Kassioun Editorial 1227: After Lifting Sanctions, Which Model Do We Want?

Recent days have proven that our prediction was wrong and incomplete, at least partially, for two main reasons:

First: We relied on past US experiences with sanctions against a large number of countries around the world, none of which were fully lifted despite the disappearance of the pretexts for which they were imposed.

Second: And more importantly, it has become clear that the speed of American retreat due to the new international balance of power is greater than we expected.

Nevertheless, the policies we have adopted regarding sanctions were and remain principled and correct, most notably:

First: We rejected the sanctions from the moment they were implemented. We believed that their goal was to weaken the Syrian people and state, first and foremost. We continuously demanded lifting them, both before and after Assad’s fall.

Second: We have always proceeded from the worst-case scenario, namely the continuation of sanctions indefinitely. This is the safest and most beneficial approach for the country and its people, within the framework of building the necessary alternatives.

Third: Just as imposing sanctions has been a US tool for negatively impacting the Syrian situation, their removal will not be done all at once. Rather, it will be used to attempt to establish a specific model for the new Syrian state, one that will keep it in the orbit of economic dependency and chronic weakness, not to mention the attempt to impose political conditions for the actual lifting of sanctions completely.

The American decision to lift sanctions, contrary to what many are trying to portray, is an additional step in the process of comprehensive American retreat from our entire region. It is part of shifting the center of gravity of American action from relying on tensions and internecine wars in our region, and sanctions as a tool in fueling them (which the American can no longer maintain after the series of major changes in the region and the world), to relying on economic and political relations that may cover the upcoming military withdrawal and allow “Israel” to become the center of the Middle East.

The fundamental question facing Syrians today is: What model do they want for the new Syria, in both the economic and political sense? This question requires a broad dialogue, the gateway to which is a General National Conference. Until the General National Conference is held, it is certain that the crumbling Western model being proposed is a complete failure, one that will soon reproduce the crisis. The Western model designed for countries of the periphery is based on a weak state apparatus devoid of social functions, an economy with weak productivity, and built on services and “hot” money that comes and goes and is speculated upon in search of quick profit.

On the other hand, we have a real opportunity to build a productive economy that relies primarily on local resources, supports industry and agriculture, and takes advantage of the new international balance to obtain the best investment opportunities without dependence on any international parties, without allowing “Israel” to become an economic center for the Middle East, and with maximum benefit from the model presented by China in particular, which is based on real production and raising the level of domestic consumption through a reasonable degree of justice in the distribution of wealth.

(النسخة العربية)