Delaney Simon

Jan 24, 2025 | almendron.com | Delaney Simon

The unexpected fall of President Bashar al-Assad and with it the end of the Assad dynasty prompted jubilation from many long-suffering Syrian people, but they face sobering challenges as they try to rebuild their society. A central problem remains the enormous web of overlapping sanctions that countries opposed to the regime and its abuses imposed during the civil war. The United States has been the primary architect of many of these sanctions.

Jan 23, 2025 | lawfaremedia.org | Delaney Simon

The unexpected fall of President Bashar al-Assad and with it the end of the Assad dynasty prompted jubilation from many long-suffering Syrian people, but they face sobering challenges as they try to rebuild their society. A central problem remains the enormous web of overlapping sanctions that countries opposed to the regime and its abuses imposed during the civil war. The United States has been the primary architect of many of these sanctions.

Jan 2, 2025 | foreignaffairs.com | Zongyuan Liu |Michael Horowitz |Delaney Simon |Graeme Smith

Syria’s new leaders have few models to follow in their quest to win international recognition. No guidebooks exist on how to run a government for groups operating under terrorist designations—and there is no clear set of rules for foreign governments on how to bring a former al Qaeda affiliate in from the cold.

Apr 24, 2024 | justsecurity.org | Delaney Simon

As tensions between Israel and Iran threatened to spark a broader regional conflagration, Washington levied a spate of new sanctions targeting Iran’s drone program. The sanctions, among other U.S. actions, seemed intended to reassure Israel and discourage it from an escalatory response. Whether or not they worked in this instance, they likely did no harm, but that is not always the case.

May 23, 2023 | warontherocks.com | Delaney Simon

Agathe Demarais, Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). In the dead of night on January 29, 2018, the Department of the Treasury published a list of senior political figures and oligarchs in Russia on a U.S. government website. With just 11 minutes to spare before a congressional deadline, American financial regulators had satisfied one of the requirements of Congress’ Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.