‘Conundrum’: How the US is dealing with Assad normalisation
Washington, D.C. – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is officially back in the Arab fold. After more than 12 years of exclusion, he was warmly embraced this week by regional leaders at the Arab League summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
This once unthinkable comeback creates a “mystery” for the United States, which continues to resist normalization with the Syrian government but has failed to dissuade its Arab partners from resuming ties with Damascus, analysts say.
US officials have said that while they do not support normalization with al-Assad, they share the goals that restoring relations could bring, including expanding humanitarian access to conflict-torn regions, fighting ISIL (ISIS ), reducing Iran’s influence and countering human trafficking. of the drug Captagon.
The US position under President Joe Biden reflects a “tough, knotty, complex challenge,” said Mona Yacoubian, vice president of the Center for the Middle East and North Africa at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), a think tank funded by the US Congress. .
“The Biden administration may have made a calculus: ‘Okay, the region moves forward with normalization. Maybe the issue then is getting something for it, getting concessions,” Yacoubian said.
But without accountability for abuses by the Syrian government, she added, Washington will not normalize its relations with Damascus or ease its heavy sanctions, which include blocking foreign reconstruction funds.
“Honestly, given Assad and given his role and given the lack of accountability, it is very difficult – if not impossible – to imagine the US changing its stance on either normalizing ties or admitting to the problems of reconstruction, the lifting of sanctions,” said Yacoubian.
She pointed out that Washington has had a similar attitude towards other countries, including Cuba and North Korea, for decades.
The Return of Al-Assad
Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 and left in isolation by regional power brokers, following a crackdown on protests during the Arab Spring, a wave of anti-government demonstrations in several countries in the region that year.
That heavy-handed security approach in Syria turned into a protracted war, killing hundreds of thousands and displacing millions.
In recent years, government forces have recaptured much of Syria with the help of Russia and Iran, and local ceasefires have kept relative calm as parts of the country remain under the control of various rebels and armed groups.
This month, Syria was included in the competition again. Al-Assad landed in Saudi Arabia on Thursday to join the organization’s summit a day later, following weeks of diplomatic meetings between Syrian and Arab officials.
“We do not believe that Syria deserves reinstatement in the Arab League,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week.
“It is a point we have made to all our regional partners, but they have to make their own decisions. And our position is clear: we are not normalizing relations with Assad.”
Still, Blinken said Washington and its Arab allies have broader common goals in Syria.
Arab countries “believe they can pursue these goals through more direct involvement,” the top US diplomat added. “We may have a different perspective when it comes down to it, but the objectives we have, I think, are the same.”
While al-Assad’s re-admission to the Arab League was on full display in Jeddah, the push for normalization has been going on for years.
The United Arab Emirates — a top US ally in the Gulf region — reopened its embassy in Syria in 2018, and last year it became the first Arab state to host al-Assad since the start of the Syrian war more than 10 years ago.
Washington has been unable to prevent its allies from renewing ties with al-Assad’s government, despite public opposition to normalization.
Steven Heydemann, director of the Middle East Studies Program at Smith College, said Washington has been reluctant to make the necessary “diplomatic investments” in Syria — including using third-party sanctions as a deterrent — to deter allies from normalizing with al-Assad.
“So the fallback position is, ‘Well, we don’t agree with what you’re doing. We find it inappropriate, immoral, unethical, strategically unwise. But we’re not going to get in your way. We just hope that you can get something out of the concessions you make to this regime through the normalization process,” Heydemann summarized the US position.
US Congress against Assad
Al-Assad has become a vicious figure, especially in the West, amid allegations of rampant human rights abuses and war crimes, including enforced disappearances of dissidents, bombings of civilian areas and the use of chemical weapons.
Lawmakers in the US Congress are already mobilizing to tighten sanctions and prevent al-Assad’s reintegration into the region.
Last week, a group of bipartisan representatives of the House introduced a bill called the Assad Anti-Normalization Act, which aims to “hold the Assad regime and its backers accountable for their crimes against the Syrian people and normalization with the Assad regime.” regime.”
The bill is a sign that Congress is likely to push Biden and future administrations to fully enforce sanctions against Syria. But whether the US also applies the sanctions to its Arab allies will be a “litmus test” of how serious it is to push back against normalization, Heydemann said.
However, Joshua Landis, director of the Center of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, questioned the usefulness of the US sanctions and Washington’s entire approach to Syria.
He said Washington has recognized that it cannot overthrow al-Assad and that its sanctions harm the Syrian people, not top officials.
“The Arab governments, by normalizing Syria, realize that Assad is not going away. And of course America understands that,” Landis told Al Jazeera.
But it holds on to its human rights, in part because it costs America nothing to cling to them. You can choose your friends, but not your neighbors. And so America has the luxury of being able to stand on principles.”
Landis cited comments from 2013 by then CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell proverb that Washington does not want to see the Syrian army collapse amid the rise of al-Qaeda in the country.
Landis added that actively resisting normalization and putting pressure on Damascus would work if the US had a plan to get rid of al-Assad.
But they clearly don’t. They left Assad there on purpose. And what do they do with these sanctions? They don’t hurt Assad,” he said.
American influence
Regardless of the future of US policy on Syria, the fact that Arab states are normalizing with al-Assad is a sign of declining US political influence in the region, experts say.
While the US has a military presence in the Middle East and Syria itself, it is no longer the sole power broker in that part of the world.
That was clearly demonstrated earlier this year when Iran and Saudi Arabia struck a deal that was finalized in China to restore diplomatic relations.
Heydemann said that while Washington’s military footprint in the Middle East remains large, it is shifting its foreign policy priorities to Asia and its major power competition with Beijing.
“This makes regional actors bear a greater share of the regional security burden and they are responding to that burden in ways that the US may not prefer,” he told Al Jazeera.
The USIP’s Yacoubian said the Middle East is entering a “multipolar era” with regional players pushing to solve their own problems.
“The normalization with Assad is just one example,” she said.
For Landis, the dwindling American influence is a result of Washington. “They have done the wrong thing over and over again,” he said.
“A big elephant like America can ruin a country like Iraq, or sow chaos in Libya, eat up Afghanistan and retreat without any progress and make all those promises about bringing democracy and human rights to regions, when it’s actually the opposite. And eventually people get tired of this.”