It turns that for much of the State Department, the lesson to be learned from the disaster that is Iraq, where we used violence to institute regime change, and the disaster that is Libya, where we used violence to institute regime change, and the disaster that is Syria, where our support for Saudi and Turkish use of violence to institute regime change, is yet more violence to institute regime change:
Robert S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, said, “Many 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.”
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’s hands-off policy toward the conflict.
In the memo, the State Department officials wrote that the Assad government’s 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’s barrel bombing of civilians, it said, is the “root cause of the instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.”
“The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable,” it said. “The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges.”
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’s 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.
The State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not “advocating for a slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation with Russia,” but rather a credible threat of military action to keep Mr. Assad in line.
Because declaring war on the Assad regime, and their Russian allies is clearly the road to peace.
In this case, the memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time: The State Department’s rank and file have chafed at the White House’s refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria.
Because there is something clearly wrong about not going to war in a country with little or no strategic significance because we do not like the guy in charge.
Hey, it doesn’t matter that all the military forces, excepting the Kurds, who oppose Assad are affiliated with either ISIS or al Qaeda, or that the Kurds are being bombed by our “allies” the Turks, who are supporting ISIS, the solution to the problem is clearly more war.
Let’s also be clear that this sort of unilateral action, which absent a security council resolution would be illegal under international law, would likely entail a response from the Syrians with significant Russian aid, which is their right under international law.
The “Moar Bomz” crowd have a 3 decade long record of failure. Perhaps it is time to tell them to shut the f%$# up and get another job in a different industry.
They need to be asking, “Do you want fries with that,” for a living.
