Solving Syria’s Crisis Starts with Sanctioning Iranian Oil

Jan 3, 2022
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Also published in National Interest
About the Authors
Andrew J. Tabler
Andrew J. Tabler

Andrew J. Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow in the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on Syria and U.S. policy in the Levant.

Matthew Zweig

Matthew Zweig is the senior director of policy at FDD Action.

Articles & Testimony

Instead of quietly greenlighting the Assad regime’s diplomatic rehabilitation, U.S. officials should escalate economic pressure on its Iranian enablers to regain leverage at the negotiating table.

Iran has been openly providing the Bashar al-Assad regime and the U.S.-designated Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah with millions of dollars worth of oil. The Biden administration has chosen to look the other way, even though Tehran’s shipments are a flagrant violation of both U.S. sanctions and the administration’s stated policy of securing a solution in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for a Syrian-led process that would create a permanent, peaceful, and political end to the conflict. To achieve this and push Assad away from Iran, Biden should impose Syria-related sanctions on the Iranian entities providing oil to Damascus...

Read the full article on the National Interest website.

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Topics

Energy & Economics U.S. Policy

Regions & Countries

Iran Lebanon Syria