AMERICAN lawmakers have introduced a bill to prohibit the United States from normalising diplomatic relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, and to levy further sanctions on the regional countries resuming their ties with Damascus, after Syria’s readmission to the Arab League.
The bill seeks to bar ‘any federal government department or agency from recognising or normalising with any government in Syria led by Bashar al-Assad,’ and expands on the Caesar Act, which imposed a tough round of sanctions on Damascus in 2020.
The legislation would require ‘an annual strategy for five years to counter normalisation’ with the Assad government by the countries which have taken steps to normalise relations with Damascus.
The bipartisan bill would also pave the way for sanctions to be imposed on the countries which engage in energy transactions with Syria and allow Syrian airlines to land in their airports.
‘The United States must use all of our leverage to stop normalisation with Assad,’ Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement on the bill. ‘I am proud to join my colleagues in mandating further sanctions against any form of investment in territory under the control of Assad.’
However, the action is too little too late! The horse has already bolted!
The legislation came days after Syria was readmitted to the Arab League, an incident that enraged US officials who intended to keep Syria isolated.
Senior US congressional staffers working on the bill issued a warning to Turkey and Arab countries that they could face severe consequences if they engaged with the Assad government.
The readmission of Syria to the Arab League really infuriated the US Congress which is desperate to hit back. Syria after all remains defiantly opposed to US and UK imperialism.
Arab government representatives in Cairo voted on Sunday to return Syria to the Arab League after a 12-year suspension, with all 13 of the 22 member states attending the session endorsing the decision.
The now not so staunch US ally, Saudi Arabia agreed in March to resume diplomatic relations with Syria and re-open embassies after more than a decade.
On Wednesday, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz invited Assad to attend an Arab League summit scheduled to be held in the Persian Gulf kingdom next week.
Meanwhile, the Israeli regime’s new assassination campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip has essentially sought to isolate the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance movement from Hamas.
The Israeli occupation military carried out a barrage of deadly strikes on the residences of PIJ leaders in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The strikes were carried out just after 2:00 am local time and claimed the lives of Khalil Bahtini, Jihad Ghanem and Tariq Ezz Ad-Din, three senior leaders of the Gaza-based PIJ movement, along with their spouses and children.
The strikes were a product of imperialist fears after the three resistance leaders were reportedly to head a mission to the Egyptian capital Cairo that day to discuss the rising tensions in the occupied territories and the Israeli regime’s relentless aggression.
On Thursday, two more PIJ officials, part of the al-Quds brigades, were assassinated in Israeli drone strikes, prompting a massive barrage of rockets from Gaza towards Tel Aviv and other occupied areas in retaliation. According to a PIJ military official, who spoke to Press TV on the condition of anonymity, the Zionists launched the attack to try to ‘isolate the resistance groups’.
‘They wanted to see Islamic Jihad isolated from our brothers in Hamas. This has failed and we fight as one force. An attack on one is an attack on all,’ he said.
The reality is that the Palestinan resistance movements are uniting, whilst the Israeli government becomes more and more extreme, and is opposed now by many Israelis.
With the major imperialist powers in a desperate economic and political crisis, the moment for the establishment of the State of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital, a state where Arabs, and Jews can live side by side, is fast approaching.
