Diplomacy to Remove Assad Gains Momentum

By David Pollock and Andrew J. Tabler
Policy Alert, January 25, 2012

President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday evening had much to say about the economy, but relatively little about foreign policy. Yet one line from that brief section stands out: "And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change can't be reversed, and that human dignity can't be denied." This sentence, which puts the United Stated firmly behind the demise of Bashar al-Assad's regime, is all the more striking because it followed so closely upon the president's description of Qadhafi as "gone." Beyond the mere fact of singling out Syria's government for such dishonorable mention, Obama's statement used two very specific words that loom large in a context where every word reflected deliberate decision. First was his use of "soon," indicating an assessment that Assad does not have much time left in power. Second was "regime," indicating an official U.S. expectation that not just Assad personally but his whole ruling clique must also go.
Equally significant were the president's next lines, which suggest that Washington is planning diplomatic rather than direct physical intervention in the Syrian crisis. Affirming that "we have a huge stake in the outcome" of "this incredible transformation" in the Arab region, President Obama nonetheless acknowledged that "its end remains uncertain" and that "it is ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their own fate." Even so, he asserted that the United States will "stand against violence and intimidation" and "support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies."
And, in fact, U.S. and international diplomacy aimed at removing Assad is quickly gaining momentum. An Arab League ministerial meeting on January 22 found that the Syrian government's "partial progress" was "not enough" and urged the establishment within two months of a "national unity government" based on a "serious political dialogue" with the opposition -- all under the authority of a vice president, rather than President Assad. Not surprisingly, the Assad regime rejected this plan, arguing that it went beyond the Arab League's authority, violated Syrian sovereignty, and represented "a conspiratorial scheme hatched against Syria" for foreign intervention "led by the Qatari government."
At the same time, the League's report mandates an immediate referral of its plan to the UN Security Council. Qatar's prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, Hamad bin Jassim, and Arab League secretary Nabil al-Araby are delegated with this task. In anticipation of this maneuver, intense behind-the-scenes Security Council consultations are now underway.
Over the last few days, Western countries led by France have drafted a Security Council resolution, with senior U.S. diplomats involved in these discussions in both Paris and New York. The draft demands that Syria cooperate fully with the UN high commissioner for human rights and the special Commission of Inquiry of the UN Human Rights Council, and allow "full access for humanitarian relief." It requests the UN secretary-general to support the appointment of a new Arab League special envoy to Syria, which media reports speculate could be Egypt's Mohammed ElBaradei, to supplement the largely ineffective Arab League monitoring mission in that strife-torn country. And, should the Assad regime fail to comply, the draft "encourages all States" to adopt political and economic sanctions similar to those outlined by the Arab League last November, including cutting ties with Syria's central bank.
Significantly, the absence of mandatory sanctions from this draft resolution is calculated to help secure the necessary Russian support (or at least abstention) in the Security Council. Senior U.S. diplomats were recently in Moscow to press the proposal. And although Russia has resisted further Security Council action on Syria, invoking the recent Libyan intervention as an unacceptable precedent, there are reasons beyond the mere absence of sanctions to suspect that Moscow's policy may soon shift in a more favorable direction. Arab media report rumors that Russian economic and military interests in Syria may be privately guaranteed both by outside powers and by the Syrian opposition, and that Russia may be quietly designated to offer Assad asylum. Most of all, Russia may accept assurances that this relatively mild resolution will hold off military intervention against the tottering Syrian regime until a relatively friendly replacement takes over. None of this is certain, but the odds appear to be increasing every day.
This newly active U.S. diplomacy on behalf of an early end to Assad's vicious and hostile dictatorship deserves every encouragement. At the same time, Washington should start planning for practical, internationally coordinated humanitarian steps to protect the vulnerable Syrian population -- and preparing for the possibility of other forms of intervention, should a quick transition in Damascus prove unattainable.
David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute, focusing on the political dynamics of Middle Eastern countries. Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on Syria and U.S. policy in the Levant.

