The US Caesar Sanctions, Washington’s Last Stray Bullet against Syria

Friday, 12 June 2020

The US Caesar Sanctions, Washington’s Last Stray Bullet against Syria

June 9, 2020 Arabi Souri

Caesar Act - Maximum Pressure by the USA through Sanctions and Intimidation - Shooting Itself

Caesar Act of the sanctions regime is being implemented this month, it’s an unprecedented sanctions bill imposed by the United States of America against a single country preventing that country of any trade with any other party, country, or corporation, that deals with the US dollar or with any US entity in any way. But what does the USA want from imposing such a draconian regime of sanctions against the country that is fighting terror on behalf of the world already double the period of World War II?

Let’s start by reminding that earlier this month, the European Union showed its hypocrisy ever blatantly by renewing its sanctions against the Syrian people because their ‘regime’ is oppressing them, therefore, the EU needs to add more pressure on the Syrian people so their ‘regime’ will stop oppressing them. These EU and also the US sanctions do not include Syrians living in the ‘oasis of freedoms’ under Al-Qaeda terrorists in Idlib or in northeast Syria under the US and the Kurdish separatist SDF militia, the US created and is sponsoring to Israelize parts of Syria.

Adding to the above, all countries that host US military base are also imposing the sanctions and blockade against the Syrian people ‘to help them be free of oppression’, namely the Gulfies and countries with no sovereign decision-making, also the sanctions do not include people living in the aforementioned oases.

The US special envoy to [colonize] Syria, James Jeffrey, said that Washington made an offer to Damascus to avoid the consequences of Caesar’s law and its economic sanctions, and the price is to break its alliance with Tehran and not secure a foothold in Syria.

As there is no US Embassy in Syria, there can be no US Ambassador to Syria, yet surely Jeffrey gets a paycheck from American taxpayers.
Photo taken 3 March after various NATO officials visited Madman Erdogan criminals. Though taken in Turkey, several Turkish & State Department approved sites claimed these Americans illegally entered Syria.

Washington is betting on draining the incubating environment of the Syrian state and striking the home front to increase pressure on Damascus.

The following report by Al Mayadeen talks about the latest US envoy’s statement and followed by an important opinion by the leading political analyst and former Lebanese MP Nasser Qandil, editor in chief of the SSNP Al Binaa newspaper dismantling Ceasar sanctions law, its purpose and effects:

English translation transcript of the above video report:

The US special envoy to Syria, James Jeffrey, said that Washington made an offer to Damascus to avoid the consequences of Caesar’s law and its economic sanctions, and the price is to break its alliance with Tehran and not secure a foothold in Syria.

Washington is betting on draining the incubating environment of the Syrian state and striking the home front to increase pressure on Damascus.

It was no coincidence that James Jeffrey, the US special envoy to Syria, came out with his last statement to say that the measures taken by Washington led to the collapse of the value of the Syrian Lira, and that this indicates that Damascus’s allies are no longer able to provide assistance, and that Damascus is unable to ‘launder’ its money in Lebanese banks which is also in crisis, as he put it.

The opposition and Gulfies (GCC) media were ready at the same time by spreading rumors about the security situation in Damascus after demonstrations in some areas were launched in protest against the deteriorating living conditions and to suggest a comprehensive economic collapse.

It was not a passing thing for Jeffrey to say that Washington had offered President Assad a way out of the crisis, and if he cared for his people, he would accept the offer, and that it wanted a political process that would not lead to regime change but rather to changing its behavior by breaking its alliance from Tehran.

Washington, with its clear political offer, does not want to wait for the consequences of Caesar and the impact of its new sanctions for a long time. It is trying to narrow the time margin and present itself as the savior of the last moments. It is betting on the depletion and restlessness of the incubating environment of the Syrian state with an economic and psychological war, which will put more pressure on Damascus and its allies to accept its terms, or its offer that Jeffrey talked about.

The Syrian answer to the American offer came with the Prime Minister’s statement that Damascus would seek loans from friendly countries to help it in the current economic situation and the collapse of its currency.

