Syria fighting intensifies sanctions debate: Repeal or go slow?
An outbreak of brutal, sectarian violence in Syria has intensified debate in Congress over whether to follow President Trump’s directive to lift all sanctions on the country.
While Trump has put his support behind Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who with his allies was responsible for overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December, some Republicans and Democrats are skeptical that al-Sharaa has completely shed his terrorist past.
The violence in Sweida, located in southern Syria — which included the reported killing of an American citizen — cast a harsh light on the enormous challenges facing the new Syrian leaders in exercising control over warring militias and minority groups.
Still, there’s also bipartisan support for advancing Trump’s directive, in particular repealing the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 — landmark legislation that imposed a harsh sanctions regime meant to isolate Assad and quicken his downfall.
“There are a number of different ideas on where and how far to go, and that’s a debate that we’re having right now,” Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Hill on Tuesday.
Mast held back from taking a position on repealing or taking a more calibrated approach to sanctions relief. That divide was on display Tuesday at a meeting of the House Financial Services Committee.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) introduced legislation advanced by the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday to amend the sanctions legislation to allow the administration to waive sanctions beyond the six-month period currently allowed, and to give the president more flexibility to lift sanctions when certain conditions are met.
Lawler’s bill was backed by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who offered an amendment calling for the government to demonstrate its commitment to protecting minorities.
“We cannot expect perfection, we are not looking for Jeffersonian democracy in Syria, but we are also looking for a government to do all it can to prevent seven Druze, including one U.S. citizen, from being executed,” he said, referring to the violence last week.
Sherman told The Hill he was not in favor of repealing the act completely.
Israel intervened in Syria last week, launching strikes on the capital Damascus and the southern Druze-majority city of Sweida last week, in what it said was in defense of the Druze community. The move frustrated and reportedly surprised the Trump administration.
The U.S. last week helped put in place a ceasefire between the Druze, Bedouin, Israel and Syrian government forces after days of fighting resulted in the death of approximately 300 people. Nearly 100,000 people are displaced because of the fighting.
On Tuesday, the State Department confirmed that Hosam Saraya, a Syrian American citizen of Druze descent, was murdered alongside dozens of other men held captive by local forces in Tishreen Square, located in the center of Sweida.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that despite the recent violence, she is still supportive of legislation she introduced in June to repeal the sanctions legislation.
“Part of what we’ve got to do is show Syrians that there is an opportunity for a better life,” she said, adding she wants Israel to stop bombing the country.
“That would go a long way towards providing peaceful conditions under which people can negotiate,” she said.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Finance committees, has introduced legislation in the House for a full repeal.
“To give Syria a chance, the best way to do that is we repeal,” he told The Hill.
Wilson was backed by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Financial Services panel, who introduced an amendment to Lawler’s legislation directing the legislation’s full repeal.
“We in the African American community know, when we are trying to do business, we get just enough resources to fail, and that’s what you’re doing here,” Waters remarked to Lawler.
“There will be great expectations of the government — they cannot fulfill with your little bitty partial removal of sanctions,” she continued. “It’s got to be full, it’s got to be meaningful, it’s got to be done in a way that ensures.”
Trump’s special envoy for Syria and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, has also called for a full repeal. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the state of the debate.
Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he is comfortable keeping the six-month waiver in place and is cautious in dealing with the al-Sharaa government.
“Whether it’s a complete repeal or whether or not we move into it slowly, that’s up to the president,” Risch said.
“I want to give Syria the opportunity, this is a real opportunity for us, I want to make that happen. Having said that, I also want to be cautious as we move forward,” he added.
“I think they’ve got enough in place with the waivers to do what they need to do,” Risch continued, responding to arguments that investors and businesses are discouraged from working in Syria over uncertainty about whether the country will remain free from financial penalty.
Trump issued an executive order last month directing the State Department to review the specially designated terrorist label on al-Sharaa and the group he led to oust Assad, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). While the Biden administration lifted a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa, it’s not clear if his terrorist designation has been fully lifted. Secretary of State Marco Rubio removed HTS’s terrorist designation earlier this month.
Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is another advocate for limited sanctions relief and backed Lawler’s bill on Tuesday. That position has put him at odds with a community he has worked closely with for years, in particular on the original passage of the Caesar Act.
The Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) is an Arkansas-based humanitarian organization that was responsible for bringing before Congress the whistleblower, code-named Caesar, testifying to Assad’s torture and murder of Syrian citizens, and that served as a basis for the Caesar Act.
On Tuesday, the SETF put out a statement rejecting Lawler’s legislation.
“President Trump’s administration has a clear policy on Syria to lift sanctions and give Syria a chance, this bill does the opposite,” the SETF said in a statement.
“It is the moral obligation of Congress to fully repeal Caesar, which was about punishing Assad and not the Syrian people.”
Stephen Rapp, a member of the board of trustees for SETF who served as ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice during the Obama administration, said the Caesar Act served its purpose in ushering in the fall of Assad, and that repealing the law would not harm the president’s ability to wield sanctions on the al-Sharaa government if necessary.
“I don’t think we need the Caesar sanctions, and it’s important to send a symbolic message to Syria that you’ve overthrown a dictatorship and did something that most of us never dreamed as possible,” he said.
“And now we want to, certainly work with you to achieve justice, and certainly enforce human rights. And we do that by engagement, by doing what the administration has done so far, suspending the Caesar sanctions and lifting these others.”
Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, argues that calibrating sanctions relief ensures crucial leverage in deterring against violence toward civilians and minority groups.
And he warned against a double standard when it comes to relations with al-Sharaa’s government.
“The atrocities under Assad were so grave, that it is crucial to keep the legal mechanism in place, especially as the change in the Syrian regime might allow for some investigation breakthroughs,” he said.
Assad’s atrocities include leading the regime charged with killing more than 200,000 civilians, disappearing more than 96,000 people, torturing to death more than 15,000 people, and carrying out grievous attacks against civilians using chemical weapons, cluster munitions, and incendiary bombs.
But Rubin also pointed out that al-Sharaa’s terrorist background — with ties to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group — should not be swept under the rug.
“It is equally important, however, to recognize that al-Sharaa and his cohort have engaged and increasingly engage in equally atrocious human rights violations. If the United States selectively prosecutes and sanctions some violators but not others for the same crimes, then we delegitimize the entire human rights mechanism.”