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Syria in a Corner

(Newsweek) Andrew J. Tabler - Syria is in a bind. The regime is running record budget deficits, and it is suddenly fanatical about ending U.S. sanctions. Sanctions have badly hit the Assad regime, even if they haven't changed its behavior yet. Syria had to switch from deals in dollars to those in euros to avoid restrictions on dollar-denominated oil sales. Then the regime had to ground most of its civilian air fleet because the sanctions forbid the sale of spare parts without an export license. Worse still, Damascus was compelled to institute rolling electricity blackouts because U.S. sanctions made it very difficult for international companies to build new power stations. The regime's economic woes only made sanctions more effective. In the past five years, oil production has plunged 30%. Then a massive three-year drought devastated Syrian agriculture, displacing up to 300,000 residents in Syria's northeast. Meanwhile, free-trade agreements between Syria and Turkey undermined Syria's manufacturing sector, which contracted 14% in the past two years. The writer is a fellow in the program on Arab politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2010-02-25 07:51:06
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