In 2025, Rob Geist Pinfold wrote, “The March Massacres Show That Syria Urgently Needs Solutions, Not Sanctions,” in which he argued that sanctions relief was a major way the West could positively engage with the new Syrian government. A year later, after sanctions relief materialized and the United States removed Syria from its list of terrorism sponsors, we asked him to revisit his arguments and reassess President Ahmed al Sharaa’s leadership, both foreign and domestic. Image: Voice of America via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2025 article, you argued that one way the West should engage with post-Assad Syria was through sanctions relief. Since then, both the Trump administration and the European Union have eased sanctions on Syria. What effects have we seen from this relief so far, and has it opened the door to better relations between Syria and Western countries the way you expected? In retrospect, the pace of sanctions relief went considerably further and faster than the limited relief available when I wrote my original article. In 2025, the Trump administration terminated the comprehensive U.S. sanctions program, and Congress subsequently repealed the Caesar Act in December of the same year. Other actors, such as the United Kingdom and the European Union, soon followed. This has allowed investors from Turkey and the Gulf states, among others, to sign deals with Damascus worth billions of dollars. Saudi Arabia and Qatar also cleared Syria’s $15.5 million in arrears to the World Bank, making it eligible for new financing after a 14-year suspension.This does not mean that there are no longer any barriers to investment in Syria. Corruption remains a problem, as does the haphazard nature of the bureaucracy. The country is still unstable. It hosts an escalating jihadist insurgency, regime-remnant forces, and an Israeli occupation of parts of Syria, alongside a Druze separatist quasi-state.
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In 2025, Rob Geist Pinfold wrote, “The March Massacres Show That Syria Urgently Needs Solutions, Not Sanctions,” in which he argued that sanctions relief was a major way the West could positively engage with the new Syrian government. A year later, after sanctions relief materialized and the United States removed Syria from its list of terrorism sponsors, we asked him to revisit his arguments and reassess President Ahmed al Sharaa’s leadership, both foreign and domestic. Image: Voice of America via Wikimedia CommonsIn your 2025 article, you argued that one way the West should engage with post-Assad Syria was through sanctions relief.
