Washington has consistently refused to join forces with Russian Federation in Syria against Islamic State ever since Moscow launched its campaign of air strikes in September past year, accusing it of acting exclusively to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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More than 50 State Department officials signed a confidential document this week that calls for targeted military strikes against Syria and lobbies for regime change, according to news reports.
Kirby said US Secretary of State John Kerry “values and respects” the dissent channel, but would not be drawn on whether he believes this specific complaint has merit.
While the United States has called on President Assad to step down, Barack Obama has been reluctant to deepen Washington’s involvement in the civil war.
“It’s embarrassing for the administration to have so many rank-and-file members break on Syria”, said a former State Department official who worked on Middle East policy…
One U.S. 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.
The United States has about 300 US special operations forces in Syria carrying out a counter-terrorism mission against Islamic State militants but not targeting the Assad government.
But Obama has resisted, fearful of leading America into another war in the Muslim world after finding it impossible to withdraw USA forces from Afghanistan and keep forces out of Iraq.
Russian Federation supports Assad, further complicating efforts to oust him.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has vowed to be more hawkish on Syria than Obama and the document may be an attempt to inform the policy of the next president, the Journal said. Russia, which said when the ceasefire began that it would suspend its own bombing on Assad’s behalf, cut back but never fully stopped, according to USA officials who have repeatedly charged the bombs are largely directed at the U.S.-backed moderate opposition.
The memo that was signed by 51 officials argues that the USA must show a genuine threat of military action against Assad’s regime in order to bring it into negotiations with opposition forces. But the Syrian government claimed al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra Front – which is excluded from the cessation of hostilities – had attacked districts it controlled.
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The Syrian observatory says more than 3,000 people have been killed in the country since the truce negotiated between the USA and Russian Federation was put in place February 27. Assad has continued to block humanitarian convoys, despite a warning that the United Nations would begin airdrops of food to starving towns.
