In the News

Senate Clears Defense-Policy Bill, With a View Toward Punishing Syria

12/17/2019
The Wall Street Journal

The Senate approved a defense-policy bill that includes provisions intended to hold Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime responsible for crimes against civilians through new punitive measures.

The final version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which the House approved last week, cleared the Senate on Tuesday by an 86-8 vote. The measure authorizes $738 billion in military spending and includes a 3.1% pay increase for service members, an overhaul of military housing and creation of the U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the military. President Trump signed the bill in a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews Friday night.

The annual policy bill, which traditionally attracts measures unrelated to defense, also provides for paid parental leave for federal workers, as well as measures to impose sanctions aimed at preventing completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would carry Russian natural gas to Germany.

The Trump administration has campaigned against the completion of the $10.5 billion project, which officials warn would increase European energy dependence on Russia.

Mr. Trump expressed support for the overall measure on Twitter last week, saying: “All of our priorities have made it into the final NDAA.”

The measure incorporates legislation in the works for years, known as the Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act, which provides for sanctions against Mr. Assad and members of his regime.

The name of the legislation refers to the pseudonym of a Syrian defector who smuggled out evidence of what U.S. investigators call atrocities committed by the Assad regime. A former police officer, Caesar fled Syria with more than 50,000 images of victims of torture by the regime. He has testified in disguise before Congress, and remains in hiding.

Through an interpreter, Caesar told The Wall Street Journal: “After risking my life and the lives of my family to bring out the truth of Assad’s genocidal massacres and after years of advocating for the passage of the Caesar bill, I am eternally grateful to our friends in the House and Senate for this incredible achievement.”

The measure establishes as U.S. policy the use of “diplomatic and coercive means…to compel the government of Bashar al-Assad to halt its murderous attacks on the Syrian people and to support a transition to a government in Syria that respects the rule of law, human rights and peaceful co-existence with its neighbors.”

Under the law, administration officials now must determine whether the Central Bank of Syria is engaged in money laundering, and if so, impose penalties upon the institution.

It provides for sanctions against individuals who provide support to the Syrian government or military, or to Russian or Iranian forces operating within Syria. The legislation restricts transfers of funds, technology and property and bars violators from entering the U.S. It calls on the administration to continue providing humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, “including via international organizations,” and supporting efforts to gather evidence of human-rights violations by the Assad regime.

The legislation empowers the president to lift sanctions if he determines that the Syrian government and its allies have ceased their human-rights violations, including targeting civilians, employing chemical weapons and restricting international humanitarian assistance.

Caesar said the bill’s passage serves as “a reminder to Assad, Iran and Russia that they cannot continue massacring civilians in Syria with impunity.”

Rep. French Hill (R., Ark.), a cosponsor of the Caesar bill, said the measure’s passage has been “a long time coming,” citing the work of Syrian-American advocates, members of Congress and Caesar himself. Citing provisions directing the U.S. government to preserve evidence and support future efforts to adjudicate alleged war crimes, Mr. Hill said: “That’s the touchstone of the bill.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R., Idaho) said the measure “sends a loud message to those who seek to normalize or rehabilitate this criminal regime.”

The U.S. and Western allies have steadily ratcheted up sanctions against the Assad regime and its supporters since 2011 as a violent crackdown on protesters became a war that has killed hundreds of thousands.

Existing sanctions ban the use of Syrian petroleum products, investments in the country and most commercial transactions. Syrian assets within reach of U.S. authorities also have been blocked.

Although obstructing the Assad regime’s ability to finance and fuel its war, sanctions have yet to coerce the president into negotiating a permanent cease-fire or agreeing to a transition to a democratically elected government, as sought by Washington.

The measure previously has passed the House, but stalled in the Senate despite gaining support from the Trump administration, which has withdrawn U.S. forces from Syria and cut back on aid to anti-Assad rebels.

The White House said in November 2018 that the Caesar bill “would facilitate the continued use of economic sanctions and visa restrictions to hold accountable members of the Assad regime who are responsible for or complicit in the serious human-rights abuses and war crimes committed against innocent Syrians.”

Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, on Tuesday said the final legislation includes the core elements of the original Caesar bill, noting the sanctions provisions and mechanisms to penalize human-rights violators.

“What is most important now is the implementation of the law once the president signs it,” Mr. Moustafa said. In addition to providing the U.S. new leverage with Damascus, the measure strengthens the push for a political settlement, he said.

—Ian Talley contributed to this article.