U.S. launches new sanctions on Syria aimed at squeezing Bashar Assad’s power

The Trump administration on Wednesday launched a series of sanctions that targets any company or entity that conducts business with Syria and its president, Bashar Assad.

The sanctions are part of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 (the Caesar Act) that was signed into law late last year and named after a military military photographer named Caesar who smuggled out 55,000 digital images of the destruction the nearly decade-old Syrian civil war has caused.

The purpose of the Caesar Act is to put unprecedented economic pressure on the Assad regime. The United States and European Union have issued some tough sanctions on Mr. Assad and his inner circle in the early days of the war in Syria, but enforcement has been partial.

As part of the new sanctions, the State Department said it is designating 39 people and entities — including Mr. Assad and his wife — in what the department has dubbed “the beginning of what will be a sustained campaign of economic and political pressure to deny the Assad regime revenue and support it uses to wage war and commit mass atrocities against the Syrian people.”

Under existing U.S. sanctions, any American is prohibited from doing business with the Assad regime. The Caesar Act goes one step further and authorizes sanctions on the citizens of any country who work with Mr. Assad. The act specifically targets the Iranian militias and Russian mercenaries that have kept the Syrian dictator in power.

It also targets those who conduct business that supports the regime’s military activities as well as its aviation and oil and gas production industries, but the department said that the move does not implement penalties on humanitarian assistance.

“It is time for Assad’s needless, brutal war to end,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. “Today, the Assad regime and those who support it have a simple choice: Take irreversible steps toward a lasting political solution to the Syrian conflict … or face ever new tranches of crippling sanctions.”