Feb
16
Export of Civil Aircraft Parts to Syria Approved by BIS
Posted by Clif Burns at 10:16 am on February 16, 2009
Category: General
According to a report last week in Syrian state-run newspaper Al-Baath, the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) has approved the export of aircraft parts and repair services from the United States to Syria for the purpose of putting two mothballed Syrian Arab Airlines 747s back in service.
Although some may see this as a sign that the Obama administration may be easing back on sanctions against Syria, that prediction may be a bit premature. BIS’s regulations already state that the agency will consider licenses to export “parts and components intended to ensure the safety of civil aviation and the safe operation of commercial passenger aircraft” on a case-by-case basis.
Permalink
Copyright © 2009 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
2 Comments:
Yesterday I read a rather breathless article in the trade press stating that this decision “appears to be part of the administration’s decision to end sanctions against Syria.”
Reports of the death of US sanctions against Syria are, however, greatly exaggerated, at least insofar as they’re based on this single license. As you note, the EAR’s Syrian license requirements already have an explicit exception to the general policy of denial for, among other things, certain items relating to civil aviation safety. In the past few years, BIS has issued at least two other licenses of which I’m aware under this provision.
It may well be that the Obama administration will wish to soften the sanctions against Syria (although Congress might have something to say about that). But I agree with you that this license alone isn’t evidence of such a shift.
Whether or not this transaction is a symbolic gift to the Syrian government, the fact remains that the export embargo on non-strategic items to SYria doesn’t hurt Syria near as much as it hurts us. Like almost all of our embargoes, the export embargo on Syria is intended for one purpose and one purpose only: To secure campaign donations from “affinity groups” who hate the adversaries of the foreign countries to whom they owe their first loyalty far more than they love, or even tolerate, their “fellow” Americans. Indeed, having just returned from a year’s exile in Cuban Occupied Florida, I can safely say that the Cuban Colonists in Occupied Florida who call themselves Cuban-Americans but consider themselves to be Cubans first and foremost, care less for Americans than a tick cares about the dog that sustains him. Likewise AIPAC.
