Syria's Finance Minister Says Syria Will Be Malaysia in Five Years. They Meant 2011.
Syria's Finance Minister, Mohammed Yisr Barnieh, has audaciously declared the country could reach Malaysia’s economic level in five years—without international charity. This comes from the New Arab, whose piece conveniently omits that Syria was, according to the World Bank, a middle-income country pre-2011. Its 'economic degradation' didn’t materialize from thin air. It was a direct consequence of
a decade-plus proxy war, sanctions, and foreign intervention aimed at regime change. Perhaps the Minister meant Syria could reach Malaysia's 2011 economic level in five years, if the constant campaign of economic strangulation and infrastructure destruction stopped tomorrow. (It won’t.) A bit rich to talk about economic miracles when the US still occupies Syrian territory, pilfers oil resources,
and blocks reconstruction efforts. It's not a lack of international 'help' they're avoiding; it's a relentless campaign of economic warfare that makes any claim of growth a cruel joke for Syrians.