With an associate degree in finance and banking from Damascus University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University, his past experiences are extensive and include researching the framework of political imprisonment in Syria as the Syria expert at the Center for Transitional Justice and co-founding an organization called People Demand Change. While serving as the organization’s vice president, Qutaiba Idlbi managed and evaluated governance, civil society strengthening, and peacebuilding programs in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.
Idlbi is also a 2013 Leaders for Democracy fellow with the Middle East Partnership Initiative at the US Department of State and a 2016 peace exchange fellow with the Dalai Lama!
Idlbi currently serves as a board member of multiple organizations advancing accelerated education, skills training, and women empowerment across refugee communities in the Middle East. He is also a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs where he leads the Council’s work on Syria.
SYRIAWISE spoke with Qutaiba Idlbi from his office in Washington, D.C.
SYRIAWISE: As a financial expert, how effective do you think U.S. sanctions have been in pressuring the Assad regime or have they been affecting ordinary Syrians more negatively than the regime itself?
I think a lot of attention has been given to the Caesar Act but the history of sanction programs started a while ago. I think the most important sanction program that currently exists in Syria is not the Cesar Act; rather it’s the Syria Accountability Act that was passed in 2003 because of Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, and it truly outlines a lot of the economically restrictive policies on Syria. So if we’re thinking about impact economically, the impact of the Syria Accountability Act is bigger. The Caesar Act is actually focused more on not allowing a reconstruction fund. So it basically criminalizes reconstruction funds in Syria in the absence of a political transition. The idea is you don’t want the regime to think, Hey, it’s okay to kill over half a million people and then we’ll give you billions of dollars out of just political calculations.
That is the overall strategic piece there. And the other piece, which is very important, is that it doesn’t really put a siege on the regime or Syria, because I think we really judge sanctions usually based on the impact it had in Iraq. But Iraq had not just US sanctions, they had UN sanctions which means every country in the world needed to comply with those sanctions. And it truly had a big impact on Iraqis. The difference in Syria is that US sanctions are US sanctions. So if you are part of the Western Club and you want to remain part of the Western Club that the US oversees, you can’t deal with the regime. But it doesn’t really close the door to the regime. They can still deal as they are now with India or China or Russia. So in a way, it pushes the regime to depend on the club that it already adopted a long time ago.
But more importantly, the main impact of the Caesar Act is that it puts the regime on the map to not have access to the money it has hidden in Western tax havens over the last few decades. Because what sanctions are really doing is telling the private sector “We have a big problem with Syria, but we have a bigger problem with the ruling class in Syria.” The US government doesn’t really have full access to those tax havens because they are used by so many people. But in a sense, what happened is that the regime is not able to move money around because when a transaction happens in US dollars, this will all come back to the US. So in a sense, you are not allowing the regime to liquify any of those outside assets, around $70 million, in order to help themselves.
So that is the main impact when it comes on the regime itself, but what really has the biggest impact on ordinary Syrians is the fact that Syria is one of very few countries that are listed by the US government as a state sponsor of terrorism, which really means for a lot of the private sector that you can’t truly engage with anything related to Syria. So when it comes to banking, let’s say a company in Syria needs to do transactions with the world outside, but because Syria is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, no bank anywhere in the world would want to do a transaction with Syria that has to go through the Syrian Central Bank.
“the issue around sanctions and their impact is very complicated. It doesn’t mean they don’t have an impact on ordinary people”
Qutaiba Idlbi
Because Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism, it means that the state is using all of its institutions to support terrorism, including the Syrian Central Bank. So no one wants to get into that territory where they’re actually enabling, or part of supporting, a terrorism scheme. So in a sense, the issue around sanctions and their impact is very complicated. It doesn’t mean they don’t have an impact on ordinary people, but I think the bigger question is have they impacted the regime in the two ways I mentioned; first by preventing the regime from accessing its financing in the Western tax havens, and second by preventing supporters of the regime in the west or in the circles around it from providing financial support as a prize for the war that the regime has been conducting for the last 10 years.
Having said that, are there mechanisms needed to be put in place to make sure that the side impact of sanctions is not really hurting the Syrian people? Absolutely, they are needed, and I think this is the challenge we have with the US government right now is putting more effort, time, and attention to actually having a more nuanced sanction policy where we’re actively making sure the regime doesn’t get the financial prize as I mentioned while at the same time making sure that there are solutions in place to ensure that the lives of ordinary Syrians are not impacted.
SYRIAWISE: What key strategies do you believe Syrian American advocates should take to ensure Syria remains a priority in US policy? In other words, how can we as a Syrian community here in the states make the most impact with the incoming Trump administration?
I apologize for being unconventional, but I don’t like beating around the bush. In a sense, I don’t think Syria will be a priority for any administration. And let me just define that. When you say a policy issue is a priority, it means that it’s on the president’s table and he and his cabinet, the heads of the agencies and the departments, are thinking of it. As an American, if I’m thinking 20 years ahead strategically, I would be like, oh yeah, definitely you should think about Syria. But the reality is that everyone thinks about their four years in office. So despite our best efforts and arguments for keeping Syria on the table, US policy makers are not buying that. So I’m not going to hedge. My issue right now as a Syrian advocate is not really to make it a priority.