Bolstering the Arab League Mission to Syria

By Andrew J. Tabler
Policy Alert, December 23, 2011

The conflict in Syria that some expected to simmer down is in fact boiling. This morning, suicide attackers detonated car bombs outside a regime security installation and the headquarters of the State Security Directorate, which has played a central role in suppressing the ten-month-old uprising. This is the latest episode in a sharp spike in fatalities following the regime's acceptance last Monday of an Arab League protocol to withdraw security and army forces from major cities and deploy Arab observers to Syria. By some estimates, more than 200 have died over the past week alone, marking the bloodiest episode in the Syrian uprising and the entire Arab Spring outside Libya. It is difficult to see how the Arab League mission that arrived in Damascus yesterday will be able to stem the violence and test Bashar al-Assad's commitment to the end the bloodshed -- at least as currently configured. Although the team's exact composition remains unknown, press reports indicate an observer force of only 150 by month's end -- a paltry number given the hundreds of areas facing unrest, and a far cry from the 500 discussed during negotiations with the regime. (In comparison, the 1998 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observer mission to Kosovo, an area only one-tenth Syria's size, numbered 2,000.)
The ground rules for the observer mission are also unclear. In the name of "securing access" for team members per the protocol, the Assad regime will likely handle the delegation as it does groups of visiting journalists or ambassadors, escorting them to staged areas that distort or obscure the actual situation on the ground. Such methods will not get to the bottom of anything that is happening in Syria. Also raising eyebrows is the mission's leader, former Sudanese military intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Muhammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, who coordinated between the Sudanese government, the UN, and African Union peacekeepers in Darfur -- certainly not an exemplary case of protecting civilians.
Although the Arab League observer mission is an important and unprecedented step, it will only work -- and, ultimately, serve U.S. policy -- if it fulfills the protocol's seven-point plan "for getting acquainted with the reality of the situation" in Syria. This includes observing the withdrawal of security forces from cities, the release of political prisoners, and uninterrupted access of monitors and journalists throughout the country. Anything short of this would be a mere whitewash of what is now a slow-motion civilian massacre.
Accordingly, Washington should press the league to bolster the delegation. It should also work with National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, which have trained scores of civilian Arab human-rights monitors, to give the league a list of such individuals who could be rapidly dispatched to Syria.
Concerning ground rules, Washington should also press the league to ensure that monitor access throughout the country (including to prisons, detention centers, police stations, and hospitals) is completely unfettered. Mission members are only obligated to coordinate with Syrian authorities, not obtain their permission. Interviews with Syrian civilians and other individuals should be conducted without regime minders of any kind, and the mission should make efforts to follow up with those interviewed to ensure that Damascus is honoring its agreement not to "punish or pressure any person and his family in any way" for contacting monitors.
Last, but certainly not least, the United States should press the mission to immediately deploy to conflict areas. The bloodbath currently underway in Idlib province would provide a quick test of the mission's ability to effectively investigate, as well as its willingness to accelerate the arrival of monitors in Syria.
The Obama administration has warned that the "international community will take additional steps to pressure the Assad regime to stop its crackdown." With the carnage continuing unabated, Washington needs to move its policy beyond observing and highlighting abuses in the hope of shaming the regime into halting its crackdown. Instead, it should work toward a plan that would prevent such atrocities from occurring in the first place.
For example, the Syrian opposition has urged Turkey to establish a buffer zone along its frontier, especially in Idlib, but Ankara seems reticent to do so on its own. Accordingly, the United States should look for ways to work with Turkey on establishing such safe havens and ensuring humanitarian protection for populations fleeing the carnage. And given that Ankara has repeatedly demanded a UN resolution for any intervention in Syria, Washington should continue bringing the regime's killing of civilians to the Security Council's attention. Although Russia and China have until now used their vetoes to protect Assad, the regime's ultimate inability to implement the Arab League agreement could make Moscow's position increasingly untenable, especially as it faces its own pro-democracy protests at home. Finally, Washington should explore alternative alliance structures that Ankara might find acceptable for future humanitarian action in Syria.
Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics and author of In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria.

Syria's Regional Allies Condemn Asad's Tactics -- But Not Asad

By Andrew J. Tabler
Policy Alert, August 29, 2011

Neighboring states vying for influence in an increasingly unstable Syria are calling for President Bashar al-Asad to listen to his people. On August 27, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi declared that Asad should heed the "legitimate demands" of Syrians. A day later, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that "immediately silencing guns and heeding public demands" is the regime's "only way out." Both announcements -- along with the Arab League's dispatch of Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby to Damascus with a plan to relieve the crisis and demands that Asad stop the bloodshed -- are a clear indication that Syria's allies are growing increasingly concerned over Asad's policy of trying to shoot his way out of trouble. The Alawite-dominated regime's decision to wait until Ramadan to launch a bloody crackdown on the Sunni-majority city of Hama, where Bashar's father carried out one of the region's bloodiest massacres in 1982, has received particularly heavy criticism


Yet Syria's neighboring allies are still suggesting reform rather than adopting the Western view that Asad must go. Tehran would like a top-down process that preserves both Asad's grip on power and the "resistance axis." For its part, Ankara has thus far bet on both sides, urging Asad to reform while helping the Syrian opposition organize in Turkey. Yet with President Abdullah Gul stating yesterday that Ankara had lost its confidence in the regime, Turkey now seems to be hedging its bets on Asad.


