US renews sanctions against Syria

In the FT, here

"...The sanctions, which were introduced by the Bush administration in 2004, will remain in place for another year, a state department official told the Financial Times.

The order mainly affects weapons trade, Syrian Air, and the property of people with links to anti-Israeli groups including Hamas, Hizbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad....

“Unfortunately, it remains Syrian policy to continue a destabilising agenda in the region,” representatives Mark Kirk (Republican-Illinois) and Eliot Engel (Democrat-New York) wrote in a letter to the president.

“Weakening sanctions now, just before the Lebanese parliamentary election in June, would embolden Syria’s attitude toward Lebanon and potentially cause certain factions to question the new administration’s resolve regarding Lebanon’s independence,” they said.

But Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at Oklahoma university, said that renewing the sanctions sent the wrong signal. “It was promulgated by the Bush White House, which believed that it could break Syria through a combination of economic, judicial, military and diplomatic pressure. Intimidation did not work,” Mr Landis wrote in a posting on his Syria Comment blog.

“Obama has promised that he will change the nature of US relations in the region. If he renews the Bush sanctions it will be a step in the wrong direction. What impression will it leave in Damascus or the Arab street? Certainly not a good one,” he wrote..."