The Caesar Act: Crippling Assad or Starving the Syrian People?

In August 2013, a Syrian man fled from his homeland to Europe, smuggling over 50,000 photographs with him. The man, now known under the alias “Caesar,” had worked as a photographer for the military police in Damascus. The photographs he carried revealed the appalling brutality of the first two years of the Syrian Civil War. Dead men and women as young as 14, who had been starved to the bone and violently beaten beyond recognition, were pictured scattered along the floors of military hospitals. From these images emerged the 2014 Syrian detainee report, which concluded that around 11,000 Syrians had been either killed or tortured between March 2011 and August 2013. Whilst the scale of the human rights abuses revealed were horrifying, they were not surprising; the world always knew the Assad regime was committing atrocities against its people. It was only a matter of time before the grim reality finally came to the surface.

This is the backdrop upon which the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (the Caesar Act) was created. Passed with near unanimous support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the act is the boldest sanctions regime against President Bashar al-Assad to date, aimed at punishing both him and his supporters for war crimes committed over the past decade. To do so, the sanctions can be applied to anyone, Syrian or not, who does business with the Assad regime and its institutions – a measure clearly targeted at the Russians and Iranians. When the Caesar Act finally came to fruition in June 2020 and the squeeze on Assad began, 39 officials of the regime were added to the sanction list, including Assad’s own wife. If successful, the detrimental costs of being involved with Assad may just lead to a withdrawal of support from key financial backers, destroying his economic base and forcing him into a corner with little choice but to cooperate.

Despite such widespread support in Congress, a substantial amount of debate has emerged over the Caesar Act. There are two main points that tend to be made by critics against the legislation. Firstly, that sanctions will be ineffective, insofar as they are unlikely to destroy a regime which has prevailed through a civil war fought against considerable odds, and that has proven it will do anything to maintain its grip on power. Secondly, that sanctions will not protect civilians, but starve them. Given the crumbling state of the Syrian economy, these critics argue that the Caesar Act will simply make poorer a people who already have nothing, and that we will subsequently see a repeat of the situation in Iraq during the 1990s. 

Both arguments, whilst valid concerns, lack substance. In the case of the former: yes, it is true that, if the Caesar Act was aimed at ousting Assad, it would not be enough. However, the sanctions are not aimed at toppling Assad. The US’s strategy has long since shifted from regime change to regime reform. The purpose of the Caesar Act is to  force Assad into participating in the process called for by the UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which seeks the creation of a democratic political settlement in the country, rather than to get rid of him. And whilst it is true to say that the UN resolution could well mean the end of Assad given its requirement of free and fair elections, he may find it a gamble worth taking if previously loyal supporters start questioning his authority, as the likes of Rami Makhlouf, one of the richest men in the country, have already done. Whilst it is still too early to assess consequences of the Caesar sanctions, there is every opportunity that, if implemented properly and substantially, they will succeed in their goals.

The latter point made by critics, that the Caesar Act will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis which already exists in Syria, is also deeply problematic. This is because it feeds the narrative that Assad himself is drilling into his people: that Syria’s economic woes are a result of outsider intervention and economic sanctions, not because of the mismanagement of the regime. Such a claim is clearly untrue. Assad has been fleecing his people for years; the Syrian passport is the most expensive to obtain in the world, despite being one of the weakest, whilst the families of detainees are being forced to pay extortionate bribes to visit them. If sanctions were not being applied to Syria, it is of no doubt that Assad would still be sapping the money of Syrians to put in his family’s pockets and fund the security services, just as Saddam Hussein once did.

Furthermore, the crumbling of the Syrian economy itself was not a phenomenon which occurred because of the Caesar Act. The value of the Syrian pound had already dropped to 3000 for every dollar (largely due to the economic crash in neighbouring Lebanon) and over 80% of the population were living in poverty well before the sanctions were imposed. To scape goat the humanitarian disaster which has emerged, with food prices surging and medicine being increasingly hard to obtain, on the US is a dangerous precedent. So long as Assad remains in power without adhering to the demands set by the Caesar Act, the people will suffer. This is the narrative that must be pushed forward if the Syrian regime is to be held accountable for its barbarity.

For far too long did the international community do nothing to significantly pressure the Assad regime. It is no wonder that Caesar, accompanied by countless other Syrians, pressed the US government so firmly to enact these sanctions. In a time of public distaste for military intervention, choking Assad economically is a step in the right direction if the West truly believes in supporting human rights globally. This is not to say the Caesar Act alone is the solution. Sanctions alone are never the end-all solution. Alongside political pressure and continued humanitarian assistance to the country though, they may just be the spark needed to start a process of change, ensuring the horrors photographed by Caesar are never allowed to happen again.

Image courtesy of Carlos Latuff ©2014, some rights reserved.