As the crackdown continues, regional powers are increasingly likely to view Syria as another Lebanon: that is, an arena for contesting power. Before the Asad family seized control in 1970, Syria's geography -- much trumpeted by the regime as a strategic asset -- was its greatest liability, as various states took advantage of the country's insecurity and sponsored numerous coups. If history repeats itself and regional political jockeying turns toward potential military action, Syrian protestors will likely expand their calls for U.S. intervention as well, especially given NATO's defeat of Libya's Muammar Qadhafi. Although the Obama administration has repeatedly stated that such action in Syria remains "off the table," Washington could soon find itself drawn into an emerging regional battleground where military intervention with allies at the right moment might be key to not only ending the bloodshed, but also decisively breaking the Syria-Iran nexus.


Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics and author of In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria.

Three Ways to Help Push Asad Aside

By Andrew J. Tabler
Policy Alert, August 18, 2011

Today, five months after the Syrian regime began its brutal crackdown on anti-regime protestors, President Obama announced that "the time has come for President Asad to step aside." The statement, released simultaneously with a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, puts to rest debate about where exactly Washington stands on the Asad regime. The question now is how best to work with the Syrian people to bring about Bashar al-Asad's downfall.

First, the United States must bring concerted multilateral pressure to bear on Damascus. Historically, this is a diplomatic tactic that works with Asad, most recently in forcing him to pull his forces out of Lebanon in April 2005. Soon after Obama's announcement, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and the European Union joined in calling for Asad to step aside. To give these calls teeth, the United States and its allies, particularly countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, should launch a concerted diplomatic effort to delegitimize the regime and its representatives in international forums. Washington should also press for a UN Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown, as well as refer the regime to the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court. A contact group with regional allies to coordinate policy toward the regime would also be useful.

Second, Obama announced a slew of new sanctions, most notably the unprecedented move of targeting Syrian oil sales. The administration will also implement the final measure of the 2003 Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act: a ban on American investment. The EU, whose countries account for more than 90 percent of Syrian oil sales, is meeting tomorrow to consider similar measures. These efforts will deprive the regime of vital foreign exchange (oil proceeds account for approximately 30 percent of Syrian budgetary revenue) and force it to borrow from the Central Bank or private banks. This could in turn exacerbate tensions between key constituencies in Syria and facilitate splits in the regime, most notably with the Damascene and Allepine trading families.

Third, the United States should continue to support the work of Ambassador Robert Ford as he liaises with the opposition and the tribes of eastern Syria to help them prepare a viable alternative to Asad's feeble reform plans. Because Ford's work will likely lead the regime to expel him, the Senate, as a sign of solidarity, should cease holding up his nomination and confirm him at the earliest opportunity. Whether based inside or outside the country, the U.S. ambassador to Syria represents a senior American representative that the opposition and Sunni and Kurdish tribes will take seriously, respect, and be willing to deal with to help bring about a peaceful and orderly transition of power.


Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics and author of the forthcoming book In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria.

