{"id":75326,"date":"2016-06-20T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=75326"},"modified":"2016-06-20T12:41:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T11:41:05","slug":"51-u-s-diplomats-urge-strikes-against-assad-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/51-u-s-diplomats-urge-strikes-against-assad-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes against Assad in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Jun 2016<\/em> \u2014 More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo <\/a>sharply critical of the Obama administration\u2019s policy in Syria<\/a>, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad<\/a> to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country\u2019s five-year-old civil war.<\/p>\n

\"Smoke<\/a>

Smoke and flames rose after what fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces said were American-led airstrikes on the mills of Manbij where Islamic State militants are positioned, in Aleppo, Syria, on Thursday [16 Jun]. Credit Rodi Said\/Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for \u201ca judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a step would represent a radical shift in the administration\u2019s approach to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama<\/a> has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry<\/a>, have all but collapsed.<\/p>\n

But the memo, filed in the State Department\u2019s \u201cdissent channel,\u201d underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than 400,000 people.<\/p>\n

The State Department set up the channel during the Vietnam War as a way for employees who had disagreements with policies to register their protest with the secretary of state and other top officials, without fear of reprisal. While dissent cables are not that unusual, the number of signatures on this document, 51, is extremely large, if not unprecedented.<\/p>\n

The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials \u2014 many of them career diplomats \u2014 who have been involved in the administration\u2019s Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad. They range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus.<\/p>\n

While there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department officials are known to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has pushed for stronger American action against Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad. The president has resisted such pressure, and has been backed up by his military commanders, who have raised questions about what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power \u2014 a scenario that the draft memo does not address.<\/p>\n

The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, declined to comment on the memo, which top officials had just received. But he said Mr. Kerry respected the process as a way for employees \u201cto express policy views candidly and privately to senior leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robert S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, said, \u201cMany people working on Syria for the State Department have long urged a tougher policy with the Assad government as a means of facilitating arrival at a negotiated political deal to set up a new Syrian government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford, who is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, resigned from the Foreign Service in 2014 out of frustration with the administration\u2019s hands-off policy toward the conflict.<\/p>\n

In the memo, the State Department officials wrote that the Assad government\u2019s continuing violations of the partial cease-fire, known as a cessation of hostilities, will doom efforts to broker a political settlement because Mr. Assad will feel no pressure to negotiate with the moderate opposition or other factions fighting him. The government\u2019s barrel bombing of civilians, it said, is the \u201croot cause of the instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable,\u201d it said. \u201cThe status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The memo acknowledged that military action would have risks, not the least further tensions with Russia, which has intervened in the war on Mr. Assad\u2019s behalf and helped negotiate a cease-fire. Those tensions increased on Thursday when, according to a senior Pentagon official, Russia conducted airstrikes in southern Syria against American-backed forces fighting the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

The State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not \u201cadvocating for a slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation with Russia,\u201d but rather a credible threat of military action to keep Mr. Assad in line.<\/p>\n

Once that threat was in place, the memo said, Mr. Kerry could undertake a diplomatic mission similar to the one he led with Iran on its nuclear program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria delivering a speech to the Parliament in Damascus last week. Credit Syrian Presidency, via Associated Press<\/p><\/div>\n

The expression of dissent came a week after Mr. Assad showed renewed defiance<\/a> of the United States and other countries, vowing to retake \u201cevery inch\u201d of his country from his enemies. The cease-fire, which Mr. Kerry helped negotiate in Munich last winter, has never really taken hold. Mr. Assad has continued to block humanitarian convoys, despite a warning that the United Nations would begin airdrops of food to starving towns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an enormous frustration in the bureaucracy about Syria policy,\u201d said Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy. \u201cWhat\u2019s brought this to a head now is the real downturn in the negotiations, not just between the U.S. and Russia, but between Assad and the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, Mr. Kerry rejected the suggestion that the United States and its allies would never use force to stop the bombings or enforce humanitarian access. \u201cIf President Assad has come to a conclusion there\u2019s no Plan B,\u201d he said, \u201cthen he\u2019s come to a conclusion that is totally without any foundation whatsoever and even dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Mr. Obama has shown little sign of shifting his focus from the campaign against the Islamic State \u2014 a strategy that probably acquired even more urgency after the mass shooting Sunday in Orlando, Fla<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action against Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Islamic State because it would bolster moderate Sunnis, who are necessary allies against the group, also known as ISIS<\/a> or ISIL.<\/p>\n

While the State Department has a tradition of being open to dissent \u2014 in the 1990s, Secretary of State Warren Christopher met with Foreign Service officers who had written a 30-page dissent on the Clinton administration\u2019s Balkans policy \u2014 Mr. Christopher and his successors have been frustrated when these classified memos become public.<\/p>\n

In this case, the memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time: The State Department\u2019s rank and file have chafed at the White House\u2019s refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria.<\/p>\n

During a debate in June 2013, after the Assad government had used chemical weapons against its own people, Mr. Kerry brandished a State Department report<\/a> that argued that the United States needed to respond militarily or Mr. Assad would view it as \u201cgreen light for continued CW use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three years later, the sense of urgency at the State Department has not diminished. The memo concludes, \u201cIt is time that the United States, guided by our strategic interests and moral convictions, lead a global effort to put an end to this conflict once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

Access Original State Department Document HERE<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2016, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: 51 U.S. Diplomats, in Dissent, Urge Strikes on Assad. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Jun 2016 \u2014 More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration\u2019s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-syria-in-context"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}