SEmerging from his regional isolation thanks to Syria’s reintegration into the Arab League in May, President Bashar Al-Assad is now seeking to reap the dividends of his rehabilitation. The Syrian dictator has two major assets: the trafficking of captagon, an amphetamine with which Syria is flooding the region, and the return of refugees, which weigh on the economy of its neighbours. Mr. Assad promises gestures on these files, priorities for his Arab peers, in exchange for the support of the oil monarchies of the Gulf for the reconstruction of Syria. Without reconstruction, thus justified its head of diplomacy, Faisal Al-Meqdad, on the eve of the Jeddah summit on May 18, the return of refugees is not possible.
From a regime that is the main architect of the devastation left by twelve years of war – nearly one in five homes destroyed, transport, industry, electricity and health shaken, more than 90% of the population is below the poverty line, according to the UN – this give-and-take exchange looks like blackmail. Damascus is betting on Saudi Arabia’s interest in stabilizing Syria in its project to redraw a regional balance.
The Saudi godfather, however, has his hands tied by Western sanctions, in particular those which have been applied by the United States since 2020 according to the “Cesar” law, which blocks the financing of the reconstruction. This text only authorizes humanitarian aid and “early recovery projects” (“early recovery”). In Jeddah, on May 19, the head of Saudi diplomacy, Prince Fayçal Ben Farhan, indicated that Riyadh wanted to engage in a dialogue with its Western partners on a reduction, or even a lifting of sanctions.
In Washington as in Brussels, the position remains unchanged: there will be no normalization with Damascus, no lifting of sanctions, no reconstruction without a political solution to the conflict, in accordance with resolution 2254 of the United Nations Security Council. The US Congress seems committed to renewing the “Cesar” law in 2024. A bipartisan bill was tabled in May to strengthen this sanctions regime. Its signatories want to ensure that the Biden administration, which seems to be satisfied with the conditions set by the Arab League in Damascus in exchange for normalization, does not make any concessions on this point to its Gulf allies, in exchange for guarantees on d other regional folders.
The worry of “early recovery”
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