The Hill News

The Assad regime’s ruthlessness is on vivid display as the Syrian security forces, with Iranian assistance, continue their bloody campaign to crush a four-month long democracy uprising.

This week, members of Congress are waking up from a debt-ceiling hangover to consider a bipartisan energy sanctions bill that would exert peaceful pressure on Bashar Assad’s regime in an effort to stop the bloodshed. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), as well as Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) have introduced bills targeting investment in Syria’s energy sector, as well as petroleum exports and imports, and the transfer of technology. These bills are modeled on Iran sanctions laws that are successfully squeezing Iran’s energy sector.

Will President Obama move quickly to sign this bill into law and use a peaceful instrument of pressure to try and stop the killing? Or will he yield to ! the argument of Robert Ford, his ambassador to Syria, who argued in his confirmation hearing Tuesday that, “additional American measures probably aren’t going to have that big of an impact. The big companies working in the energy sector in Syria are from Europe or Syria’s neighbors.”

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