The sanctions illusion
How a flawed discourse can be fixed

Since Bashar Assad’s fall last December, think tanks and other advocacy groups have echoed the same catch-22 mantra on sanctions: the West maintains them as leverage to push transitional President Ahmad Sharaa toward a liberal transition, yet those same sanctions hinder economic recovery, preventing meaningful progress on transition. In other words, Assad’s ouster created a brief window of opportunity, but continued economic strangulation risks shutting that window before any real transition can take hold. This narrative, however, deflects from the deeper realities of Syria’s ongoing conflict and risks obstructing the kind of comprehensive political process the country truly needs.

Phased approaches
When Assad fled to Moscow and Ahmad Sharaa took over the Presidential Palace on 8 December 2024, the question of sanctions surfaced immediately. Sharaa, like Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), remains designated as a terrorist by the UN Security Council. In the following days, the US and UK announced that it was too early to consider de-listing. Both Democratic and Republican senators agreed that the way forward was a phased approach through waivers and general licenses intended to incentivise Sharaa’s adherence to certain conditions. On 14 December then Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined these expectations: respect for minority and women’s rights, an inclusive and representative government, zero tolerance for terrorist groups, and the dismantling of remaining chemical weapons stockpiles. This list was nearly identical to the conditions the Trump administration set for Syrian Foreign Minister Shaibani at the Brussels Conference on 18 March 2025 and reiterated after the transitional government was appointed on 31 March.

The EU followed suit. On 15 December EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced that sanctions would remain until Syria’s new rulers ensured minority protections, women’s rights, and a unified government rejecting religious extremism. Germany’s “Eight-Point Plan for Syria,” published a day later, reinforced these principles, demanding a genuinely inclusive dialogue leading to democratic elections. Other EU member states backed this line, as did Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who told the European Parliament on 18 December that the EU must use its leverage in Syria to push for an inclusive political process that restored power to the Syrian people.

Goodwill extended 
At its core, the West’s position reiterated the principles of UNSCR 2254. Sharaa said all the right things about a peaceful and inclusive future for Syria that the West wanted to hear, but he was unequivocal in rejecting foreign-imposed conditionality. When the BBC confronted him on 18 December with Western skepticism about his commitment to governance reforms and human rights, Sharaa called for an end to sanctions but emphasised that:

What matters to me most is that the Syrian people believe me. We promised the Syrian people that we would liberate them from this criminal regime and we did that. This is what matters to me first and last. I don’t very much care about what is said about us abroad. I am not obligated to prove to the world that we work seriously to achieve the interests of our people in Syria.

Sharaa made it clear that he wouldn’t beg for sanctions relief, nor conform to a Western-imposed checklist. UNSCR is of course not merely a “wish list”. It is a resolution that is binding under international law. The very notion of legal obligations has been severely undermined, however, by the West’s own selective approach to international law — most notably its passive and active support for the flagrant violations in Gaza. Sharaa underlined his stance when he rebuffed UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen’s overtures, dismissing the UN’s past efforts as fruitless. European diplomats nevertheless continued their diplomatic circuit, issuing repeated calls for inclusivity while engaging in extensive travel and photo ops. Sharaa’s government, meanwhile, maintained its reassuring rhetoric.

On 6 January the US issued General License 24, granting limited sanctions relief. The EU followed with similar measures, and the UK introduced further exemptions on 6 March. These concessions came despite a growing list of actions by the Sharaa government that contradicted the principles outlined in UNSCR 2254. The caretaker government, intended to be limited in scope, overstepped its mandate early on by appointing foreign fighters to senior military positions and taking decisions far beyond a transitional framework. The National Dialogue lacked the meaningful and inclusive participation envisioned in the Geneva Communiqué. The Constitutional Declaration did not emerge from a broad-based consultation, and it served primarily to entrench Sharaa’s largely unchecked authority for the next five years. The caretaker government’s expiration date of 1 March was quietly ignored; and on 30 March, a new cabinet was appointed — dominated by HTS figures and overseen by a newly created body: the General Secretariat for Political Affairs. Headed by Shaibani, the Secretariat has been given sweeping authority to interfere in ministerial affairs at its own discretion. Meanwhile, the coastal massacres have shattered optimism in Western capitals that sectarian mass violence was a thing of the past.

