Lifting the Caesar sanctions: A long-overdue opportunity for Syria and a test for its new leaders

The decision last week by the US to lift the Caesar Act sanctions imposed on Syria is, without exaggeration, one of the most consequential and constructive shifts in international policy toward the country since the civil war began in 2011.

For years, the sanctions were framed as a tool of pressure meant to induce political change. In reality, they were a blunt instrument that deepened human suffering, froze economic life and locked Syria into a cycle of paralysis.

Their removal signals a long-overdue recognition that rebuilding societies requires engagement, not permanent isolation. The move should be welcomed, not only as a humanitarian necessity but as a strategic recalibration rooted in realism.

Syria endured more than a decade of conflict, displacement and economic collapse. The Caesar sanctions did not exist in a vacuum; they compounded the war’s damage by suffocating the very mechanisms needed for recovery. By lifting them, Washington has opened a door that had been shut: the door to normalization of economic life, gradual reconstruction and political responsibility.

For ordinary Syrians, this decision is profoundly meaningful. Sanctions did not punish abstract power structures, they punished normal daily life. They restricted imports of essential goods, discouraged investment in hospitals and infrastructure, and crippled the currency.

Lifting them creates immediate space for economic relief, for humanitarian organizations to operate at scale, and for the stabilization of basic services to begin. It offers Syrians the possibility that tomorrow might be marginally better than today.

For the new leadership in Syria, the lifting of the Caesar sanctions is both empowering and clarifying. It is empowering because it removes the single most significant external obstacle to economic recovery. It is clarifying because it strips away the excuses.

For years, sanctions provided a convenient explanation for everything that failed to function. With that barrier gone, governance will now be judged on performance, not circumstance. This is precisely why the decision is so positive. It recenters responsibility where it belongs: on leadership, institutions and policy choices.

Sanctions relief gives the Syrian leadership a rare opportunity to redefine its relationship with its society and the world. Economic recovery, if managed transparently and inclusively, can begin to restore public trust.

Jobs, salaries, services and reconstruction are not merely economic indicators, they send political signals. They tell citizens whether the state exists to manage survival or to enable progress. The lifting of sanctions allows Damascus to pivot from crisis management toward state-building, from endurance to development.

By removing sanctions, the US has acknowledged that progress requires a foundation of economic viability.

Hani Hazaimeh

Regionally, the move also carries stabilizing potential. Syria’s isolation has never been cost-free for its neighbors; Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkiye have all paid the price for a collapsed Syrian economy through refugee pressure, disrupted trade, insecurity and informal economies. Allowing Syria to reenter regional markets, rebuild infrastructure, and restore trade routes serves collective interests. Stability in Syria is not an act of charity, it is in the regional self-interest.

The US decision also aligns more closely with an emerging Arab consensus that engagement, not exclusion, is the path forward. Over the past two years, Arab states have cautiously reengaged with Damascus, driven by a sober assessment that Syria’s collapse benefits no one. Lifting the Caesar sanctions harmonizes American policy with this regional reality, reducing policy contradictions and opening space for coordinated diplomatic and economic initiatives.

Importantly, the lifting of sanctions does not mean abandonment of principles. Accountability, reform and reconciliation remain essential. But there is a growing recognition that accountability cannot be pursued in a vacuum of economic ruin.

Societies that are starving cannot reform. Bankrupt states cannot reconcile. Reconstruction and justice are not opposing tracks, they are sequential and interdependent. By removing sanctions, the US has acknowledged that progress requires a foundation of economic viability.

What comes next will determine whether the US decision becomes a genuine turning point. For Syria, the priority must now be to translate sanctions relief into tangible improvements in people’s lives. That means facilitating investment, rebuilding infrastructure, restoring education and healthcare, and creating an environment in which the private sector can function legally and competitively. It also means addressing corruption and administrative inefficiency, which sanctions once masked but now stand exposed.

For the international community, particularly Western capitals, the next phase should focus on structured engagement. Reconstruction must be guided by transparency, oversight and partnerships with international institutions. Humanitarian aid should evolve into development support. Dialogue should replace diktats. Syria does not need blank checks, but it does need clear pathways back into the global system.

This moment also presents an opportunity to rethink, more broadly, how post-conflict recovery is approached. Punitive isolation has repeatedly failed across the region. Engagement, conditional cooperation and economic reintegration have a better record of producing gradual but sustainable change. Syria may now become a test case for whether the world has learned that lesson.

The lifting of the Caesar sanctions does not mark the end of Syria’s long road but it is a necessary beginning. It restores agency to the Syrian people, responsibility to their leaders, and credibility to international policy. Most importantly, it replaces the politics of punishment with the possibility of renewal.

After years of enforced stagnation, allowing Syria the chance to breathe is not a concession. It is an investment in stability, in recovery, and in the belief that societies heal not through perpetual pressure but through opportunity, accountability and hope.

• Hani Hazaimeh is a senior editor based in Amman. X: @hanihazaimeh