The US must act against Assad’s Syrian narco-state

Excerpt

Syrian and Jordanian security officials convened on July 23 to discuss illicit drug trafficking along their shared border. The meeting was long overdue, in light of Syria’s ongoing industrial-scale production and trafficking of captagon and other illicit drugs.

Despite its willingness to talk, the Assad regime is not likely to scale back its activities. The U.S. and its allies in the Middle East must therefore prepare to step up the pressure.

In the aftermath of the Syrian Civil War and the Assad regime’s slaughter of its own population, Syria was suspended from the Arab league. But a decade later, Assad has prevailed. With no other available alternatives, the Arab League voted to readmit Syria in May, ending the regime’s 12-year suspension.

Natalie Ecanow is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.