Reuters reported on Monday that the US plans to impose secondary sanctions on Syria later this week under the so-called “Caesar Act“. In the article titled “What do new U.S. sanctions mean for Syria?“, the outlet informed its audience that “U.S. congressional aides said they expect an announcement as soon as Wednesday.” The planned sanctions will target any entity across the world that does business in a wide array of industries in Syria, as well as “those dealing with Russian and Iranian entities in Syria”.

These plans are sadistic since they’re occurring against the backdrop of almost a decade of warfare and in the current context of both the country’s ongoing currency collapse and its efforts to contain COVID-19. Reuters even acknowledges that ordinary people might be further harmed by this planned move, writing that “Some Western non-governmental organisations, while saying Assad’s government deserves to be punished, are wary of any impact on civilians.”

Nevertheless, it’s clear that the intention is purely political, as noted when the outlet predicted that “As economic conditions worsen further, there is also the possibility of a new wave of unrest”. In other words, the US hopes that making Syrians even more desperate than they already are could catalyze another Color Revolution at one of the country’s most critical moments in its history, which could then be exploited for regime change purposes.

The armed groups (some of which Russian, Iranian, and Syrian officials regard as terrorists) that the US and its allies have consistently supported during the entire course of the country’s interconnected civil-international war failed to oust its democratically elected and legitimate leader, hence why America is forced to return back to square one in seeking to orchestrate another “Arab Spring”-like crisis such as the one that initially started this whole conflict back in 2011.

What’s especially unsettling about all of this is that the planned sanctions will make Syria’s reconstruction by the international community practically impossible to pull off unless its government capitulates to the US’ list of demands for ending the war on its political terms. The Syrian people are innocent yet are forced to suffer as punishment for the simple fact that their government isn’t an American puppet and actually embarrassed the US by surviving the kinetic phase of the Pentagon’s conflict against it (foreign armed groups).

These nefarious intentions also expose the US as hypocritical. Its officials have falsely claimed that China is exploiting the global pandemic in order to advance its strategic ends, yet it’s actually the US that’s doing this, and it’s planned secondary sanctions against Syria are the indisputable proof. The Syrian people are already struggling to survive, but everything is about to become much more harder for them considering that the Lebanese lifeline for many of their goods and financial needs “will be hit hard”, according to Reuters.

Arguably, the consequences of these planned sanctions amount to a war crime considering just how many millions of innocent people are bound to suffer once they enter into effect. In the 21st century, the US military doesn’t need to kill countless people to carry out crimes against humanity since the American government can simply weaponize the country’s leading international economic and financial roles to manipulate the international situation in such a way that countless people needlessly suffer to the point of literal death.

The US must be condemned in the strongest terms possible for what it’s doing. Not only is about to indirectly but deliberately contribute to the unnecessary deaths of an unknown but presumably large number of people, it’s also putting the Syrian government’s hitherto very effective COVID-19 containment efforts at risk. The country’s complete collapse could lead to it becoming a dangerous hotspot for this virus’ spread throughout the region, which puts many other people at risk, including those whose governments are American allies.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.