Military and security affairs analyst Muhsen AlMustafa at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies said that the step of removing Syria from the list of “rogue states” comes within the context of translating the American shift regarding sanctions imposed on Syria, as the previous U.S. decision to lift all sanctions represented a radical change in American policy toward Damascus.

AlMustafa added, in remarks to Erem News, “Since 1979, Syria was for the first time placed under the U.S. sanctions regime for its alleged support of terrorism, and all sanctions were linked to the state’s behavior under the Assad family, not only to post-2011 contexts.” He clarified that “even after the fall of the Assad regime, removing Syria from that list does not implicitly mean opening the door to cooperation on civilian nuclear energy, at least in the foreseeable future, given that even U.S. allies for decades have not received such cooperation.”

AlMustafa stressed that removing Syria from the list of “rogue states” is a necessary step within the framework of completely zeroing out sanctions, as this path requires ending all legal restrictions that form the basis of any type of sanction. He explained that this decision reflects a shift in the United States’ strategic vision toward Syria, and a redefinition of the nature of relations with it, in a state resembling full normalization of relations anew, and even broader than that.

He continued: “The decision comes as a complement to previous ones and within the current and upcoming package of decisions to completely remove U.S. sanctions. The latest decision is an indication of a serious attempt to reintegrate Damascus into the international system within broader arrangements that include the economy, technology, and possibly security and intelligence sharing. Overall, the lifting of sanctions represents an implicit acknowledgment that Washington no longer sees Syria as a systematic threat to U.S. interests as in past decades.”