Cranking Up Pressure on Syria

Featuring Andrew J. Tabler
August 16, 2011

An Interview by Bernard Gwertzman, CFR.org
 
Despite objections from the international community, as well as Turkey's stern warning that Syria should end its five-month crackdown (NYT) on protesters, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad continues to press on with brutal attacks around the country. What's needed to stop Assad is concerted international pressure, which is what the Obama administration is pushing for, says Syria expert Andrew J. Tabler. He says that at this point, any gestures Assad makes toward reform are no longer credible, and the international community should invoke tough sanctions against Syria's oil exports, 96 percent of which are purchased Europe. He also notes that the Saudis, in particular, are concerned about the potential for Iran to increase its backing of Assad against the opposition.
GWERTZMAN: President Barack Obama recently spoke by phone with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Prime Minster David Cameron of Britain to discuss the situation in Syria. All three countries have strongly opposed the crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad, but nothing much has happened beyond a lot of rhetoric. Should Washington be doing more?
TABLER: Washington is doing more behind the scenes. All of this is being driven by the fact that talking to [Assad] about his crackdown is not working. Probably the most recent example of that is Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu's visit toDamascus last week, where he gave [Assad] yet another message to stop the killing. What we have is the Syrian army continuing to go into major cities and also what appears to be a naval attack on protesters in Latakia, Syria's main port. There's been a convergence in views that Bashar doesn't have a plan to get out of this other than shooting his way out.
GWERTZMAN: What is Washington doing, specifically?
TABLER: Washington has been on a diplomatic offensive, and the United States has gone throughout Europe and talked to all the major allies. As you mentioned, President Obama talked with Cameron as well as King Abdullah. Those [talks] will continue because the U.S. government recognizes that what works with Syria is concerted multilateral pressure. This is what drove Syrian forces out of Lebanon in April 2005 [after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri]. The second thing that is effective with the Syrians are sanctions, which have affected their economy greatly. That's why you have seen Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushing on targeting Syrian oil exports and the financing of those exports. These moves will be combined with the stronger language, which has evolved over the last couple of days, [in order to] get the international community on the same page in terms of what to do about the Assad regime.
GWERTZMAN: Unlike Arab countries like Tunisia and Egypt, where the army did not go along with the political leaders, Syrian security forces seem closely aligned with Assad. What will persuade Assad to change, short of military intervention?
TABLER: The protesters have come a long way. They used to be far more divided than they are now. They still have not congealed; this is not necessarily unusual in the face of these kinds of events. If they did create a formal, linear structure, the regime would probably try to decapitate it. There is the question of the military intervention. This is where the fact that the Assad regime is a minority Alawite-dominated regime comes into play, because the networks of minorities around the Assad regime penetrate the army and the security services and make it very hard for the army to act as a separate body, to come in, in the name of national interests, and oust the ruling family, as happened in Tunisia and Egypt. But if Alawites and other minorities who are in the high command decide that the Assads are essentially flushing their fortunes down the drain, they could take another route, and we could see the military intervening in that way. But it's far from clear that that's going to happen.
GWERTZMAN: The Sunnis, Syria's the majority population, have not really broken with the Assad regime, at least the business community. Is there any change in that? Damascus is described as still quiet -- or is that not true?
TABLER: It isn't true. There have been protests in the environs of Damascus and a big crackdown there [on August 14]. More importantly, the business community and folks in Damascus are, privately, extremely critical of the regime. The question is: When do the turn words into action? That's where the opposition coming up with a structure and also a plan about what to do could help with encouraging elite Sunni-bourgeoisie defections that we've all been talking about. We'll have to see what role the bourgeoisie plays in all of this going forward.
GWERTZMAN: Assad has talked about reforms, but nothing much has taken hold, it seems. What could he do?
TABLER: The problem Assad has now is twofold: He's in a dictator's dilemma. He's doubling down with his security solution -- or tripling down or quadrupling down -- because he believes that works. The problem now is that even if he launches true reforms that would democratize the country and lead to a democratic transition, it would undermine the very people in the security services and the army on which he's relying to keep order because they would lose power and influence. So, he's in a real jam. The other reason he's in a real jam is he didn't reform effectively for eleven years, and he has instead tried to shoot his way out, which continues to this day. No one believes him when he talks about reform. And why would they? Whatever process he could launch probably would not attract the kind of mass appeal necessary to get him out of this crisis politically.
GWERTZMAN: Most of the opposition's would-be leaders are overseas right now. Do they have any coordinated view of what kind of deal Assad would accept in exchange for quitting?
TABLER: Most of those who are in exile coordinate with those on the ground in Syria. So, there is some overlap between the exiles and the domestic opposition. They're trying to close ranks and come up with a plan for a post-Assad Syria. That's hard work. That's what they're working on at the moment. The United States and Turkey, which hosted a number of conferences, and the Arab countries, will become involved in this process as people try to look toward a Syria without Assad.
GWERTZMAN: The Turkish foreign minister had two days of talks with Assad last week. What is the Turkish analysis of the situation?
TABLER: I was just in Turkey, and the Turkish analysis is basically this: They don't see Assad making the changes to not only save his regime but also to stabilize his situation. On the other hand, they also recognize that the opposition still needs to do a lot of work. That's one reason they're allowing these conferences to be hosted in Turkey. But, in the end, Turkey seems unwilling to do two things that could be effective. One is the use of military force, as they did in 1998, which was very successful in getting Hafez al-Assad to expel Abdullah Ocalan [a leader of the Turkish PKK]. The Turks threatened to invade Syria because Damascus had hosted Ocalan. When the Turks threatened to invade, Assad expelled him. [That] allowed for the warming of Turkish-Syrian ties.
The second thing is that they seem unwilling to leverage their soft power with Syria concerning trade and economy, I think because of the truck traffic that crosses Syria on the way to the Gulf. The problem is that if the Turks come out hard against Assad, Syria could close off those avenues, and that will cost the members of the AKP [Turkey's ruling party] one of its major areas of support, from the industries that rely on the trucking traffic.
GWERTZMAN: Is there also a strategic element bothering the Saudis? How would you describe Iran's influence in Syria? Many believe the Saudis are angry because they fear the Iranians are gaining in influence.
TABLER: The Iranians have played an instrumental role in the crackdown, technically, in terms of advice and Internet technology, to track those on Facebook and Twitter. But also, Abdullah can very clearly see that Assad is relying upon Iran more and more, in addition to his normal alliance, in terms of support for Hezbollah [in Lebanon]. The Saudis very much see the region in these terms, and they're determined to roll back Iranian influence. They saw [Assad] as moving too far in the Iranian direction.
That plays out in Lebanon as well.
We'll have to watch that very closely, because as this gets worse, Assad could try and stoke the coals of tension with Israel or inside of Lebanon.
GWERTZMAN: If Hillary Clinton asked you for advice right now, would you tell her to continue using rhetoric but do nothing more concrete?
TABLER: Concerted multilateral pressure works with Syria, but you need something to back it up. That comes in the area of the sanctions on the Syrian oil as well as intermediate steps to stop the purchase of Syrian crude. Oil accounts for about 28 to 33 percent of Syrian exports. The revenues directly accrue to the state. Targeting these exports -- 96 percent of them are purchased in Europe -- will cripple the regime. It will cause it to borrow more money from the bourgeoisie. It will cause it to run down its reserves by borrowing from the central bank. But, unlike in the case of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where the lions' share of revenue came from oil production, it will not have as large of a ripple effect on society. So, this is something that is doable. On August 2 the Senate introduced a bill that will be debated as soon as the recess ends that deals with Syrian energy. A lot of our leverage will come from there in the coming month.
Andrew J. Tabler is a Next Generation fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics and author of the forthcoming book In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria.

