Can Russia plug through US sanctions to reconstruct Syria?
Russia seeks to work around US sanctions to help reconstruct Syria, but some of Damascus' own policies may be unhelpful in this endeavor.
As the United States eyes new sanctions on Syria, Russia increasingly finds it needs to work out solutions that would nonetheless push forward the post-conflict reconstruction in the country the way Moscow envisions them.
Syria has been subject to legislatively mandated US penalties since the 1970s. In 1979, Syria ended up on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism that, among other things, placed a ban on exports of dual-use goods to Syria. Yet Washington preserved contacts with Damascus. When Bashar al-Assad, then a new reform-minded leader, came to power in the early 2000s, the idea of lifting the sanctions was considered on a number of occasions.
Back then, Russia was among those that lobbied the United States to lift the sanctions for the sake of Syria’s integration into the global financial system that would presumably help transform the Syrian elite into a responsible and predictable player. While ultimately under Assad Jr. Syria embarked on the capitalist path, the progress toward the reformed economy was uneven. Many things were also backsliding under the influence from outside, of which the US invasion of Iraq became the major external factor.
The sanctions that Syria faced under the Bush administration over the perceived role of Damascus as a problem to US Iraq policy targeted the export of American goods — except food and medicine — under the 2003 Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act.
