syria’s \u201ceconomic and humanitarian situation is at its worst since the start of the conflict\u201d in 2011. This includes an \u201c800 per cent rise in food prices since 2020.\u201d As US officials openly brag, US sanctions — particularly under the bipartisan 2019 \u201cCaesar Syria Civilian Protection Act\u201d — have played an instrumental role.<\/p>\n

James Jeffrey, the former US envoy to Syria, writes<\/a> that the United States has \u201ccrushed the country\u2019s economy through sanctions.\u201d The EU and Israel, he boasts, have also pitched in to help \u201cchoke the regime\u2019s economy through sanctions, holds on reconstruction assistance, and maritime interdiction\u201d \u2013 i.e. seizing and even bombing ships that defy the US-led blockade. These sanctions give the US \u201cconsiderable influence\u201d in Syria\u2019s future, Jeffrey explains, along with military occupations that have left \u201c30 percent of Syrian territory… controlled by the U.S. and Turkish armies and their Syrian allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Tabler, another former senior US official for Syria policy, likewise boasts<\/a>\u00a0that US sanctions have destroyed Syria\u2019s currency, leading to \u201ccorresponding cuts in regime subsidies that have exacerbated fuel and food shortages for everyday Syrians.\u201d In welcoming \u201cfuel and food shortages for everyday Syrians,\u201d Tabler is not only making plain the sadism of US policy, but cutting through the propaganda used to justify it. Whereas US officials claim to only target the Syrian \u201cregime,\u201d Tabler is admitting that, in the real world, this means targeting the \u201cregime subsidies\u201d that provide for ordinary civilians\u2019 basic needs.<\/p>\n

As another former Syria envoy, Joel Rayburn, explained, US sanctions are able to so freely immiserate Syrians because the Caesar Act managed to “lower the bar” for imposing them.<\/p>\n

“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 sanctions authorities,” Rayburn gushed in June 2020<\/a>. “The Caesar Act really lowers the bar for us. We don’t have to prove for example that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region 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 that a company or an individual is investing in that sector — in the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, finance sector, energy sector, and so on.”<\/p>\n

In short, US policy is to destroy ever major “sector” of the Syrian economy, regardless of whether or not there is any “evidence to prove” a “link” to its nominal \u201cregime\u201d target. In the name of helping the Syrian people, the US ensures that their economy is besieged, and the rubble of their destroyed buildings and factories left in place.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Christmas last year, Rayburn celebrated his success<\/a>: Syria’s “economy and state are collapsing”, he declared, with “no fuel\/electricity”, “basic needs unaffordable,” schools shuttered, and “people desperate.”<\/p>\n

As to why US diplomats would hail a country\u2019s torment, they, along with their media allies, are equally candid that Syria\u2019s independent existence is an affront to US hegemony.<\/p>\n

According to Jeffrey<\/a>, allowing an \u201cIranian and Russian strategic success in Syria, coming on the heels of the Afghan pullout, would endanger the decades-old American regional security system and the general security which it has provided.\u201d The notion that US has provided \u201cgeneral security\u201d to the Middle East happens to be at odds with public opinion there. In annual polls<\/a>, Arab populations routinely list the US and its proxy Israel as the top threats to their security. But Jeffrey is not concerned with the actual security of the Middle East region; instead, he recognizes that allowing Syria to evade US control would endanger a \u201cdecades-old American regional security system\u201d based on US hegemony.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, when Arab states increased outreach to Assad in late 2021, Jeffrey complained<\/a> that “None of them have been told not to” by the US — the region\u2019s real master.<\/p>\n

Echoing Jeffrey, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin declared<\/a> that the Biden administration \u201cis sorely mistaken if it thinks that allowing regional players to reestablish diplomatic and economic ties with Bashar al-Assad will lead to greater stability.\u201d Rogin does not explain who has granted Washington the authority to \u201callow\u201d Arab states to have ties with their neighbor. This is presumably because Rogin, like the neoconservative diplomats he parrots, simply presupposes the US right to dominate their region. Indeed, as Rogin makes clear, for Washington\u2019s Dirty Warriors, “stability” means continuing to suffocate Syria, in a Middle East where Arab states only do what Washington “allows.”<\/p>\n

Rogin has particular disdain for Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II. In \u201cleading a rapid regional normalization\u201d of Assad’s government, Rogin fumed<\/a>, the Jordanian monarch is running \u201ccounter to U.S.-Syria policy and counter to U.S. law.\u201d Following Rogin\u2019s logic, Jordan is not allowed to \u201ccounter\u201d US policy in its relations with its own neighbors, and “U.S. law” does not just govern U.S. territory, but the Middle East as well.<\/p>\n