Lights Out

By Andrew J. Tabler

ForeignPolicy.com, July 19, 2011

By targeting Syria's energy sector, the United States can hit President Bashar al-Assad where it really hurts -- his pocketbook.

Four months into Syria's uprising, the violence wracking the country is bad and getting worse. The restive city of Homs witnessed sectarian clashes over the weekend that reportedly left dozens dead, while forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad converged on the eastern town of Abu Kamal. As the Assad regime's iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove approach to the uprising continues to fail, all eyes are focused on the Aug. 1 start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the minority Alawite regime's killing of predominately Sunni protesters could transform the uprising into a sectarian bloodbath.

This bloodshed, which is tragic in its own right, is also causing the sputtering Syrian economy to grind to a halt. Such a development would be particularly dangerous for Assad, as it could cause the business elite in the commercial hubs of Damascus and Aleppo to finally break ties with the regime and join ranks with the opposition. Iran, Assad's staunch ally, is no doubt aware of the threat; Tehran is reportedly mulling a $5.8 billion aid package to Syria, as well as providing a daily supply of 290,000 barrels of oil for the next month. Fortunately, cash-strapped Iran does not have the resources to indefinitely bail out Assad if the United States organizes a Western effort to hit Syria in its Achilles' heel -- namely, its energy revenues.

The longer the Assad regime teeters, the more violent and bloody Syria is likely to become. The Syrian people, the United States, and the international community, therefore, share a common interest in having as short a transition as possible. To help end the bloodshed and bring about a quicker demise of the Assad regime, Washington should now be more ruthless with the Assad regime as well.

Syria produces around 390,000 barrels per day (BPD), down from a high of 600,000 BPD in 1996, and about 6 billion cubic meters of gas annually. Of that, Syria exports around 148,000 BPD of heavy and sour "Souedie" crude, with revenues accruing directly to the state; all gas is used domestically. According to the International Monetary Fund and U.S. government estimates, oil sales account for around one-third of state revenue, with the remainder increasingly made up through corporate and public-sector employee taxes.

But the protests have hit the Syrian economy and currency hard, a fact that is expected to substantially decrease tax receipts. Damascus, therefore, is likely to become increasingly reliant on oil revenue. This in turn would constrain the regime's ability to fund the security services and the army (the primary bodies responsible for the brutal crackdown), maintain market subsidies (e.g., for diesel fuel and gasoline), and pay off vital regime patronage networks.

