Scoop: U.S. raises concerns about attacks on minorities with new Syrian government

[u/Currymvp2]

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/30/syria-us-meeting-attacks-alawites

[u/kaesura]

From the experts, the levels of sectarian violence are far below expected levels.Especially since hts foot soldiers basically all have family members killed by the assad regime who delibaretly made alawites vastly over reprsented in the security appartus. Positioning it that alawites had to be brutual towards civilians to avoid being killed by the angry sunni majority

Syria across sects are unified in celebration of the assad regime being gone. HTS has come out and said they will only proscute the worst offenders and gave all conscripts amnnesty. Despite that, there is a big viral campaign to promote sectarian violence to takedown the new regime

Alot of the viral videos are old , aren't hts ( old videos of Assad or isis, news one sna and bandits impersonating hts ).There has been some unacceptable violence but far below expected levels and frankly at the level found in almost every military.

hts soldiers are primarily beating up some armed militants that resist arrest. hts are primarily arresting two groups .

The first the most infamous war criminals in Syria . This isn't just Alawites but also Sunnis .But these people are basically Syrian Nazis . They spread social media posts feeding prisoners to their pet lion. Or are known for massacring dozens of children . When this happens, soldiers across all countries whose families have been killed by people like them , aren't going to be nice arresting them let alone in the middle east.

Second group are Alawite/Sunni militias/crime gangs that have refused to disband. These militias have been ambushing hts soldiers including killing 14 in one day. In return , hts used classic anti insurgency tactics against these militias . Suspects who resisted arrest after shooting at hts soldiers are often beat up.

At the same time , hts has been careful to not abusive civilian or demobilized soldiers . With officers punishing soldiers who do so and hts has been holding sessions with local Alawite leadership to ensure mutual safety .

Lastly , this burst of violence has already calmed down . Hts show of force encouraged militants to turn on their guns to reconciliation centers. The Alawite militias realized they couldn't fight back. In return , hts has deceased their sweeps Alawite leaders also put out statements supporting hts and denouncing violence .

So this complaint is rich coming from the state department who was in talks to normalize with the Assad regime who committed 100x this stuff daily

https://x.com/Charles_Lister/status/1873829995203952714

[u/Creative_Hope_4690 → u/kaesura]

How is rich coming for the state department to raise this issue?

We raise issues with all our Middle East partners when they do bad things despite working with them.

[u/kaesura → u/Creative_Hope_4690]

Mostly annoyed since USA hasn't even temporaily waived the sanctions cripplingly syria that were put on syria to get assad out. they can always put them back if the current government goes evil.

but right now, the government wants to improve electricity for everyone and improve other basic services. our sanctions literally prohibit anyone from doing so.

[u/Creative_Hope_4690 → u/kaesura]

What? You expect sanction to be removed during a lame duck session and without knowing how the government will move forward?

And for that reason the state department should not raise human rights concerns? I am personally a realist think human rights concert is to heavily centred by the US and the west for that example but your logic does not follow.

[u/kaesura → u/Creative_Hope_4690]

I am talking about temporary waivers on a sub section of the sanctions that were designed to topple a man who killed 600K of his population not to be make syria a better governed country than jordan.

and considering that the united states is not speaking out about israel firing on two different sets of unarmed protestors in newly occupied syrian territory, their words ring very hallow.

[u/Creative_Hope_4690 → u/kaesura]

Lol 😂 good one let’s remove sanctions without knowing how the new government will govern.

[u/kaesura → u/Creative_Hope_4690]

the sanctions could cause the new government to fall apart leading to a most worst situation

and the new government has already been governing better than the majority of middle eastern countries, including ones we are allied with.

i am advocating for temporary waivers that can easily be put back on the government turns evil.

[u/Creative_Hope_4690 → u/kaesura]

The rebels that took down Assad that now have more resources are at risk of collapsing?

[u/kaesura → u/Creative_Hope_4690]

so many new governments fall apart because they aren't able to deliver basic services for their population. funding the military isn't the problem.

the issue is the civilian population running out of fuel for their electricity generators since that was supplied by iran. cities losing access to electricity is exactly something that can cause societal wide unrest and is extremely preventable.

do you want to push the new government back into the arms of iran and russia because they can actually supply them with basic things that the sanctions prohibit?

temporarily lifting sanctions to allow surges in humanitarian aid is the smart thing for the usa to do but the usa refuses.

minorities care far more about reliable electricity verus a few dozen torturers and mass murders getting beaten up.

[u/Creative_Hope_4690 → u/kaesura]

Humanitarian aid are exempt from sanction the state department has a history of giving billions of aid even under Assad.

[u/kaesura → u/Creative_Hope_4690]

caesar sanctions literally prohibit any aid for syria's electricity sector. they designed the sanctions so it would be impossible for assad to rebuild syria.

yes food aid is allowed but stuff that is super needed right now is prohibitited.

[u/Creative_Hope_4690 → u/kaesura]

The state deportment has a method of giving weavers if warranted. You are asking for full lift of sanctions for “temporary” undefined period.

[u/kaesura → u/Creative_Hope_4690]

these sanctions were implented because assad was gassing his population with chemical weapons. the new government is trying to resume basic services for assad's victims.

and the usa state department is standing in the new government's way and pushing them towards iran and russia out of inertia.

and yes the state department has historically waived sanctions for a preset period of time- for example when syria was hit by an major earthquake in 2019. nothing is stopping the usa from waiving some sanctions for a few months and resuming the sanctions even before that period expires if the new government behaves.

the amount of stuff they need done instantly means that the usa shouldn't make millions suffer to go through the hoops.

but instead the usa's standing in the way of reconstruction and the stablization of a destroyed country out of bureacratic inertia.

pushing the country away from the usa and the west towards countries that are actually help them regardless