Sanctions must enable political change in Syria

The Arab League sanctions on Syria should focus on achieving political change in the country. The purpose of the sanctions should not be to punish the people, nor even the establishment or leaders. Sanctions are a drastic step, which should not seek to achieve broad economic harassment of Syria, but instead target the people in charge of the present regime with the hope that they change their minds from their present intransigent refusal to recognise that they have a political crisis on their hands.

The League should move beyond its present very limited plan and put forward a more active programme of how to initiate political change. It should start an active dialogue with the various opposition groups, in order to build a consensus on how they would join together to develop Syria's political life. However, the sanctions were the limit of what the Arab League felt able to deliver.

The main points of the League's very modest plan ask the Syrian government to stop the violence in Syria, and to let in around 500 international observers. Sadly, the Syrians have refused to allow this, and the League has finally reacted with sanctions which concentrate on stopping financial transactions and transport links, banning travel for regime officials, freezing assets held outside Syria, but which are also supposed to allow the continued flow of basic foodstuffs.

It would be a tragedy if these sanctions lasted more than a few months. They should be part of a wider effort to facilitate immediate political change, and they should not become a long-term part of the Middle Eastern landscape. Syria is an integral part of the Arab world, and it is horrifying that the refusal of its government to stop the violence has caused the rest of the Arab World to take this serious step.