January 3, 2022 | The National Interest
Solving Syria’s Crisis Starts with Sanctioning Iranian Oil
Rather than rehabilitating the Assad regime through willful negligence in its sanctions policy, the administration should escalate economic pressure on the Assad regime’s Iranian enablers to regain a measure of leverage at the negotiating table.
January 3, 2022 | The National Interest
Solving Syria’s Crisis Starts with Sanctioning Iranian Oil
Rather than rehabilitating the Assad regime through willful negligence in its sanctions policy, the administration should escalate economic pressure on the Assad regime’s Iranian enablers to regain a measure of leverage at the negotiating table.
Iran has been openly providing the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and the U.S.-designated Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah with millions of dollars worth of oil. The Biden administration has chosen to look the other way, even though Tehran’s shipments are a flagrant violation of both U.S. sanctions and the administration’s stated policy of securing a solution in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254 (UNSCR 2254), which calls for a Syrian-led process that would create a permanent, peaceful, and political end to the conflict. To achieve this and push Assad away from Iran, Biden should impose Syria-related sanctions on the Iranian entities providing oil to Damascus.