Washington wanted to present itself as a savior from sanctions imposed by itself, and the price is not regime change but rather changing its mechanism of political alignment.

Dima Nassif – Damascus, Al-Mayadeen

End of the transcript.

But is Syria alone targeted? And why would such a law sleep for since July 2016 in the drawers of the US Congress and suddenly becomes needed a few months before the US presidential elections? What changed and who it really serves if it mainly targets the Syrian ordinary people as the US envoy himself said?

Nasser Qandil has this view:

Caesar Act – Remnant of a Bullet from a Time that Passed

The circles associated with Washington in the Arab world, including the Lebanese branch for sure, and under the direct auspices of the U.S. embassies, are organizing a campaign entitled Woe and Carnage and Great Harm await you like the effects of the Caesar Law of Sanctions on Syria come into force.

Syria has a greater threat of cutting off the oxygen needed to breathe, and in Lebanon, the intimidation targets, in particular, the resistance allies that the time for sanctions has come, and in Iraq, a campaign entitled don’t you ever think of any economic cooperation with Syria.

It seems to each observer that the real ramifications of the law are these campaigns if we investigate the course of the law, its temporal and spatial location, and what is represented in the context of the equations governing international and regional relations.

It is very important to follow the temporal course of the context of the law and the circumstances of its birth and to link it to the confrontation that was taking place at the time in the region and in the world, and here it appears that the bill was submitted by a group of members of the US Congress in July 2016, i.e. at the height of the battle of Aleppo, and this is clear in its texts in terms of what the text described as “participation in the killing of civilians” and “the complexity of humanitarian access”, in clear references to the spatial circumstances that were targeted by the lawmakers to influence the positions of Syrian allies engaged in the battle and at their forefront Iran, and Hezb Allah, but in particular, Russia, which has been considering options related to participating in the battle or enforcing the truce in cooperation with Turkey, who studies the texts of the law in detail will realize that its major objective is to pressure inside Russia to avoid engaging in the battle for the liberation of Aleppo.

Who will go back to those days and recall the intensity of the diplomatic pressure which was represented by daily sessions of the United Nations Security Council and US and European accusations of Russia participating in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, will also discover from the projects of the then-UN envoy, Stéphane de Mistura, the nature of the U.S. plan, which was lacking Russia’s retreat from the battle for the liberation of Aleppo, the battle which changed the face of the war in Syria, and the core plan was to break up Syria into cantons starting with Aleppo under the banner of a self-authority run by the Al-Nusra Front groups in Aleppo, under Turkish sponsorship.

For the law to sleep for three years in the US Congress drawers and to be passed in December 2019 is not normal and shouldn’t be overlooked by the reader, and the three years are the years that have marked the rolling victories of the Syrian Arab Army to make choices for the battle of Idlib between military resolve and political settlement while recognizing that in the settlement, the first is the recognition of the victory of the Syrian state, its president and its army, but in return seeking to maximize the size of Washington and its allies’ share of the cake of power.

Washington, through the law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, puts its negotiating paper on the table, which is clear in the provisions of the law where the provisions of the law and sanctions are suspended by decision of the president in the event of signs of a political solution, such as “in case the talks are likely to end with an agreement,” and the bill provides for a date for its expiry with the premise of renewal of course at the end of 2021, which will see the presidential elections in Syria before the expiry date of the law.

Since the passage of the law in the US Congress and the signing of it by President Trump, the Americans have been in negotiations with Russia, which remains the main target of the law as a sponsor of the political process recognized by the U.S. administration, European governments and the United Nations, and have put the law on the table to influence the negotiating process.

It is perhaps surprising that some will address the Russian president’s decision to authorize the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs to expand the size of the Russian presence in Syria in the context of their attempts to undermine Syrian sovereignty, while it is the Russian negotiating response to the U.S. hinting of the approaching of the law by ignoring the risks the Americans preach through sanctions, which any reasonable person concludes are directed mainly against Russia, taking in consideration that Iran and Hezb Allah are pursued by a more comprehensive and harsh sanctions regime, and the title that the law takes as the entry point for new sanctions against entities and individuals related to accusations of war with including civilians has one title, that is Russia.