Although the US has not blocked its Arab allies\u2019 full re-engagement with Syria, it has long made clear that it will maintain the crippling sanctions that make reconstruction impossible. Whereas Arab states have \u201cscoped out investment opportunities,\u201d the New York Times noted in October 2021<\/a>, \u201cthe cash has not followed, largely because of American sanctions.\u201d Indeed, these sanctions allow the US not only to keep Syria impoverished, but remind its neighbors who is really in charge. As one senior US official explained: “We are actively telling the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia, \u2018Don\u2019t go building shopping malls. Don\u2019t unfreeze Bashar\u2019s assets. Don\u2019t give the government in Syria access to any kind of revenue for rebuilding or reconstruction.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, the US ruler was \u201callowing flexibility,\u201d the Times added, by permitting Syria\u2019s role in \u201cthe provision of electricity to Lebanon\u201d and — even more generously by Washington\u2019s standards \u2013 \u201csome kinds of aid inside Syria.\u201d This \u201cflexibility\u201d is part of what the same US official called a \u201chumane, sensible policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Biden administration\u2019s avowed standards, it is thus “humane, sensible” to let Syria receive \u201csome kinds of aid\u201d, while nonetheless pressuring its neighbors to deny it \u201cany kind of revenue for rebuilding or reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prevailing US colonialism toward Syria has been abetted by an establishment US media that has gone to extraordinary lengths to normalize it, as the Paper of Record has recently made clear.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of February\u2019s devastating earthquake, the New York Times made the mistake of briefly acknowledging that \u201cSyria is not able to receive direct aid from many countries because of sanctions.\u201d This narrative error was quickly corrected: within one day<\/a>, the Times erased that wording and replaced it to read that \u201cthe Syrian government tightly controls what aid it lets into opposition-held areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days later, the Times\u2019 Declan Walsh followed up by noting<\/a> that \u201cthe Syrian economy has nose-dived, strained by chronic food and fuel shortages\u201d \u2013 not strained, of course, by US sanctions that \u2013 as more candid US officials like Jeffrey and Tabler openly admit — have caused those shortages.<\/p>\n

The February earthquake posed a particular dilemma for supporters of US sanctions, which hinders Syria\u2019s ability to rebuild. The Times\u2019 Raja Abdulrahim captured this quandary in reporting of concerns<\/a> from the Syrian opposition that the government may \u201cnow funnel money into the country under the guise of earthquake relief and instead use it for reconstruction of buildings damaged in the civil war.\u201d Indeed, for the forces that tried to destroy Syria in one of the most expensive dirty wars in history, it would be unfathomable to allow the government to engage in the \u201creconstruction of buildings\u201d destroyed in the process. The fact that the Biden administration subsequently allowed a six-month exemption<\/a> for some humanitarian aid to Syria was a tacit admission that US sanctions explicitly hindered it.<\/p>\n

From the US point of view, it is all the more unfathomable to let Syria rebuild given that its resistance to the dirty war was backed by two other Western foes, Iran and Russia. \u201cSyria was one example of the effort by both to find ways to sap American strength and prestige wherever they could in the world,\u201d the Times\u2019 Neil MacFarquhar noted last year<\/a>. Because these US rivals were able to help \u201csap American strength and prestige\u201d in Syria, the country\u2019s civilian population must accordingly pay the price.<\/p>\n

The current policy of preventing Syria from rebuilding from a war that the US itself fueled reveals a fundamental contradiction that US officials and their media stenographers never acknowledge. Whereas the US claims to be punishing Syria for human rights violations during the war, it is an uncontested fact that the Syrian government was defending its own territory from an insurgency backed by the world\u2019s wealthiest countries and dominated by sectarian death squads, namely Al Qaeda. (Additionally, when the US claims to be holding Syria \u201caccountable\u201d for using chemical weapons, it is never acknowledged that in all major cases, these allegations have been undermined by extensive Western leaks, including from the world\u2019s top chemical watchdog, the OPCW).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often talk about the US policy as non-intervention,\u201d Ryan Evans, the CEO of the military affairs website War on the Rocks, recently observed.<\/a> \u201cBut the armed Syrian opposition was the most well-supported insurgency probably in the last 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the US proxy war in Syria was “one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A.,” the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0reported in 2017. Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a budget of nearly $1 billion per year, or around $1 of every $15 in CIA spending. The CIA armed and trained nearly 10,000 insurgents, spending “roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program,” U.S. officials\u00a0told the Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0in 2015. Two years later,\u00a0one U.S. official estimated<\/a>\u00a0that CIA-funded militias “may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”<\/p>\n

In his memoir, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledges that various covert US programs in Syria came \u201cwith enormous price tags\u201d and became \u201cblack holes of taxpayer dollars,\u201d with US weapons \u201cending up in the hands of al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups.\u201d That was the inevitable result of a US decision to ally with Al Qaeda<\/a>. As Biden\u2019s current National security adviser Jake Sullivan wrote in February 2012: \u201cAl Qaeda is on our side in Syria.\u201d Having sided with Al Qaeda and other jihadist death squads, the US fueled an insurgency bent on what the New York Times\u2019 Robert F. Worth described as<\/a> \u201csectarian mass murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the CIA\u2019s program has long been shuttered, the guiding sadism prevails. For defending their country from US-backed sectarian mass murderers \u2013 and renewing ties in a region that the US has long dominated — the message from Washington is that while Syria\u2019s devastating war has ended, its suffering will not.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em>Aaron Mat\u00e9 is a journalist with<\/em> The Grayzone, where he hosts<\/em> \u201cPushback.\u201d He is also a contributor to<\/em> Real Clear Investigations and the temporary co-host of<\/em> \u201cUseful Idiots.\u201d In 2019, Mat\u00e9 won the\u00a0Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for Russiagate coverage in<\/em> The Nation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mate.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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