بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The File of Lifting Sanctions: A Cheap Western Blackmail Card to Impose their Vision of Governance in Syria
(Translated)
By Ustadh Nasser Sheikh Abdul Hayy
On 27 January, 2025, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated, “Our decision today to ease these sanctions for the first time is good news for the people of Syria, but it is also good news for us Europeans.” However, she emphasized, “That is not a blank check (Das ist kein Blankoscheck)” calling for continued close monitoring of developments in Syria. Baerbock stated, “The EU will not become a financier of new extremist, terrorist or Islamist structures (Die EU wird nicht Geldgeber für neue extremistische, terroristische oder islamistische Strukturen werden)” adding that Syria’s future remains unclear 50 days after the fall of Assad.
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen stressed that “we want to encourage the government and the leadership and the administration in Syria to really be inclusive in all of its decision-making and planning for the future. So it is extremely important that all religious groups, and of course all sects in the society, are taken into account in this work,” making this a prerequisite for easing sanctions. European diplomats revealed that the goal is to retain influence through gradual sanctions relief and “emergency brakes,” meaning sanctions could swiftly be re-imposed if human rights conditions under Syria’s new leadership deteriorate.
The suspended sanctions were related to Syria’s energy, transportation, and banking sectors, which had negatively impacted energy supplies and the movement of people and goods. European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas, after a meeting of EU foreign ministers on January 27, 2025, announced a roadmap for sanctions relief, adding that, “While we aim to move fast, we also are ready to reverse the course if the situation worsens.” She emphasized EU monitoring of Syria’s new leadership and that the European Union was “ready to open” its embassy in Damascus, “to really have our eyes and ears on the ground.” Kallas warned that “What we are not relieving, of course, is anything related to arms and arm dealing.” So, Kallas cautioned Syria’s new administration against wrong steps that could prompt EU backtracking.
French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné linked European and French security to Syria’s stability, asserting that sanctions relief would cover energy, transportation, and financial institutions. He demanded firm measures to combat terrorism’s resurgence, though some EU members expressed reservations, seeking concrete guarantees from Syria’s new government on political transition.
Syria’s transitional Foreign Minister, Asaad Al-Shihabi, welcomed the partial suspension of sanctions, calling it a “positive step.” Meanwhile, former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously conditioned recognition of Syria’s new government on four principles: a credible, inclusive, non-sectarian rule aligned with UN Security Council Resolution 2254; full minority rights; preventing Syria from becoming a terrorist base; and securing chemical/biological weapons stockpiles. Ambassador Dorothy Shea, the US Deputy Representative to the United Nations, stated on 8 January 2025, “As we have made clear, the United States supports a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. This process should result in an inclusive and representative government that fully respects the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Syrians, including women and Syria’s diverse communities.”
After reviewing the above, we can clearly say that America and the Western countries are sparing no effort in maliciously exploiting the “lifting of sanctions” file as a cheap blackmail card. It is a Damocles’ sword hanging over the neck of the current ruling administration in Syria. This is to subjugate Syria to American and European dictates and their vision of the form of the ruling system in Syria, to be purely secular with no contribution of Islam and its Shairah rulings.
The rulings system is to be based on the Western capitalist vision and its controls for the new rule, with dirty exploitation of the current difficult economic situation that the country is experiencing due to the criminality of the defunct regime, and its squandering of the money and wealth of Muslims in Syria, by mobilizing mercenaries to fight them, whilst buying weapons to pour its lava over their heads.
Western politicians’ repeated references to “combating terrorism” target Islam and those striving to implement it as a governing system, exposing their determination to block Islam’s comprehensive governance model. Their threats to re-impose sanctions unless their conditions are met further confirm this agenda. By pledging not to fund “extremist or Islamic structures,” they aim to shape Syria’s political vacuum to safeguard colonial interests.
The repetition of the phrase “fighting terrorism” by the spiteful Western politicians, by which they only mean Islam and those working to implement under a state, shows the West’s keenness to prevent Islam as a complete way of life, from reaching the seat of power.
Their brazen statements also confirm their determination to re-impose sanctions unless their conditions and controls for the form of the new ruling system are adhered to.
Their assertion that they will not be financiers of “new extremist, terrorist or Islamist structures” is only due to their keenness to fill the political vacuum in Syria, in a way that does not pose a threat to the West’s vision, interests, and renewed colonialist aspirations.
The policy of political blackmail, pressures and dictates practiced by America and Western countries are not met with messages of reassurance and appeasement, nor with an appearance of moderation. Rather, the position required by Sharia and reason is the firm, independent, principled position that is required by faith, belief and principle.
As our Lord Almighty has told us, they will not be satisfied with us until we follow their religion. It is a Shariah obligation to work on the independence of decision-making, no matter the difficulties and sacrifices. Our societies will not enjoy security except by ending the American and Western colonialist influence from the country and purging its political medium of it and all its tools, including embassies, institutions, and humanitarian and human rights organizations.
It is not surprising that the West seeks to exploit sanctions and blockades, as this is its habit of hating Islam and deceiving its people. However, what is required is to search for alternatives and prepare to confront these difficulties and challenges, by organizing domestic security and food security, and investing the available energy resources and wealth for the benefit of the people to strengthen their production capacity towards self-sufficiency, as much as possible, to fulfill the basic necessities of life as a step towards independence and restoring independence in decision-making, through agricultural, industrial and economic policies that suit the circumstances of the situation. This is with the necessity of a serious effort to seize back the available wealth of oil and phosphate, whilst cooperating with industrialists and producers to provide cheap goods to meet the basic needs of the people.
Finally, making tawwakul (dependence) on Allah (swt), taking the Shariah legal material means, and refraining from all the stances, means, methods, and tools that the Shariah has forbidden, will move us from a state of distress to a state of abundance, inshaa’ Allah. The One (swt) who granted us victory over a tyrannical tyrant, with whom all the enemies of Islam stood, Allah (swt), is able to honor us by crowning our sacrifices with the ruling by Islam, under the shadow of the Khilafah Rashidah (second rightly-guided Caliphate). For such great good, let those who work, work.
* Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Syria