On the Eleventh Anniversary of the Syrian Uprising, a Bipartisan Rebuke of Biden’s Assad Rapprochement

Two members of Congress, a Republican and a Democrat, will introduce a resolution today marking the start of Syria’s bloody uprising that began eleven years ago. The text of the document, which National Review obtained ahead of its expected introduction by Representatives Joe Wilson (R., S.C.) and Vicente Gonzalez (D., Texas), also serves as a thinly veiled swipe at the president’s handling of that humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe.

This rebuke of Biden’s Syria policy comes as the White House continues to negotiate a return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran — a deal with a key Assad backer that granted Damascus new funds to wage war against Syrian civilians.

Protests broke out in Damascus eleven years ago today, triggering a brutal crackdown in that city and across the rest of the country that metastasized into a civil war. To maintain his grip on power, Assad teamed up with Russia and Iran to bomb, torture, and gas away the opposition. From industrial-scale human torture chambers and slaughterhouses to bombings of hospitals and chemical-weapon attacks, Assad presided over a cornucopia of modern horrors before essentially regaining control in recent years.

The congressmen are, on the one hand, doing their part to ensure that the world doesn’t forget this and the heroism of those who resisted Assad. “On the 11th anniversary of the Syrian revolution, we renew our commitment to justice for the brave people of Syria who, in pursuit of freedom and democracy, have suffered so much under the illegitimate and criminal Assad regime,” Wilson said in a statement to NR.

“Propped up by Russia and Iran, the Assad regime continues profiting from its crimes against humanity and has diverted millions in aid to fill its own coffers. There is no solution to the crisis in Syria as long as Assad remains,” he added.

Under Biden, the official U.S. policy has remained to oppose Assad’s attempts to reintegrate his Syria into the world. Although a number of Arab states have held meetings with the Assad regime, and although China recently inked a deal to integrate Syria into its Belt and Road, the country remains a pariah, at least on paper.

A close reading of the Wilson–Gonzalez resolution highlights the main points of congressional dissatisfaction with the White House’s handling of Assad.

The resolution says that the House of Representatives opposes the normalization of U.S. ties with Syria, calls on Biden to “vigorously enforce” a the 2019 Caesar Act Syrian sanctions law, and asks that he “reject any and all dialogue” with Russia over the Syrian civil war.

It’s not that Biden is rolling out the red carpet for Assad — in fact, the State Department late last year firmly denied that it was seeking normalized ties with Assad’s Syria. But the administration has taken a number of quiet steps that weaken or circumvent the U.S. sanctions regime intended to pressure Assad.

The 2019 Caesar Act was a law designed to sharpen Washington’s ability to punish and isolate Assad for his human-rights abuses. The Trump administration used that authority to designate 100 people and organizations supporting the Syrian regime, but since taking office, Biden’s team has made considerably fewer Caesar Act designations. Its first sanctions came six months into Biden’s term, targeting a handful of prisons, officials, and militias.

Last January, the chairmen and ranking members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees delivered a noteworthy rebuke of Biden’s unwillingness to use the Caesar bill: “While you have issued additional Syria sanctions under non-Caesar Executive authorities, utilizing Caesar designations would publicly underscore the U.S. position concerning political normalization,” they wrote in a letter urging him to take a harder line on Arab states’ attempts to reconcile with Assad.

The administration, more than failing to embrace its Caesar sanctions authorities, has also hollowed out the law by granting waivers to energy projects that run through Syria. The Arab Gas Pipeline and other electricity projects intended to supply Lebanon with energy run afoul of the law, triggering U.S. sanctions, the Caesar Act’s proponents argue. But the administration assured Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt that these projects would not trigger U.S. sanctions.

In addition, last November, the Treasury Department quietly issued a waiver that exempts U.S.–Syria transactions from Caesar sanctions if they have to do with reconstruction efforts in the country — signaling that Washington was easing up on its previous objections to more funds entering the country.

Meanwhile, Washington continues to lack a comprehensive approach to countering the trafficking of Captagon, an amphetamine that the Syrian government has produced at a large scale to fund its military operations.

For its part, Congress has only complicated U.S. policy toward Syria. Last year, an amendment that would have required the administration to craft such a strategy was mysteriously removed from the National Defense Authorization Act, while a different provision mandating that the U.S. come up with a strategy to withdraw any remaining American service members assisting the counter-ISIS campaign in Northeast Syria won adoption, as NR reported at the time.

The resolution that will be introduced today won’t reverse any of these missteps, but it lays out a roadmap for doing so in the future.