High on promise
The phony focus on Captagon

 In the past couple of years, US policy on Syria has come to resemble a meticulously choreographed exercise in strategic communication. While avoiding substantive actions on managing and resolving the conflict per UNSCR 2254 – something that would require a significant investment of political capital – the US has cultivated a network of voices that promote accountability in a rather de-politicised context. Arab normalisation with Bashar al-Assad has laid bare the limits and risks of such an approach. 

One issue that has come to illustrate this “risk-averse actionism” is Captagon. The illicit drug is an amphetamine pill popular in the Gulf that is produced in Syria by networks run by the Assad regime and Hezbollah and trafficked to the Gulf through a complex chain of smugglers. Combating this trade has now emerged as a key issue in policy discussions on the Syrian conflict. Efforts by Jordan and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to curb the trade are understandable because it threatens border security and public health. 

Citing its destabilising role for the region, the Captagon issue has been portrayed as a major driver in favour of Arab normalisation with the Assad regime. The Amman statement of 1 May 2023 issued by Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt stipulated the establishment of a working group with Damascus to put an end to the Captagon trade. A week later, Syria was readmitted to the Arab League – a move designed to deal with “all the effects of the Syria crisis (…) particularly the burden of refugees, the terrorism threat and drug smuggling.” As if to underline Arab seriousness about this issue, the Jordanian air force carried out its first ever non-ISIS related airstrike in Syria a day after the resolution was issued. It killed Meri al-Ramthan, a suspected trafficker, together with his wife and six children.

Manifestly, the strike was symbolic: drug smuggling cannot be stopped from the air. An end to the trade requires Damascus’ cooperation as it controls the territory where much of the Captagon is either produced or trafficked. Whether Damascus will engage in good faith is doubtful. The income from Captagon is believed to be at least $2.4 billion annually, by far Syria’s largest export. The trade allows Hezbollah and the Assad regime to subsidise their day-to-day military operations. Assad cannot simply turn off the drug tap; a social contract in times of war exists between the regime and its military and security chieftains that involves the regime providing sources of revenue in lieu of the state’s paltry salaries. In war-ravaged Syria, there are few ready cash sources left. Captagon is a life-line. 

Arab governments are likely well aware that the drug trade will persist as long as the regime remains strapped for cash and in need of leverage. Absent a comprehensive settlement for the Syrian conflict – one that would enable the kind of humanitarian, economic, and political improvements necessary to tackle the Captagon trade at its roots – the war on drugs in Syria will likely go the way of Latin America. A comprehensive settlement is blocked not only by the Assad regime’s intransigence, but also by the major external stakeholders in the conflict that have boots on the ground and who guarantee that the three competing “zones of influence” remain divided from each other and with little hope for the future. 

Convenient narratives 
One of those stakeholders is the US, which for years has lacked a coherent Syria strategy. Policy makers in the White House have focused simply on maintaining US stakes in the Syrian theatre at the lowest possible cost. On one issue, however, Washington has been remarkably vocal: “accountability”. In the early days of the conflict, the term was used ambitiously to demand the referral of the Syria file to the International Criminal Court. However, after a decade of setbacks, accountability is now used as a container-term for more modest activities that highlight the Assad regime’s misdeeds. In the context of Captagon, it means exposing and documenting the involvement of Syrian state and non-state actors in malign activities and pursuing these actors and their networks through targeted sanctions and law enforcement measures, often in third countries. 

The Captagon Act, included as part of the National Defence Authorization Act for 2023 and signed by President Biden in December 2022, mandated the US government to establish an interagency strategy to disrupt and dismantle narcotics production, trafficking, and affiliated networks linked to the Assad regime. On the non-governmental side, this policy is vocalised by research outputs of think tanks, some of which have well-established channels to the US administration. The US interagency strategy was released on 29 June and, predictably, is in line with the prevailing narrative. According to this narrative, the Captagon trade is a major feature of the Syrian conflict and is orchestrated by the Assad regime; but the room for manoeuvre for the US and its allies is seen as limited, so policy recommendations focus only on law enforcement and harm reduction measures. 

