Oil could be a key factor in pushing the financially shaky regime over the edge...Oil production is dominated by the state-owned Syrian Petroleum Company, and some foreign companies: Royal Dutch Shell with partners the China National Petroleum Corporation [CNPC] and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation [ONGC]; France's Total; Canada's Suncor; and the small, Syria-focused Gulfsands Petroleum...Shell...is under fire from human-rights organisations for its involvement in the country...Yet sanctions and pressure for corporate withdrawal are far from panaceas...[I]n Sudan and Myanmar, long-running campaigns over human-rights abuses led to the withdrawal of Western oil companies. They were replaced by Asian companies with far less shareholder or regulatory oversight, the abuses continued and both countries' well-connected elites were barely inconvenienced....Private companies are not a vehicle for moral crusades...Oil sanctions on Syria should be ready for use - but not to salve the consciences of western activists.