On the evening of May 13, Syrians across the battle-scarred country erupted in celebration. After 14 years of disastrous civil war, thousands took to the streets in a rare expression of public jubilation to exult in the surest sign yet that their nation was on the road to recovery and reintegration into the international community, even as some remained wary of the jihadist government now in charge.

Just a short time earlier, US President Donald Trump, visiting Saudi Arabia on the first major foreign trip of his second presidency, had announced his intention to lift all American sanctions on Syria.

Earlier in the day, Trump had met with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, marking the first public meeting between the countries’ leaders since Bill Clinton met Hafez al-Assad in March 2000.

“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace,” Trump said in Riyadh. “That’s what we want to see in Syria. I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions on Syria.”

In a televised address later that evening, Sharaa called the move a “historic and courageous decision that will end our people’s suffering.”

Though no official action has yet been taken to implement the policy, others in the US and around the world have similarly praised the move as a major step that will help stabilize the region and invigorate Syria’s economic prospects after years of suppression under a punishing international sanctions regime.

South of the Syrian border, though, some in Israel have viewed the move with more circumspection, bemoaning the loss of a key lever that could have lured in another potential regional ally.

There also remains an undercurrent of unease regarding the new leadership given its jihadist roots, even as Sharaa renounces his jihadi past and opens his doors wide open toward the West.

The US has maintained a complex sanctions regime on Syria for decades, designating the country a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979. In 2004, president George W. Bush’s administration imposed measures targeting individuals and entities with close ties to the regime of then-president Bashar al-Assad.

Further sanctions were imposed by president Barack Obama’s administration in 2011, including the freezing of assets held in the US and a ban on Syrian oil imports, a critical source of revenue for the Syrian government. Those measures were imposed in response to alleged human rights violations at the onset of the civil war in February of that year.

The most consequential sanction in recent years has been the implementation of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. The law was passed by Congress in 2020 during Donald Trump’s first term in response to documented war crimes committed by the Assad regime during the civil war, but was only implemented under US president Joe Biden in 2022.

The Caesar Act imposed heavy financial penalties on virtually any foreign entity conducting business with Damascus, including Syrian officials and businesspeople.

Unlike previous penalties, the introduction of sweeping secondary sanctions deterred international donors and investors from engaging with Syria, leaving only Iran, Russia, North Korea, and their ilk as possible investment partners.

For Syria’s new leadership, which is desperate for external capital to jumpstart the economy while also........

© The Times of Israel