In December 2019, the US Congress passed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act as one of the most stringent economic and political pressure tools imposed on the government of Bashar al-Assad. The law aimed to hold perpetrators of human rights violations and war crimes accountable while obstructing the Syrian state’s ability to pursue reconstruction. It was built on the assumption that sweeping sanctions could compel the authorities to change their behaviour or engage meaningfully in a political transition. Yet the law quickly expanded beyond targeting individuals, introducing secondary sanctions that affected companies, governments, and individuals outside Syria, making economic engagement with the country highly risky and fundamentally reshaping the structure of the Syrian economy.
Over the years of its implementation, the Caesar Act was enforced through successive executive packages that tightened restrictions on key sectors. This process fuelled growing debate over its humanitarian and social cost and over who ultimately bore its burden. With the fall of the former regime and a shift in Syria’s political landscape in late 2025, Washington moved to repeal the law legislatively as part of the defence budget – signaling the beginning of a new phase in which relations with Syria, as well as the role of sanctions in post-conflict recovery and reconstruction, are being reassessed.
Caesar Act: Technical Success, Strategic Failure
Lana Badfan, a researcher in international relations at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told +963 that the Caesar Act achieved its technical objective of choking off the former regime’s official economic channels, but failed to realize its political goals. According to her assessment, the law did not push the authorities to make concessions in international negotiation tracks or to commit to UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Instead, it encouraged what she describes as “negative adaptation” through the expansion of the shadow economy, deeper reliance on smuggling networks and the Captagon trade, and increased dependence on regional allies – most notably Iran.
Badfan argues that the most profound gap created by the law lay between those it was designed to target and those who actually paid its price. Ordinary Syrians, she says, bore the heaviest burden through currency collapse and the erosion of purchasing power, while sanctioned elites succeeded in turning restrictions into an opportunity to monopolize markets and become “crisis profiteers,” accumulating wealth from scarcity and rising prices. In this sense, the Caesar Act contributed to impoverishing society while reinforcing war-economy networks rather than weakening them.
A Short-Term Positive Shock
Badfan estimates that repealing the Caesar Act could generate a short-term “positive shock,” reflected in exchange-rate stabilization, easier financial transfers, and increased trade activity. However, she cautions against inflated expectations, stressing that Syria is unlikely to see a large-scale recovery plan akin to the Marshall Plan, given ongoing security risks, the absence of an attractive legal environment, and the reluctance of global companies to commit to long-term investments.
She views the repeal as the strongest international signal needed by the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa to consolidate legitimacy and open the door to reconstruction, allowing stalled sectors to restart and displaced populations to re-enter the economic cycle. At the same time, she highlights heavy internal challenges, including dismantling parallel economies run by armed factions, managing external debt – particularly to Russia and Iran – and addressing entrenched bureaucratic corruption, which does not disappear with the fall of a regime leader.
Syrian journalist Moayad Eskif, based in Switzerland, told +963 that the Caesar Act had a deep impact on the former regime’s structure, particularly its ability to finance military and economic institutions. He believes the law contributed to exhausting the regime from within and preventing the rehabilitation of the army and state institutions, making it one of several factors behind its gradual erosion.
Eskif notes that calls to repeal the law were widespread, both among the public and at official levels, due to the heavy burden placed on civilians. He hopes the repeal will translate into tangible improvements felt by Syrians through increased capital inflows and the conversion of past memoranda of understanding into concrete projects, even if progress remains gradual. Still, he emphasizes that any sustainable improvement depends on reforming state institutions – especially the judiciary – and creating a safe, transparent environment that protects citizens’ rights. Given the severe deterioration of services, infrastructure, and currency value, repeal alone, he argues, is necessary but insufficient without broad administrative and developmental reform.
A Critical Reassessment of Sanctions
Zaradasht Mohammad, a Syrian politician and human-rights advocate, offered +963 a more critical reading of the Caesar Act experience, arguing that the law was treated as a potential political change tool, but its actual outcomes demand a more realistic evaluation. From his perspective, the law did not alter the behavior of the former authorities; instead, it reinforced a confrontational narrative and provided justification for blaming sanctions for economic collapse, without being linked to a clear negotiation pathway or graduated political pressure.
Mohammad contends that the primary cost fell on the most vulnerable groups, small producers, and marginalized regions. Sanctions raised import costs, restricted financial transfers, and expanded black markets, enabling smuggling and monopoly networks to grow. He adds that northeastern Syria suffered disproportionately due to weak political recognition and the absence of alternative economic channels.
He warns that lifting sanctions may produce a short-term improvement driven by psychological factors, but such gains will remain fragile unless accompanied by political and institutional reforms that reorganize the relationship between the state and the market and curb rent-seeking and corruption. In his view, removing sanctions alone does not automatically lead to political change and may instead rehabilitate existing governance structures if not tied to a clear reform process.
Read also: Can Syria Deliver Economic Transitional Justice?
Sanctions Through the Lens of Society
From her perspective as a Syrian citizen, feminist politician Rowaida al-Harfoush from Suwayda, now residing in Belgium, told +963 that the Caesar Act failed politically while strengthening the war economy and deepening the former authorities’ dependence on allies. She describes the sanctions as pressure without political strategy, rendering them incapable of producing cumulative, effective leverage.
Al-Harfoush emphasizes that ordinary citizens – particularly unprotected groups and residents of peripheral areas – paid the highest price, while elites adapted through smuggling and informal transfers. Although she believes repeal may ease suffering, she stresses that it does not address the root problem unless accompanied by genuine governance reform and the construction of a state based on law and institutions.
Political analyst Milad Malek al-Atrash told +963 that the Caesar Act was never an effective tool for changing regime behavior but rather became a long-term punitive reality that froze both political and living conditions. He sees its repeal as a potential opening for gradual economic relief, including improved imports, financial transfers, and limited restoration of private-sector confidence, but insists sustainability hinges on internal reform, anti-corruption measures, and better economic management.
Hossam Al-Qass, a member of the media office of the Assyrian Democratic Organization and a board member of the Madaniya platform, described the sanctions to +963 as catastrophic for Syrians across all communities. He argues that the former regime possessed sufficient experience to circumvent them, while society absorbed their cost. In his view, repealing the law is essential to restarting the economy and rebuilding infrastructure, with positive implications not only for economic conditions but also for rights and political participation.
Ultimately, the trajectory of the Caesar Act exposes the limits of comprehensive sanctions as a tool for political change and highlights their heavy cost for fragile societies. While repealing the law is necessary to ease suffering and open a window for recovery, it does not, on its own, resolve Syria’s crisis. The country’s future remains tied to the new authorities’ ability to translate external openness into genuine internal reform and to build a state governed by law and institutions – placing Syria on a path toward sustainable stability rather than temporary relief within a deeply troubled reality.