Despite these developments (which diplomats in conversations with Syria in Transition described as “deeply troubling”) European governments have continued to support Sharaa. They’ve pledged humanitarian and development assistance and maintained political engagement; but planning for broader or permanent sanctions relief is notably absent. A key reason is their wait-and-see approach toward the Trump administration. Developments in June will be crucial, as they will include the confirmation of Joel Rayburn as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (and likely Syria point man) and also the extension or the cancellation of General License 24.

Post-conflict make believe
To enable a process of reciprocal concessions, critics continue to call on the West to define clear, incremental benchmarks for lifting sanctions. This mirrors earlier debates when Assad was around. Such arguments, however, ignore realities. The core principles of UNSCR 2254 are straightforward. If Sharaa’s government was genuinely committed to an inclusive transition, Western foreign ministries would not need to elaborate further roadmaps to attract engagement: the doors would already be wide open. Besides serious doubts about whether this commitment exists, however, is an absence of conditions that would make such a process viable. A truly inclusive transition requires more than just superficial reforms. It needs a unified and pacified country, or at the very least, a structured political process designed to achieve that. 

Syria, however, remains deeply fragmented and remains in the throes of conflict. The de facto division that occurred during years of war persists, and Sharaa’s power is precarious — upheld by fragile deals with regime holdovers, warlords, and military factions that have no interest in surrendering their fiefdoms. The Syrian Democratic Forces’ rejection of both the Constitutional Declaration and the transitional government is just one manifestation of this broader instability. Other fault lines include the Druze insistence on relative autonomy for their area in the south, the likelihood of prolonged insurgency along the coast, the enduring presence of Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) strongholds in the north, and the ever-looming threat of an Islamic State resurgence. On top of all that, foreign powers continue to seek to retain their stakes in Syria through the client relationships they have cultivated over the years. In this reality, ‘inclusive governance’ and ‘transitional justice’ can be little more than empty slogans.

The Israel factor
Israel looms large in this situation. Regardless of assurances from Damascus, Tel Aviv is unlikely to tolerate an Islamist-led government with jihadist pedigree on its doorstep. Normalising Sharaa through any sanctions relief would amount to a vote of confidence that Israel and its Western allies are unwilling to provide – and that would influence the intra-Syrian conflict decisively in favour of Sharaa. The recent US decision to downgrade the diplomatic visas of Syrian UN-accredited staff is a clear signal that while the West may not explicitly oppose Sharaa, it certainly won’t endorse him. 

Sanctions were initially intended to block the rehabilitation of Assad. The same logic applies now to Sharaa — especially as long as Israel continues to veto his normalisation. One circulating idea that might alter Israel’s calculus is that Trump could negotiate a deal in which Syria accepted to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Such a move, however, would place European and regional actors in an impossible position, requiring them to abandon long-held positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and disregard international law once and for all.

Need for a process  
The broader context here is one of transition — not just for Syria, but for the entire Middle East. The Trump administration, despite its unpredictability, is likely to pursue a regional architecture based on its traditional major allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, that excludes Iran and seeks to pressure Russia and China. Within that landscape, and with the intra-Syrian conflict ongoing, sanctions relief must be seen for what it is: a political step that legitimises the ruling Islamist elites of post-Assad Syria and an endorsement of the regional order into which the new Syria is being integrated. Advocacy groups may continue to call for decoupling humanitarian needs from political considerations, but — as was the case with Assad — they conveniently ignore that such a decision would empower Sharaa, whose autocratic tendencies are evident in what remains an ongoing and internationalised civil war.

At the same time, the continued enforcement of sanctions implies a responsibility: those imposing them must invest seriously in the diplomatic architecture required for a comprehensive political solution and meaningful transition. That means creating a credible and realistic international process — whether through a reformed UN, a regional mechanism, or something entirely new. Without a serious political initiative grounded in the complex reality of Syria’s ongoing conflict and the region’s transformation, the West’s justification for maintaining sanctions looks dangerously thin. The choice is clear: either give up on leverage and lift sanctions unilaterally (and live with the consequences), or create a serious process to have them lifted that involves all the major relevant players.