Since the signing of the law by President Trump, America has changed and the world has changed, and the law has become a stray bullet in search of a target, rather the remnants of lost fragments being threatened with so that it does not go to waste and it becomes the subject of psychological warfare that goes beyond the provisions of the law and the context of its birth.

The Coronavirus epidemic has created a new America and a new world, and the American street wars have created new priorities, and the Iranian tanker war towards Venezuela has shown the extent of America’s new readiness to confront, as President Trump’s statements and positions show by seeking a Saudi-Russian understanding in the oil sector and calling for trilateral Russian – American and Chinese negotiations on Arms Control, with the intention of easing tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin and not seeking to escalate it.

In Lebanon, despite all the intimidation, Washington does not need to impose sanctions on the resistance allies by turning towards a law concerning Syria. The Free Patriotic Movement, the main target of this intimidating and psychological warfare campaign, is engaged with Hezb Allah by a public understanding document not linked to Syria. It is more reasonable to say that Washington does not need this lackluster excuse if it wants to subject the Movement and its leadership to the sanctions regime, and it can say in the words of its Secretary of State that it gives all Lebanese political entities that support Hezb Allah and are allied with it three months to declare a clear position that disavows this relationship under the penalty of being included in the sanctions and by instructing the U.S. ambassador in Beirut to prepare a final report to the State Department at the end of the deadline.

It is a psychological war in which the weak fall while Washington sends under the Iraqi table assurances because it fears that its steps be taken seriously towards escalation, that the Caribbean carriers showed that they do not want because a real war may break out in northeastern Syria under the title of resistance to the American occupation, which the Americans a few days ago began to look at ways to gradually hand over to the Russians, and the Russians are the main target sought by the law for their role in Syria, and another war that may begin southern Syria and southern Lebanon if tampering with balances and equations reaches the limits of taboos.

End of Nasser Qandil’s opinion.

The Caesar Act — created from fictitious photos which Qatar paid a London law firm to vett — was put on hold after the 2016 election, by the phony progressives of Capitol Hill, simply because its wording sounded Trumpish. Screengrabs from the original attempt found here.

A non-Trumpish rewritten Caesar Bill was included in Rubio’s S. 1 legislation of early 2019, but that gem did not get off the ground, either.

The Caesar hoax bill was finally passed with the renewal of the Orwellian National Defense Authorization Act, in December 2019. Despite its two previous failures, Caesar was inserted somewhere within the 3,488 page NDAA, which the House had a whopping 19 hours to review, and which most Congress members voted to pass, nonetheless.

Has any foreign policy step taken by the United States of America since at least the early 60s of last century been in favor of the interests of the USA and its citizens and especially its taxpayers and its military servicemen and women footing the bills of the cost of its interventionist adventure in the Arab World (MENA region, if you may) with their hardearned tax money and with their lives, blood, and limbs?

Donald Trump himself was crying that the intervention wars in the ‘Middle East’ cost the USA 7 trillion dollars (Minute 35:13 in the below video) and had nothing in return, and if we add the interest we come to the total debt of the USA towards those who took control of its currency:

https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?444641-1/president-trump-remarks-michigan-rally

Whether his figures are correct that’s up to those who elected him and those who advise him to tell, but what we know for stated official facts that the USA spends far too much over its interventions against the Semite people of the Levant than it spends all over its own infrastructure, click here for a fraction of that spending which will only increase times fold with the new pledges announced by the US Secretary of State Pompeo last month.

There’s only one small party benefiting from all the US very costly interventions in the region and that party has nothing to do with the USAians, the US people, it’s a small cult that wants to collect all unwanted Jews from all around the world and dump them as cannon fodders over the land of the real Semite people of the Levant in order to set the stage, as per their own books and publications, for the coming of their Messiah, aka the Anti-Christ. Let that sink in.