Bloody red carpet: Assad returns to international stage with Arab League welcome

Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared at an Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia for the primary time in additional than a decade Friday after his nation was expelled in 2011 for its brutal crackdown on peaceable pro-democracy protests in the course of the Arab Spring. 

Assad was welcomed again into the fold as a part of a reintegration effort on behalf of a number of regional states, led largely partially by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  

The Biden administration and high White Home officers have condemned the transfer, vowing to proceed its coverage of retaining Syria a world pariah and persevering with to carry Assad accountable for his role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians within the nation’s greater than a decade-long civil conflict. 

One Syria professional advised Fox Information Digital the Biden administration has been sending blended messages on its Syria coverage within the final a number of years. The Washington Submit quoted a senior Biden administration official in October 2021 who stated it didn’t help Jordan initiating normalization after King Abdullah II spoke with Assad through telephone. Nevertheless, the official said the Biden administration will now not actively work to cease nations from participating with Assad, besides when the legislation particularly requires it.

Charles Lister, a senior fellow on the Center East Institute, stated the White Home has been giving regional states a form of yellow gentle to pursue normalization talks with Damascus whereas the State Division publicly holds a distinct place.

“The State Division has persistently been against normalization and supportive of isolation, of sanctions, of punitive actions and what have you ever. However when you may have a authorities, and significantly essentially the most highly effective authorities on the earth, sending such blended messages, it’s no shock that that has resulted in a very ineffective, contradictory coverage that in the end has led us to the place we’re proper now, which is a few states within the area making an attempt to re-engage with the regime, however in so doing, sadly, from a U.S. perspective, as an American, they’ve utterly destroyed our leverage,” he defined. 

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“If we ever have been to decide on to attempt to push Syria-related diplomacy, they’ve killed our leverage as a result of in the end Bashar al-Assad is aware of now that he has managed to coerce regional states into successfully capitulating to him. And so, if we as america have been to ever step up and say, ‘Proper, time to lastly cope with the Syrian disaster, allow us to launch a significant diplomatic course of’ – the area has already stepped 5 steps down that ladder and given the regime an ideal deal extra affect and leverage over that course of than they’d earlier than.”  

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with Syria’s President Bashar Assad, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Might 19, 2023. (Syrian Presidency/Handout through Reuters)

The Arab League’s consensus resolution to welcome the Syrian dictator again has felt like a slap within the face to Syrians compelled to flee their properties as a result of barrel bombings from regime forces and shelling from Russian warplanes.  

Greater than 14 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes and almost 7 million are internally displaced. 

Khalid al-Shallah, a Syrian dwelling in northwest Idlib province, advised Fox Information Digital, “We refuse normalization with the regime of Assad, and we can not reconcile [and] have him as our president.” He added, “A felony terrorist regime has displaced hundreds of thousands of Syrian households to totally different nations all over the world and arrested tons of of 1000’s in its prisons, and we have no idea their destiny.”

Al-Shallah and his household fled their house in Maarat al-Numan in 2019 as a result of fixed shelling. He and his household have been displaced for a number of years earlier than shifting into an residence close to the Turkey-Syria border. 

He shared that regardless of the starvation and displacement his household experiences, they’d slightly proceed to endure than reconcile with the regime. “Bashar al-Assad is a war criminal, the killer of youngsters, the most important terrorist, the pinnacle of drug gangs. We’re his individuals and we all know him,” he stated. 

US HAS ENGAGED ‘DIRECTLY’ WITH SYRIAN OFFICIALS ABOUT FREEING AUSTIN TICE: STATE DEPARTMENT 

The Saudi-led push for re-engagement with the Syrian regime has been described as conditional by Arab governments. 

Lister advised Fox Information Digital that regional states reminiscent of Jordan and the UAE have been largely inclined to push ahead with normalization in an effort to get Syria to handle points they are saying are affecting their very own nations.  

Syria’s President Bashar Assad arrives in Jeddah, to attend the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia, Might 18, 2023. (Sana/Handout through Reuters)

For instance, an end to drug trafficking, the facilitation of refugee returns to Syria, and the countering of corruption, extremism and terrorism contained in the nation.  

Lister stated that though the talks have come throughout as quid professional quo, there aren’t any mechanisms in place to verify Syria follows via. “Not one of the communiques, the written statements, the general public statements given by officers, none of them have talked about a single enforcement mechanism, no method to measure whether or not or not issues are being both violated or conceded. And I believe that tells us all that we have to know. This is not actually a conditional engagement. That is simply an engagement for engagement’s sake,” he defined. 

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He added that Syria has a protracted monitor document of making issues after which with the ability to management the dimensions of these issues as a “menace or a software of coercion” in opposition to regional states. 

Maybe the most important “software of coercion” the regime possesses is its export of the drug Captagon. The senior fellow stated one capsule prices a cent to supply and may promote for $15 within the Gulf, proving to be an especially profitable enterprise for the regime. Within the final a number of weeks alone, Lister stated, almost $1 billion price of Syrian-made Captagon has been seized in neighboring nations. 

A customs officer shows Captagon capsules, half $48 million price of medicine confiscated in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 2007. (Reuters/Nikolay Doychinov)

“[Syria] has this historical past of form of turning the faucet up when it needs to show the stress up after which turning the faucet down when it needs to curry some favor. And I believe that is most likely – we’re most likely going to see a few of that. I believe they notice, the Syrian regime, that their greatest methodology of sort of a coercive affect over significantly Saudi Arabia, lies with the medicine commerce,” Lister stated. “And so I anticipate that… they might assist, , leak data or intelligence to the Saudi authorities or to Jordan, on the southern border, in regards to the id, the location of certain shipments or sure people concerned within the medicine commerce to attempt to curry favor and present that it is prepared to show that faucet again down once more and to provide the likes of Saudi Arabia the notion that the Syrian regime is prepared to play ball.” 

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, led by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., launched laws to ban any federal authorities division or company from recognizing or normalizing ties with the Assad regime. The Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023 would additionally develop financial sanctions to these “concerned in diverting and stealing humanitarian help meant for the individuals of Syria and people concerned in stealing the property of the Syrian individuals for political causes or private acquire.” 

Rep. Joe Wilson speaks throughout a press convention on Capitol Hill, April 25, 2023. (Reuters/Julia Nikhinson)

US HAS ENGAGED ‘DIRECTLY’ WITH SYRIAN OFFICIALS ABOUT FREEING AUSTIN TICE: STATE DEPARTMENT

Wilson advised Fox Information Digital in an announcement that normalization with Assad shall be met with penalties. “We recognize our companions and allies within the Gulf and broader Arab world, however the Arab League needs to be on discover. Normalization with mass assassin Assad isn’t the precise path ahead and as this bipartisan invoice illustrates, such actions shall be met with penalties. I’m grateful to Chairman Mike McCaul for his help and quickly shifting this laws ahead,” he stated. 

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The invoice was unanimously handed by the Home Overseas Affairs Subcommittee on the Center East, North Africa, and Central Asia final week.