Albeit innocently, Western media coverage has helped to define Captagon as the issue of the day that cannot be solved but can at least be mitigated by a de-politicised accountability approach. The Arab states, the US, and the Assad regime must all be satisfied with the way the discourse on Captagon has unfolded. Arab states used it to justify their re-engagement with the Assad regime despite Washington’s formal objection. In March, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, made a less-than-subtle suggestion to end the Captagon trade in exchange for ending the regime’s isolation. For the US, this policy diversion from serious engagement on a political settlement has allowed risk-averse actionism to continue. Publicly visible activities like Congressional bills, report launches, and panel discussions on Captagon help to generate headlines. But despite a decisive stance on ostracising the Assad regime by Congress, the US administration seems to have given up serious attempts to pursue conflict management let alone conflict resolution in line with UNSCR 2254. 

For the Assad regime, meanwhile, framing the issue as a human security and health challenge that requires containment (read: money) is all too convenient. The Arab and Western media attention that Captagon has garnered in recent months has been a massive boost for Assad’s regional extortion racket. The drug is both leverage and a policy space for re-engagement with his Arab neighbours without any requirement for change in Damascus. Captagon thus serves the same purpose as counter-terrorism cooperation, with Assad stoking the fires and offering to extinguish them at the same time. 

Follow the money 
For Arab states, the real stakes behind the normalisation with Assad extend beyond merely reducing the flow of Captagon. They also wish to demonstrate neutrality in a shifting multipolar order, establish themselves as diplomatic hubs, send back refugees, and balance Turkish and Iranian influence. Captagon was seen as the low hanging fruit. It would deliver a tough law-and-order message needed at home while offering back-channel security cooperation with Assad that can be marketed as a win abroad. It is, moreover, a clear-cut moral issue: the future of Arab youth. 

Traditional prescriptions for combating Captagon have focused on the involvement of Assad, Hezbollah, and the IRGC, the three actors that have been shown to be the instigators and primary profiteers from the trade. US, UK, and EU sanctions have exclusively targeted these parties. Using the Captagon card to penalise and isolate only Assad and his allies is understandable from the viewpoints of Syrian-American activists and hawkish-on-Iran congressmen. It is also a useful diversion for Arab governments that see Captagon as a purely Syrian contagion. While this approach has its merits, it overlooks the complexity of Captagon as a trans-regional problem. 

Along the Captagon supply chain that start in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and ends in the affluent districts of Riyadh there are key nodes that are not formally tied to Assad, Hezbollah, or the IRGC. Smuggling networks overseen by well-connected individuals are making fortunes from facilitating the final-leg of Captagon’s journey to Saudi Arabia and the GCC states from transit points in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Sudan, and Turkey. Since they run the most difficult part of the supply chain, these narcotraficantes make just as much profit as Assad et al. A bag of 200 Captagon pills (known as a shad) has a wholesale price of only $35 in Lebanon, which becomes $200 in transit points, and $800 by the time it reaches Saudi Arabia. 

As with all narcotics: if you follow the money trail, things get complicated. Police, soldiers, and customs officers in the Middle East are not renowned for their probity and transparency. In addition to the kind of bureaucratic corruption that makes the drug trade possible the world over, there are also the usual coteries of politicians, fixers, bankers, lawyers, construction tycoons, and money exchangers that wash the illicit money and shield wrongdoers from scrutiny. There are powerful vested interest in places where money is power and the law is reticent. 

A further complexity is that much of the smuggling is being undertaken by tribal men in tribal societies. Money brought into the tribe through drug smuggling is a source of power for the tribe as a whole, and the tribesmen engaged in smuggling are seen as useful and influential benefactors. They can ensure the tribe’s triumph in a local election or in the lucrative government contracts and appointments lottery. 

In short, state agencies wishing to combat the drugs trade will inevitably find their work hampered by influential lobbies and bureaucratic push-back. 

Undoubtedly, Syria’s neighbours are concerned with the Captagon trade. Officials have rung the alarm bells and the political and law enforcement response has been stepped up noticeably. However commendable, these efforts are unlikely to produce really satisfactory results unless the Captagon money trail is properly investigated at all parts of the supply chain. This, however, risks antagonising key local players and revealing embarrassing corruption at various levels. This Catch-22 means that Assad’s Captagon extortion racket cannot be countered as easily as some might hope. When law enforcement measures hit a wall, the West should be ready to ask the right questions.