“my task here is to think of Syria as a thousand pieces puzzle and then I try to pick pieces of that puzzle and give them to different government officials to work on”
Qutaiba Idlbi
My issue is to make sure that there continues to be work on advancement of Syrian issues. So in a sense, how can the US government continue to do more on Syria in a sustainable way? How can we continue to make Syria an issue that the US government will continue to engage on if it’s not on the highest levels? Actually, as a piece of the working puzzle. So my task here is to think of Syria as a thousand pieces puzzle and then I try to pick pieces of that puzzle and give them to different government officials to work on.
In my mind, I know how those pieces connect and as much as possible I try to connect those pieces. But from a government perspective, it’s a small enough piece that they don’t have to think about how much politically or financially or otherwise it will cost them when the area is not a priority. So when we think about regime change, or building a free democratic Syria, we need to be realistic enough to understand that this will take a while and then try to think strategically over the next decade or two, how can I break that goal into those small pieces that I have described. We need to help our allies to make Syria easy for them to resolve.
“Assad does not believe in a political solution”
Qutaiba Idlbi
As a practical example, a lot of people are saying, let’s arm the free Syrian army so they can take over all of Syria because Assad doesn’t believe in a political solution. He believes only in the military. And while I agree with the premise that Assad does not believe in a political solution, before we get to you taking arms and just liberating all of Syria, how about we start with the first step that you are able to protect the areas that you already have before you take more because right now the reality is that Turkey is protecting those areas. How about we start by establishing, for example, a security agency that is able to make sure there is no infiltration, there are no terrorist groups, there is no infiltration from PKK or ISIS or any other groups, and people are actually genuinely secure.
How about we make sure that the existing armed groups actually have a separation, they’re separated from civilian infrastructure and that there is a clear command and control structure where they’re not intervening in daily life. Let’s secure those small areas we have. Show that we can function as institutions. Those areas are pretty small. If you’re successful there, then maybe you can convince others that you can do that on a larger scale in all of Syria. So start with those smaller stats and then we can see how we can get to the bigger volume you’re talking about.
SYRIAWISE: Some Syrians living in the U.S. have been concerned about the authoritarian leanings of president-elect Trump and others see him as the better alternative for garnering support for the Syrian cause. Are there any challenges you think Syrian Americans might face with the incoming Trump administration?
I think sometimes there are expectations that as Syrian Americans we need to have the same opinion, and the same position on everything. You know the stories of Mohammad, of Jesus, of Moses, they were prophets from God and when they came to Earth, they had those from their people, from their own families, who disagreed with them. And if Jesus were to come back now, he would not have the support of everyone. There will be supporters and there will be people who stand against him and try to kill him. So I think we have a little bit of obsession, understandably, around unity.
I think part of that is an inheritance from al Baath. We need to be unified in the sense of realizing the importance of the shared space between us as a community. But beyond that, unification doesn’t mean having the same opinion or being always on the same page. Going back to your campaign or position on candidates, it definitely does not mean that Syrian Americans should all support the same candidates. I think it’s actually brilliant and great that you have people from the same community who support Democratic candidates, who support Republican candidates. Because whether we have a Republican administration or a Democratic administration, if we have members of our community who supported the candidates on both sides and participated in their campaigns, we can continue to have those channels of communication.
“I think as Americans we are privileged to have the experience of learning how we can actually disagree with each other but continue to live with each other”
Qutaiba Idlbi
That is the rational, reasonable thing to do. When we talk about freedom and democracy, even in a free and democratic Syria the back party will still be there and that’s something that people don’t talk about a lot. The regime or the Assad family, I think many of them will still be there. I think as Americans we are privileged to have the experience of learning how we can actually disagree with each other but continue to live with each other , which is something we as Syrians need to think about. If you can’t respect other people’s right to believe something different, then there is no point of actually working for a democratic Syria.
Going back to the campaign’s position on Syria overall, look, the United States’ strategy towards Syria has been the same since 2015. Basically push for a cease fire, push for reconciliation between Assad and the opposition. Reconciliation, not regime change and try basically to contain the conflict. That was the strategy of the second Obama administration, that was the strategy of the Trump administration, and that is the strategy of the Biden administration. And I don’t think that will change. What is changing is the way the strategy is implemented.
So Obama implemented this by providing a lot of humanitarian support, support to civil society and political support to the opposition by recognizing the opposition and giving them that political respect. Trump did that by maximum pressure, do more sanctions on the regime and escalate to de-escalate with Iran. Basically, using a military option limited to Iran to establish deterrence. Biden is thinking that the only way to resolve this is maybe to try to engage with Assad and convince him to reconcile with the opposition; instead of putting more pressure, actually releasing pressure. But it’s all for the same strategy.
Note from the Editor: Since interviewing Qutaiba Idlbi, circumstances in Syria have drastically changed. The Iranians, Russians, and Bashar Assad have fled the country and the Syrian opposition has gained control of Syria. Currently, Syrians all over the world are experiencing a mixture of elation that Assad is gone, anxiety about who may ultimately be in control, and in some cases the freedom to express decades of repressed anger that have led to acts of revenge such as the toppling of Assad monuments and the burning of Hafez Assad’s tomb.
While these events have resulted in freeing Syrians from the brutal control of 54 years of Assad family rule, there is much that needs to be done in terms of rebuilding a new Syria and advocacy for Syrian issues by Qutaiba Idlbi and other Syrian Americans in Washington, D.C. will continue.
