Syria’s ‘war riche’ flourish while sanctions hit ordinary people
In Damascus these days, Netflix is blocked but if you have the money you can subscribe to PROTV, a local, and presumably pirated, service. While queues for gas canisters stretch down the block, if you know a guy, Nescafe Gold, Pringles and imported soy sauce are all available. As is the latest iphone 12, though hospitals struggle to buy replacement parts for CT scanners.
After a decade of war, the Syrian economy is in ruins, but a combination of profiteering and sanctions has produced some bizarre results.
Us-led sanctions are intended to pressure the Syrian government into a negotiated peace settlement but critics say they hurt ordinary people, while it’s business as usual for those close to President Bashar al-assad.
“If you have money, you’re an Alawite,” said one woman from Damascus, referring to the nepotism surrounding the minority group to which Assad belongs.
“It’s not nouveau riche, it’s war riche,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This wealthy class has largely avoided the hardships and shortages afflicting ordinary Syrians, said an activist in Damascus who asked to withhold her name for fear of retribution. “It’s a matter of connection and money, both,” she said. “They’re the ones who buy the new iphones and the new cars; they’re the class that does whatever they want.
“They’re the ones who, when you’re standing in a car fuel queue for four or five hours, you never see them with their supercars,” she continued. “Where are they getting the fuel from?”
In June, Washington took aim at this oligarchy when it enacted the Caesar Act, a law giving the United States greater power to sanction individuals and entities doing business with the Syrian government and its military and intelligence services.
James Jeffrey, then the US special representative for Syria engagement, said the act would prevent Assad and “his cronies” from rebuilding Syria to their benefit. Yet despite exemptions for humanitarian goods, critics say sanctions hurt ordinary Syrians, as overcompliance inflates costs by companies fearful of breaching the law.
“The price of doing business is going up 35 to 40 per cent because of all the difficulties” said Joshua Landis, who heads the Middle East programme at the University of Oklahoma.
Meanwhile the elite continue to find ways to circumvent them. “The ones who are able to do whatever they want are the ones who are related to the ones being sanctioned in the first place,” said the activist in Damascus.
“Sanctions are meant to bring down the Assad regime,” she said. “I don’t think they’re going to get anything.”
Syria has been under US sanctions for 41 of the 50 years that the Assad family have ruled the country.
The family’s reign began on November 13 1970, when a young air force officer, Hafez al-assad, took power in a bloodless coup. Nine years later, the US designated Syria a state sponsor of terrorism.
His son had power thrust upon him following Hafez’s death in 2000, and Bashar has now spent half his rule fighting a war that has destroyed the economy, displaced half the population and killed perhaps half a million people. Despite this, his grip on power is unweakened.
In this, sanctions remain a useful excuse for Assad. On Wednesday, the president told a conference in Damascus that sanctions were preventing refugees from returning home by hampering the flow of reconstruction funds.
Ostensibly, sanctions are aimed at forcing a political resolution to the war on the basis of UN Security Council
Resolution 2254, which passed in 2015, calling for a ceasefire and free and fair elections. But that process has made little discernible progress.
Under UN special envoy Geir Pedersen, a constitutional committee was formed in October last year to discuss a new constitution to form a transitional government and hold new elections. After a year of Syrian government stonewalling, Mr Pedersen expressed his hope on October 27 that a fourth round of talks – expected to be held later this month in Geneva – might this time bear fruit.
But Assad, in an interview with Russian-controlled outlet Sputnik last month, called the Geneva talks “a political game”.
A new US president is unlikely to produce major changes towards Syria, with an adviser to Joe Biden telling reporters that the Middle East ranks “a distant fourth” in the president-elect’s order of priorities after Asia, Europe, and the western hemisphere.
“US policy on Syria is likely to remain largely the same,” according to the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister, who writes that “the principal difference to expect is a significant revitalisation of US diplomacy”.
In the meantime, the outgoing administration of President Donald Trump continues to impose new sanctions, targeting 19 more individuals and entities under the Caesar Act today. “The Assad regime has a choice: take irreversible steps toward a peaceful resolution of this nearly decade-long conflict or face further crippling sanctions,” US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said.
But even proponents of sanctions acknowledge they may not be successful in the near term. “We don’t have a crystal ball,” Ambassador Jeffrey said in June. “We have seen countries who are resilient internally survive, however badly, for years under considerable outside pressure.”