Washington: The United States (US) Administration has been adopting a vague and divided policy in dealing with the Syrian file. It condemned the crimes of the Syrian regime and its president, Bashar al-Assad, and denounced the Syrian presidential elections as neither “free nor fair.” However, it did not take any firm stand that would resolve the politically and militarily complex file of Syria.
The divide is particularly evident in the enforcement of sanctions. The Biden administration, which started nearly six months ago, has not imposed sanctions under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (CSCPA), unlike the former Trump administration, which ended its term with a set of focused sanctions targeting the Syrian regime and its supporters.
The policy, however, might transpire into a clearer approach during the upcoming summit between the US and Russia’s presidents who have the Syrian file scheduled in their discussions.
On 7 June, a group of chairmen of the US Senate and House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committees from the Democratic and Republican parties sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to reaffirm the full applicability of the Caesar Act on the Syrian regime and pressure Russia to open crossings for aid deliveries in Syria.
The Washington-based political adviser Mohammed Ghanem told Enab Baladi that the democrats have no confidence in the sanctions imposed on the Syrian regime, and there is much debate about them. The issue of whether or not to impose sanctions against the Syrian government has been causing real controversy amid attempts to thwart them. The US officials are battling this issue, and it is still early to pinpoint the US policy towards the sanctions.
The US Administration has not yet paid due attention to the Syrian file, and its policy in this regard has not yet been defined, according to Ghanem. Instead, the US is currently focusing on the humanitarian dimension of cross-border delivery of humanitarian assistance.
Ghanem said that the democrats are disinclined to use sanctions against the regime, particularly that an extreme wing within the far-left Democratic Party represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), an American politician and activist serving as the US Representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, is against sanctions. Politicians such as AOC are a strong voice in the US, and they launch initiatives to lift sanctions on Iran.
Ghanem’s views are in line with Washington’s official position. On 6 June, the US Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Jeffrey Prescott, said that the UN Security Council’s action plan for the coming days would focus on adding additional crossings and expanding the delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria, not just on renewing aid delivery through the only authorized passage point, the Bab al-Hawa crossing.
Prescott added that what the US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, saw on her three-day visit to the Turkish-Syrian border early this month underlined the importance of cross-border assistance to meet the needs of Syrians which increased 20 percent more than last year.
Prescott described the Bab al-Hawa crossing as a “lifeline for millions of Syrians,” through which life-saving humanitarian aid to millions of Syrians is delivered. He added that the UN would remain focused on the issue of cross-border assistance until everyone understands the stakes of closing the final humanitarian border crossing, which is a matter of life or death to Syrians.
The US Department of State issued a statement on 2 June, which mentioned that the US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield made a visit to the Syrian-Turkish border.
Greenfield warned of the cruelty of closing the final humanitarian border crossing into Syria, which she described as “incalculable” as many Syrians would die. She reiterated the call for the UN Security Council to renew the authorization to deliver humanitarian assistance through the Bab al-Hawa crossing. english.enabbaladi.net
