Assad and His Wife Top the List of New U.S. Sanctions on Syria

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad and his wife as the Trump administration increases pressure on the regime in an effort to end its nine-year civil war.

“This conflict needs to be brought to an end,” James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative for Syria engagement, said in a briefing on Wednesday. “We will use the tools provided to us in this sanctions legislation and other sanctions authorities to drive home to not only the Assad regime, but to those who support him, be they governments -- and you know the two states we’re talking about -- or be they individuals, banks, whatever, that we’re coming after you.”

Those two states are Russia and Iran, which have provided military support to Assad as he has regained control of most Syrian territory but are in no shape to help him financially as he looks out on a landscape of economic ruin.

The State Department said in a statement earlier in the day that it was imposing 39 sanction designations “as the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue.” Assad and his wife, Asma al-Assad, topped the list.

“Many more sanctions will come until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a tweet.

A senior U.S. official said Wednesday that pressure from the Trump administration won’t be a one-time affair but will continue until Assad and his allies accede to a political solution to the conflict.

Divided Elite

The economic situation and divisions in the ruling elite and other groups that have supported Assad are “worse than at any time, including when the opposition military forces were in the suburbs of Damascus and held Aleppo and much of the rest of the country,” Jeffrey said. “We’re seeing some signals, however modest, out of Moscow -- from non-official but authoritative sources -- that they’re having some doubts about where they’re going with Assad as they well should.”

The Syrian economy is already under Western sanctions, with the European Union last month extending its measures by a year. The United Nations estimated in 2018 that the war cost Syria $388 billion in economic damage. The Syrian pound, which traded at about 50 pounds to the dollar when the conflict erupted in March 2011, is spiraling out of control.

The U.S. sanctions aim to force Assad’s regime to negotiate an end to a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians. By weakening the regime, though, the U.S. risks inadvertently helping the mainly radical Sunni-Muslim groups that oppose any American presence in the Middle East and see this as a chance to topple the weakened Assad government.

‘Five-Star Real Estate’

Some of the sanctions imposed Wednesday are aimed at high-end development projects in Syria’s rubble, according to the Treasury Department.

“After forcing millions of Syrian citizens to flee from their homes throughout the Syrian civil war, the Assad regime and its supporters are now pouring resources into building luxury real estate developments,” Treasury said in a statement. “To make way for five-star real estate, the regime has evicted and razed the property of tens of thousands of residents from areas in Damascus that were until recently working class neighborhoods sympathetic to the opposition.”

The U.S. designations employ a range of sanctions authorities to target the Assad regime, including the Caesar Act provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which provided for sanctions on individuals supporting the Syrian government, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a separate statement on Wednesday.

“Since the 2011 start to the Syrian conflict, the Assad regime has committed innumerable atrocities against Syrians, including arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, and murder,” the White House said. “These despicable acts have devastated the country’s people, infrastructure, and economy, displacing more than half of Syria’s population.”