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The world is teaching all dictators a lesson right now about how to commit crimes against humanity, escape accountability and eventually get accepted back into polite society. And the Biden administration is helping write that playbook — by tacitly allowing the normalization of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Thirteen years after the start of the Syrian revolution, Syria has been crowded out of Western media by newer crises. But Assad continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/18/we-know-who-created-syrias-torture-programme-and-how" target=_blank>jailing and torturing</a> thousands of civilians, while actively working to further destabilize the Middle East in partnership with his benefactors Russia and Iran.

As tensions with this autocratic axis rise, the United States and its allies ought to be holding the line on Syria. Instead, more and more countries, especially U.S. partners in the Persian Gulf, <a href="https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2024/04/bahrains-foreign-minister-visits-damascus-for-first-time-since-2011/#:~:text=Bahraini%20Foreign%20Minister%2C%20Abdullatif%20bin,Syrian%20revolution%20began%20in%202011." target=_blank>are welcoming Assad</a> back into the diplomatic fold — lusting after <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/01/gulf-thaw-syria-gains-steam-uae-sends-envoy-saudi-diplomats-plan-visit" target=_blank>lucrative contracts</a> to rebuild the cities he destroyed.

The Biden administration’s official policy is to oppose the normalization of Assad, chiefly through sanctions, until he stops the slaughter. But behind the scenes, the administration is quietly but deliberately loosening that pressure, according to lawmakers in both parties and Syrian American groups.

“The forgotten war of this generation is really Syria,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), co-founder of the Congressional Syria Caucus,<b> </b>told me. “I’m disgusted at the way so many in the Western world seem to have totally forgotten about the atrocities that have taken place there.”

Boyle is a co-sponsor of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3202/all-actions?overview=closed&q=%7B%22roll-call-vote%22%3A%22all%22%7D" target=_blank>Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act</a>, the main effort in Congress to extend and expand sanctions against those who aid the regime’s rehabilitation, especially in Arab gulf countries. It would also impose sanctions on Assad’s parliament and the Syria Trust for Development, led by Assad’s wife, <a href="https://snhr.org/blog/2023/12/28/how-the-syrian-regime-uses-the-humanitarian-organizations-sarc-and-std-to-steal-humanitarian-aid/" target=_blank>which stands accused</a> of broad corruption and theft of international assistance. In February, it passed the House of Representatives 389-32.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wanted to include this bill in the supplemental aid package <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/23/senate-vote-foreign-aid-ukraine-israel/" target=_blank>that passed Congress</a> last week. But in the course of negotiations, the White House objected, several lawmakers and congressional aides told me. The White House did not object to including other sanctions bills, including several targeting Iran.

“The decision to remove this bipartisan legislation [from the supplemental package] is inexplicable,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who introduced the bill told me. “The Biden administration’s failure to hold mass murderer Bashar al-Assad accountable empowers Putin and the Iranian regime.”

This is only the latest roadblock sanctions supporters have faced. James E. Risch (Idaho), ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2935?s=1&r=43" target=_blank>introduced a companion bill</a> in the Senate in September. He told me the administration and the office of committee chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.) won’t help advance it. Unless this legislation passes before the end of this year, the current sanctions regime established in 2020 by the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/syrias-brutal-dictatorship-suffers-a-severe-setback/2020/06/23/355548ac-b0c0-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html" target=_blank>Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act</a> will expire, and the pressure on those helping to normalize Assad will lift.

“Congress has an obligation to move this legislation,” Risch told me. “Despite repeated requests, the administration and its partners on the Hill have repeatedly blocked efforts to hold Assad accountable.”

A White House official told me the administration thinks it already has the tools it needs to go after Assad and his partners. The official also pointed to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/562faa1a-c3a2-4dbc-a5e9-e7b907049ddc.pdf" target=_blank>concerns by</a> some international humanitarian organizations and experts, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/us-anti-normalization-act-set-worsen-dire-humanitarian-situation-syria-un" target=_blank>who have argued</a> that the new sanctions could actually worsen the humanitarian situation inside Syria. (Several Syrian aid organizations <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/70e360c4-f547-41c9-b5ac-1e3589b20434.pdf" target=_blank>dispute that claim</a>.)

Cardin’s office declined repeated requests for comment. But in a pretaped video for a conference being held Wednesday by <a href="https://c4ssa.org/" target=_blank>Citizens for a Secure and Safe America</a>, a leading Syrian American advocacy group, Cardin did say, “We must not allow Assad to erase his war crimes and normalize his relations with the international community.”

Syrian Americans who have worked on the legislation are upset by what they see as the White House and Cardin’s office stalling the bill’s progress without publicly admitting as much. These groups say the legislation represents the best leverage available to secure some protection for Syrian civilians.

“We in the Syrian American community are profoundly dismayed and deeply frustrated with the actions of the White House and Senator Cardin in obstructing this crucial human rights bill,” Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, policy chief for the American Coalition for Syria, an umbrella organization of Syrian activist groups, told me. “Our community will remember this as they head to the polls this November.”

That Syrian Americans are even contemplating voting for former president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> illustrates how abandoned they feel. After all, Trump twice announced (and reversed) a decision to withdraw the remaining U.S. troops there, and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-syria-remarks-full-transcript-read-full-text-1467280" target=_blank>he didn’t hide</a> his disdain for Syria. What Trump might do in a second term is anybody’s guess.

Sanctions are not a panacea. Ideally, they would be combined with a comprehensive strategy to negotiate a diplomatic resolution in Syria. But those who advocate letting the sanctions on Assad lapse must contend with the predictable consequences of that decision. Assad and his accomplices will get richer and more powerful. They will be emboldened in their abuses against their own citizens. Extremism and instability will grow regionwide.

And lots of other dictators and gangsters committing crimes against humanity in places like Russia, China, Myanmar and Sudan will study the playbook the West helped Assad write: Ignore the criticism and wait for the world’s attention to wane. Eventually, even the United States will turn a blind eye to your atrocities.

Livingston Award for Young Journalists, 2011 finalist

Interaction Award for Excellence in International Reporting, 2011

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George Washington University, BA in International Affairs 2001

Sophia University, Tokyo

Josh Rogin is a columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post. He writes about foreign policy and national security. Rogin is also a political analyst for CNN. He is the author of the book Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century. 

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