27 July 1997
The Washington Post
By Richard N. Haass

Sanctions -- With Care

Sanctions are fast becoming America's foreign policy tool of choice. It makes little difference whether the issue involves human rights, terrorism, drugs or weapons proliferation. Whatever the problem, economic sanctions are increasingly the answer.

Figuring out why this is so is not terribly difficult. Sanctions -- ranging from cutting off aid to shutting down all trade and financing -- offer U.S. policymakers and members of Congress an attractive compromise between doing nothing and sending in the Marines.

Increasingly, however, sanctions are being used cavalierly, with scant regard to their actual impact on American interests. This is bad for particular businesses and worse for the nation's security.

The latest example of a questionable embrace of sanctions involves legislation pending in both the House and Senate that would end almost all financial transactions with seven countries -- Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria -- on the grounds that they support terrorism.

This they surely do, although "support" can and does range from allowing individuals and groups to operate out of their territory to planning, funding and conducting actual operations. Although all seven are already the target of stringent sanctions, the new controls would further isolate them.

But at a cost. New sanctions would complicate the ability of American journalists to cover what is going on and report back from these mostly closed societies. Prohibiting all financial transactions would block providing humanitarian aid to stave off famine and disease in North Korea and stop oil shipments designed to wean that country from its current dependence on dangerous nuclear reactors. Such a ban risks sending a hostile signal to the new leadership in Tehran at a time when the United States might usefully explore establishing a dialogue.

The case of Syria is particularly instructive. Voting for new sanctions for Syria looks at first glance to be a no-brainer for anyone in Congress. After all, Hafez Assad's Syria can be brutal in how it treats its own citizens. Syria also occupies a good deal of Lebanon, harbors and provides limited logistical support to terrorists, tolerates drug trafficking, produces chemical weapons and is in a state of war with Israel.

But the case for additional sanctions against Syria is anything but clear cut. The economic costs to the United States -- perhaps some $250 million a year in lost exports -- are not negligible. What is more, it will be American firms and workers and not Syrians who will pay a price. Unilateral sanctions will not succeed when Syria locates alternative sources of financing and goods in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. And introducing another set of sanctions against those who continue to do business with Syria -- along the lines of what we are doing to those persons and firms not complying with U.S. sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Libya -- would only trigger a bitter dispute with our principal economic partners.

More important, new sanctions -- in effect, treating Syria like a full-fledged rogue state -- ignores that Syria and the United States (and Israel for that matter) have cooperated in the past and at times still can work usefully with one another. For nearly a quarter of a century, Syria has honored a U.S.-negotiated disengagement accord with Israel. Syria attended the U.S.-sponsored Madrid peace conference; subsequent peace talks with Israel came close to succeeding. Syria was a member and contributed forces to the Gulf War coalition against Iraq. The government is cooperating with efforts to monitor a U.S.-brokered truce in southern Lebanon. And no evidence has emerged that directly implicates Syrian officials in planning or executing any terrorist acts since 1986.

New sanctions would jeopardize cooperation in all these areas. It would become all but impossible for the U.S. government to effectively weigh in with Syria -- be it to rekindle peace talks, calm tensions in the region or support embargoes against Iran and Iraq. The cost of sanctions would be high, the benefits unclear.

As a result, Congress would be wise to shelve legislation that would introduce new penalties against Syria and the other six countries. Failing that, any new sanctions should provide the executive branch enough latitude to waive them at any time if overall foreign policy considerations warrant.

More broadly, the time has come for Congress and the executive branch to stop using sanctions as a gesture or to vent anger. Foreign policy is not about poses; nor is it a form of therapy. Foreign policy is about promoting this nation's interests -- all of them.

In some instances, sanctions will be the best way to do this. Today's Iraq comes to mind. But in other situations, sanctions promise to do more harm than good. When this is the case, we would be wise to hold off. The United States would not intervene with other tools -- whether they entailed diplomacy, covert action or armed force -- without careful consideration. The time has come to treat economic sanctions no less seriously.

The writer, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, served as special assistant for national security affairs to President George Bush.

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