Fifty-One US Diplomats Urge Anti-Assad Strikes In Dissent Memo

Syrian President Bashar Assad gestures during an interview. (Photo: AP)

Over 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of US policy in Syria, calling for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s government to stop its persistent violations of a civil war cease-fire.

The “dissent channel cable” was signed by 51 mid-to-high-level State Department officers involved with advising on Syria policy. It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The cable calls for “targeted military strikes” against the Syrian government, in light of the near-collapse of the cease-fire brokered earlier this year, the Journal reported, citing copies of the cable it had seen.

Military strikes against the Assad government will represent a major change in the Obama administration’s longstanding policy of not intervening directly in the Syrian civil war, even as it called for a political transition that would see Assad relinquishing power.

One US official, who did not sign the cable but has read it, told Reuters the White House remained opposed to deeper American military involvement in the Syrian conflict.

A second source who read the cable spoke on condition of anonymity, saying it reflected the views of US officials who have worked on Syria, and who believe the current policy is ineffective.

In a nutshell, the group would like to see a military option put forward to put some pressure on the regime.

Source

A Syrian national flag flutters next to the Islamic State’s slogan in the city of Palmyra, Syria in 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

While dissent cables are not unusual, the number of signatures on the document is extremely large.

“That is an astonishingly high number,” said Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as US ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, and is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

For the last four years, the working level at the State Department has been urging that there should be more pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s government to move to a negotiated solution to Syria’s civil war.

Robert Ford

In the summer of 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed arming and training anti-Assad rebels. The plan had backing from other Cabinet officials but was rejected by President Obama and his White House aides.

The dissenting cable discussed the possibility of air strikes, but made no mention of adding US ground troops to Syria. The US has about 300 special operations forces in Syria carrying out a counter-terrorism mission against Islamic State militants, but are not targeting the Assad government.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby said the “dissent channel” was an official forum that allows State Department employees to express alternate views.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan told a congressional hearing on Thursday that Assad was in a stronger position than he was a year ago, bolstered by Russian air strikes against the moderate opposition.