Foreign intelligence agencies, including Israeli and US intel and their regional partners, have been instrumental in fueling recent anti-government protests in Suwayda, just as they did in 2011.
While on the campaign trail, President Joe Biden spoke with some “Syrian American activists” who favor increased sanctions on the country as well as regime change in Damascus, during a private fundraiser in Maryland last month. According to neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin – one of Bill Kristol’s protégés – Biden told these regime change advocates that, among other things, Assad must go. Rogin says these activists “took advantage of their audience with Biden… to implore him to do more to oppose” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The top Republican and Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a statement on Monday slamming Syria’s readmission into the Arab League and urging President Biden to use sanctions to prevent further normalization.
The “humanitarian exemptions”, on Syrian sanctions, are conditional!
The U.S. Treasury announced a decision on February 9 claiming to allow an easing of sanctions imposed on Syria for the ensuing six months until August 8, as part of “earthquake relief efforts.” The decision allows for “third parties” to transfer aid to Syria without fear of U.S. sanctions, but should only be intended for aid to earthquake-effected areas. Nonetheless, the sanctions programs applied to Syria for many years, the most severe of which are the Caesar Act (2019) and Captagon Act (2022), provide for “humanitarian exceptions,” but are conditional on U.S. approval.
So any earthquake relief effort must take place away from the Syrian state. In other words, it must contribute to undermining the sovereignty of the Syrian state, or it will not take place.
The US has temporarily eased its sanctions on Syria in an effort to speed up aid deliveries to the country’s north-west, where almost no humanitarian assistance has arrived despite the deaths of thousands in this week’s earthquake.
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