Declining revenue will also force the regime to resort to more deficit spending. It could borrow against the $17 billion in reserves at the Central Bank of Syria, but this would essentially be printing money, causing inflation that would undermine the Syrian pound and confidence in the banking system. The regime could borrow more from state-owned and private-sector banks, where the Damascene and Aleppine business elite put their savings. But as the protests continue to grow and the cost of doing business with the Assad regime dramatically increases, Syrian merchants and businessmen are likely to pull their deposits. Either scenario would undermine the regime's economic lifeline and help spur elite defections -- a key element to developing a new political order.

Beyond the targeted sanctions on Syrian officials already imposed by President Barack Obama's administration, Washington has tools for leveraging Syrian energy and depriving the Assad regime of critical foreign exchange earnings. Here are six ways to up the pressure:

1. Pressure purchasers of Syrian crude: The Obama administration could prod the chief buyers of Syrian oil -- companies in Germany, Italy, France, and the Netherlands -- to stop purchasing the regime's oil. Syrian oil is sold on the spot market and via long-term contracts at a price around $10 less than the Brent crude benchmark. These contracts could be abrogated if the European Union were to slap sanctions on the sale of Syrian oil in Europe. Given Europe's strong stance on human rights and the bloody trajectory of the crackdown thus far, support for this measure is likely to increase.

Some in Europe, however, are reportedly concerned that cutting off oil shipments could constitute a kind of collective punishment akin to U.N. oil sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq. While the comparison is a bit problematic -- the Iraq sanctions stemmed from a U.N. Security Council resolution, which is not yet in the cards for Syria -- it's important to note that oil revenues in Iraq constituted a much higher percentage of foreign exchange and budgetary revenue.' While Syrians still depend on the public sector for employment and subsidies, many if not most Syrians increasingly have taken full- or part-time work in the private sector to make ends meet. In other words, sanctioning Syrian oil would affect the regime's finances far more than its people.

Yes, the Syrian regime could ship its heavy crude to China and India, which have refineries tuned to process Syria's heavy and sour crude. But doing so would increase shipping costs considerably, especially as Syria's oil terminals cannot handle the large tankers that make long-haul shipments much more profitable.

2. Pressure foreign oil companies in Syria to divest: The Obama administration, together with the European Union, could pressure multinational energy companies involved in Syrian energy -- namely, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Croatia's INA Nafta, and Petro-Canada -- to divest their operations. Most importantly, it should ask Britain to halt the operations of Gulfsands Petroleum, the onetime Houston-based firm that moved to Britain in 2008 to avoid U.S. sanctions on Rami Makhlouf, Assad's cousin and Gulfsands's Syrian business partner.

The advantage of this approach is that it gets Western multinationals and technology, which is most efficient in boosting the flagging production of Syrian Souedie crude and carrying out new exploration, out of the country. But it would take these companies time to divest, and their operations would almost surely be taken over by non-Western companies operating in Syria, including India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp., the China National Petroleum Corp., and Russia's Tatneft.

3. Interrupt oil-tanker payment mechanisms: The state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria (CBS), Syria's largest bank by far in terms of assets, largely handles Syrian oil sales. Washington sanctioned CBS in 2004 for insufficient anti-money-laundering procedures, forcing the bank to close its correspondent accounts in the United States. Many European banks closed their correspondent accounts with CBS as well to protect themselves against possible U.S. sanctions violations, but a number of other European banks have not. If the Obama administration pressed the European Union to sanction CBS -- or just persuaded individual European banks directly to stop doing business with it -- Washington could effectively close off the way the regime turns oil into cash. Similar measures could target the tanker shipments' finance and insurance mechanisms.

The advantage of this approach is that it could be rolled out relatively fast. The downside is that it could push Syrian payments underground via banks in Dubai and Lebanon. Such transactions would likely be funneled through Syria's new private-sector banks, many of which have formed joint ventures with Lebanon's banking giants.

4. Sanction tankers hauling Syrian oil: In the past, the United States has targeted shipping vessels as part of tightening sanctions on its adversaries, including through the Helms-Burton Act on Cuba, as well as the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act. Washington, together with the European Union, could issue a decision by which any ship hauling Syrian oil would be banned from any future business in the United States or the European Union. The advantage of this move is that it would leverage these shipping companies' U.S. and EU business against the value of their trade with Syria. It also would increase the regime's cost of shipping oil, which decreases profit margins. This move would make it more difficult for Syrian crude to reach Western and global markets. Shipping lines that don't currently do business with the United States or the European Union could step in to haul the oil, but less competition would likely drive up the regime's shipping costs.

