By Bronx Anti-War Coalition
May 15, 2025
The Trump regime’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria exposes the true purpose of sanctions: to deliberately impoverish ordinary citizens, force regime change and extend U.S.-led imperial control.
For 15 years, the United States imposed draconian sanctions on the Assad government, isolating Syria from international banking, trade and essential sectors such as energy, health and education, with the explicit intent of undermining its self-sufficient socialist economy. These measures were designed to demoralize ordinary Syrians and force a change in leadership by targeting the elected coalition government of Syria under President Assad, who had defended the Palestinian cause and refused to normalize relations with the Zionist entity.
The Syrian government’s principled stance made it a prime target for this economic assault. The sanctions succeeded as intended: by devastating the lives of ordinary Syrians through food shortages, ruined health care and the collapse of education and industry, they paved the way for the overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic. In its place, the U.S. and its allies sought to install a new regime — a brutal, terror-driven government led by extremists from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
Jolani, the founder and former leader of Al-Qaeda in Syria, embodies the very violence he once preached against. His selection was a calculated move by the U.S., Israel, Türkiye and Gulf states, who engineered and supported terrorist organizations as tools of regime change.
Even more reprehensible is the hypocrisy of U.S. imperialists and the reactionary Syrian diaspora in the West. These groups once championed sanctions, fully aware they were designed to inflict devastating hardship on ordinary Syrians, to depose the multi-ethnic, multi-religious coalition government of Syria, which had defended all Palestinian resistance factions and subsidized their political offices in Damascus.
Now, with the Syrian government destabilized and Jolani’s terror-driven puppet regime in power, they clamor for the sanctions to be lifted — quietly admitting that sanctions inherently harm ordinary people. Their opportunistic reversal exposes a glaring inconsistency: they supported measures that deliberately drove Syria below the poverty line and now celebrate their removal as if it were a humanitarian victory.
Announced at a high-profile Saudi investment forum with promises of giving Syria “a chance at greatness,” the lifting of sanctions does not represent relief or healing. Instead, it paves the way for Ukrainian-style mineral deals, grants Western corporations unfettered access to exploit Syria’s oil and gas resources and even opens the door to symbolic ventures like a “Trump Tower” in Damascus.
Concurrently, Jolani’s regime is normalizing ties with the Zionist regime, shifting from denouncing Israeli occupation of Syrian land to accepting it as the “State of Israel.” This betrayal of the Palestinian cause is especially egregious as genocide in Gaza escalates.
We have consistently opposed sanctions, because we understand their devastating impact on ordinary people and reject the notion that economic warfare can ever be justified. Anti-imperialists have always maintained that sanctions crush the working class and inflict profound human misery.
In contrast, U.S. imperialists and their reactionary Syrian diaspora once embraced these measures to achieve regime change and now hypocritically celebrate their removal. This calculated reversal exposes their opportunism and confirms that sanctions are an unjust tool, deliberately designed to dismantle the entire political system of the Syrian Arab Republic at the expense of the very citizens whose lives are shattered in the process.
