Syria sanctions bill sparks renewed debate over Assad and Christians
The House Foreign Affairs panel voted for new sanctions on anyone helping Bashar al-Assad's regime.
A key House panel easily voted to slap new sanctions May 3 on Syria, but not before an acrimonious debate over President Bashar al-Assad's role in defending the region's beleaguered Christians.
The bill from House Foreign Affairs ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., targets anyone who does business with the Assad regime while evaluating the feasibility of a no-fly zone. It cleared the House late last year but not the Senate.
"If you're taking the side of the Butcher in Damascus over the Syrian people, you're going to get caught up in these sanctions," Engel said in his opening remarks. "That means Iran. That means Russia. The blood of the Syrian people is on their hands as well."
The legislation prompted an objection from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., a longtime defender of authoritarian regimes' crackdown on Islamist extremists. He said he'd heard from more than a dozen Middle East Christian groups over the past couple of years, and only one supported removing Assad.