5. Pressure Middle Eastern countries to hold back oil and petrodollar bailouts: Syria often turns to regional allies for crude oil, refined products, or charity when it's in a bind, most notably Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran. In the years leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, for example, Syria bucked U.N. sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq to the tune of 200,000 BPD, which it received at a heavily discounted price (paid into accounts of Uday and Qusay Hussein with the Commercial Bank of Syria). In the 1990s, Saudi Arabia also invested petrodollars in Syria to help bail out the regime, efforts that in recent years have been taken over by Iran and Qatar.

In the face of the regime's increasingly brutal crackdown, the United States should persuade Baghdad, Riyadh, and Doha to withhold support for Assad. It should also pressure Egypt and Jordan to cut gas supplies through the Arab Gas Pipeline, which terminates in Syria. The advantage of these moves is that it would narrow the regime's bailout options. The downside, of course, is that it could push Assad further into the arms of Tehran, over which Washington has little leverage and with which Syria already has a strong relationship.

6. Target imported refined gasoline and diesel products: Syria became a net importer of oil four years ago -- years ahead of industry estimates. Its two state-owned refineries cannot process Syria's domestic heavy crude into enough diesel fuel and gasoline to satisfy rapidly increasing domestic demand. Thus, diesel is Syria's Achilles' heel: Everything from irrigation pumps to home furnaces to trucks burn diesel, which is heavily subsidized by the state. Meanwhile, Syria's upper and middle classes rely much more on gasoline to fuel their automobiles. Take away these refined fuel imports and the people will get angry.

Yes, targeting either fuel is a blunt instrument and generally considered a "nuclear option." It's a tactic that should only be used at a critical moment, especially in response to a massacre. If used too soon, it could end up targeting the Syrian population as a whole, thus playing into the regime's line of blaming the uprising on a U.S. "foreign interference," which it did two weeks ago in response to Ambassador Robert Ford's overnight visit to Hama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's words about Assad last week.

Thus far, some European allies have expressed "sanctions fatigue" as a result of Washington's earlier effort to impose measures on Iran to change its behavior -- a process that thus far has had mixed results. Over the last few months, the United States and the European Union have sanctioned a number of regime officials and affiliates responsible for the crackdown. Although these measures are useful, they will not go far enough to address the regime's finances as a whole.

To overcome European reticence, the United States could start with pinpointed measures to mitigate the impact of sanctions on the Syrian people, widening their scope in tandem as necessary or as the regime's crackdown unfolds. And it needn't be set in stone: Washington and Brussels should adopt measures that can be easily undone in the event that the Assad regime collapses, allowing a quick reward for a transitional government in Damascus.

Although energy revenues don't play as large a role in the Syrian economy as they did a decade ago, oil is still a determining factor in the politics of the Middle East. No matter what policy Washington and its allies choose, targeting Syrian energy would cut off a vital lifeline for Assad and help spur the transition to a more humane government for the Syrian people.

Andrew Tabler is the Next Generation fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of the forthcoming book In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria. 

