BY RUISHA QIAN

ANCHOR CHRISTIAN BRYANT

The Arab League overwhelmingly approved economic sanctions against Syria on Sunday following the country’s violent crackdown on anti-government protesters. Al Jazeera reports the sanctions include...

“[A] freeze on foreign aid from Arab countries to Syria, a travel ban on all senior Syrian officials, and ending transactions with the country’s central bank.”

The League said the sanctions were intended to prevent a repeat of international intervention on Libya earlier this year. But China’s CCTV reports a different reaction from Syria’s foreign minister.

“He (Syria’s foreign minister) accused the members of meddling in Syrian affairs and of trying to
internationalize this conflict, trying to bring in international bodies and trying to make it an international rather than an internal matter. And he also wrote that instead of calling to avoid intervention, this vote in the Arab League is doing exactly the opposite.”

A Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy tells Bloomberg the sanctions will take a toll on Syria’s economy--and the country’s politics might follow.  

“Syria is a trading nation and they are natural capitalists. The businessmen in that country will never tolerate being cut off to such a degree. This move will get the business elite off the fence and against the regime.”

But a Fox News analyst says, without international cooperation, the sanctions won’t have much effect.

“The United States and the EU have already put much, much stronger sanctions there on the Syrian regime, but they have yet to tighten the noose. And since Syria has both Russia and also Iran in its corner, it seems unlikely the international community is really going to do anything that has enough teeth to make a difference for these people on the ground everyday risking their lives trying to ask for democracy there inside Syria.”

A Damascus resident tells The New York Times the poor and middle class will be the real victims of the sanctions.

“I think it is time the world realized that economic sanctions are not affecting anyone but the Syrian people. Those who couldn’t afford buying bread now can’t afford even smelling bread.”

The Guardian says the sanctions have “no discernible effect on the situation on the ground,” as another 28 deaths were reported in Homs and the Damascus area.