Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 14 May 2004 — President George W. Bush slapped strict economic sanctions on Tuesday against Syria for “supporting terrorism and interfering with US efforts to stabilize Iraq.”

Bush said Syria’s actions amounted to an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy” of the US.

The sanctions go beyond measures laid out in the Syrian Accountability Act, which Bush signed in December.

To gauge the reaction of this decision, Arab News spokes to three experts: A Syrian specialist at Georgetown University, the president of a humanitarian aid and human rights organization, and the press secretary of the Syrian Embassy.

The Syrian Ambassador to Washington Dr. Imad Moustapha is currently traveling in Syria with a delegation of “businessmen from the Syrian-American Jewish community,” but Ammar Arsan, press secretary of the Syrian Embassy, said Damascus considers the decision “an internal American issue.”

Arsan accused the two co-writers of the Syria Accountability Act of close ties with Israel.

“When Rep. Eliot Engle, D-NY, met last year with (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon in Jerusalem, he said Sharon blessed their work on the Syrian Accountability Act.

“And if you look at Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, she’s from the Cuban minority in Florida. No one knew her, now she’s counting on the Zionist and Israeli lobby in Florida to re-elect her. They’re helping her, and now she’s doing her job for them.”

Arsan does not believe sanctions against Syria could lead to an upsurge of extremism.

“The Syrian community is a secular, and hates the word ‘extremism.’ President Basher Al-Assad has said Syria’s cooperation with the United States in the war against Al-Qaeda and terrorism is based on a policy that rejects terrorism and refuses extremism and the targeting any civilians and any innocent people.”

Jim Jennings, founder and president of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid and human rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, also questioned the timing of the sanctions.

“The sanctions are brought to you by the same crew who brought you the Iraq war. If you like the Iraq war, you’ll love the Syrian sanctions because they offer the opportunity to put a noose around the neck of the Syrian government so that any misstep could draw Syria into a military confrontation with the US.”

Jennings, who said his organization works extensively throughout the Middle East, (www.conscienceinternational.org), said “a very significant factor is that the Syrian Accountability Act refers to the Syrian acquisition of WMD and strongly emphasizes Syria’s links to terrorism, which the State Department says has been more rhetorical than real during the past five years.”

Bassam Haddad, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a Syrian specialist, said some experts believe “the sanctions are a way to deflect attention from what is happening in Iraq.”

Haddad said the US is now in a compromised position after the Abu Ghraib scandal “and is attempting to ensure that it doesn’t sink any further by making sure that Syria does not jeopardize the US position in Iraq, either by letting people through its borders.

“There are people from Syria that are fighting (in Iraq),” he said.

Haddad said it was also important to focus on the local, national aspect of this decision.

“This as a way for the Bush administration to shore up its creditability with members of its rightist coalition, whether it is the pro-Israeli lobby or the Christian right — with whom they have a large affinity by showing that they are acting tough with the Syrians and winning the war on terrorism.”

The Syrian government is concerned because it does not want to be ostracized by the US, said Haddad, “but it is far less concerned that it was a few months ago when America’s image and credibility in the Mideast was at a higher standing.

“This condemnation of Syria is going to have less damage politically than it would have had a few months ago.”