In Search of Leverage with Syria

PolicyWatch #1815
By David Schenker and Andrew J. Tabler
June 14, 2011

During his May 19 speech on the Middle East, President Obama defined America's policy objective in Syria by asking President Bashar al-Asad to either lead a political transition or "get out of the way." Asad shows no interest thus far in the former -- the death toll has reached 1,600, and atrocities and large-scale protests persist. To force Asad to step down or cause his regime to fragment, the United States should seek with its allies to increase the economic pressure and international isolation faced by the regime and to support domestic challenges to it. To achieve these effects, Washington has a number of unilateral and multilateral levers available, whether economic or diplomatic. U.S. and International Levers
To affect the calculus of Asad and his supporters, the United States must increase the regime's economic and diplomatic isolation, and lend international weight to the domestic challenge to the regime. The ongoing demonstrations and burgeoning international consensus give Washington a broad range of options to do so.
Economic Pressure
Target Syrian energy. Syrian oil production has been in steady decline since the mid-1990s and is now around 390,000 barrels per day. Of that, Syria exports around 148,000 bpd, with revenues accruing directly to the state. According to IMF and US government estimates, oil sales account for between a quarter and a third of state revenue, with the remainder increasingly made up through corporate and public sector employee taxes. As the protests decrease tax receipts, Damascus is likely to become increasingly reliant on oil revenue, forcing the regime to tap reserves and/or resort to deficit spending. This in turn would constrain the regime's ability to maintain market subsidies (e.g., for diesel fuel) and payoffs to patronage networks.
Accordingly, the Obama administration should prod the chief buyers of Syrian oil -- Germany, Italy, France, and Holland -- to stop purchasing the regime's heavy crude. It should also pressure multinational energy companies operating in Syria -- Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Croatia's INA Nafta, India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Canada's Tanganyika, SUNCOR, and Petro-Canada, and China's National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinochem -- to exit the country. In addition, it should ask Britain to halt the operations of Gulfsands Petroleum, the one-time Houston-based company specializing in extracting heavy oil from depleted fields. The firm relocated to Britain in 2008 to avoid U.S. sanctions on Rami Makhlouf, Asad's cousin and the regime's primary businessman.
Target businesses associated with the regime. Elite defections could play a key role in pressuring the regime to either cut a deal with the country's Sunni majority or leave power. To date, the most effective U.S. sanction levied against Syria has been the Makhlouf designation. Along those lines, Washington should impose costs on other Syrian businesspeople who continue to back the regime.
One way to do so is to lengthen the list of U.S. Treasury Department designations aimed at businesspeople close to the regime, many of whom are the exclusive importers of a wide variety of goods on the Syrian market. This would not only create fissures in the regime's traditional alliance with the Sunni business elite, it would also diminish government revenue, since many major trading families pay an increasingly larger share of state revenues via a flat 20 percent corporate tax.
Encourage additional unilateral sanctions. Washington should add to its robust and growing set of measures against the regime by considering a U.S. investment ban based on the Syria Accountability Act. The EU is also investigating tougher trade restrictions, though multilateral sanctions via the UN are unlikely at this point. To further ratchet up pressure, Washington should urge Syria's leading trade partner, Turkey, to adopt trade sanctions (excluding food and medicine, as the United States does). It should also press Persian Gulf states -- particularly Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia -- to curtail their business investments in Syria, which have been a lifeline for the cash-strapped Asad regime in recent years.
International Isolation
Refer Asad to the International Criminal Court. Washington should push the UN Security Council to refer Asad and top regime security officials responsible for atrocities to the ICC, based in The Hague. Because Syria is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the ICC does not have jurisdiction -- as was the case with Libya, only the Security Council can refer Syria to the court, and opposition from China and Russia makes such a referral unlikely at present. If the massacres in Syria continue, however, a U.S. or European-led resolution supporting referral could avoid a veto.
Appoint a special human rights rapporteur. Although China and Russia may balk, Washington should press the UN Human Rights Council to designate a special rapporteur on Syria. To date, the Asad regime has failed to cooperate with the council. The mere discussion of a rapporteur would serve as a point of annoyance for Damascus and keep human rights issues in the spotlight.
Enhance relations with the opposition. Becoming overly involved with the Syrian opposition could prove counterproductive for Washington. At minimum, however, the administration should meet routinely with respected opposition leaders (exiles and, where appropriate, Syria-based figures), encourage Turkey to continue hosting opposition conferences, and consider recognizing a government in exile if one is established.
Focus on the International Atomic Energy Agency. In recent weeks, Washington issued a statement detailing the Asad regime's efforts to build an illegal nuclear weapons facility. The administration should continue to publicly hammer Damascus for this transgression, and seek to refer the IAEA's investigation of the reactor to the UN Security Council for action.
Enhancing Domestic Challenges
Hasten the unraveling of the Syrian military. In conjunction with Turkey and Jordan, the United States should pursue incentives-based information operations in Syria, encouraging military officers to defect or, at minimum, avoid complicity in regime crimes against the people. The more quickly the military unravels, the fewer atrocities that will be perpetrated and the less chance for conflict to degenerate into civil war.
Align with the Syrian people. Statements by senior U.S. officials in support of the Syrian people would boost morale and encourage more protestors to come out, accelerating the arrival of large-scale demonstrations in Aleppo and Damascus that would stand a better chance of toppling the regime.
Conclusion
Developments on the ground in Syria suggest that the regime is headed downward. Despite the appalling events of recent months, however, the Obama administration has not yet made the decision to move past Asad. As recently as June 3, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inexplicably left the door open by declaring that the regime's legitimacy had "nearly run out." The misperception that the United States lacks levers against the regime may be fueling this reluctance, given the long but relatively fruitless history of U.S. sanctions on Syria. This perception is mistaken, however: the broad international revulsion at Asad's tactics, combined with the changes sweeping the region, provides new opportunities to act against the Asad regime. Although the task of regime change lies squarely with Syrians, the Obama administration has a broad array of tools to increase pressure on the Asad government and, potentially, help hasten its demise.
David Schenker is the Aufzien fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute. Andrew Tabler is the Institute's Next Generation fellow.