The “dissent channel cable” was signed by 51 mid- to high-level State Department officers involved with advising on Syria policy in various capacities, according to an official familiar with the document.
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He said the USA could be “playing some kind of game here, and they may want to keep Nusra in some form and use it to topple the regime”.
The dissenting cable discussed the possibility of air strikes but made no mention of adding US ground troops to Syria. The plan, which had backing from other Cabinet officials, was rejected by President Barack Obama and his White House aides.
Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war commercial hub, is divided between a government-held western sector and the rebel-held east.
The names on the memo are nearly all midlevel officials – many of them career diplomats – who have been involved in the administration’s Syria policy over the last five years, at home or overseas.
The Syrian president, who is a member of the Shiite-linked Alawite minority and is backed by Russian Federation and Iran, has vowed to maintain power.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the department was reviewing the cable, which arrived via a “vehicle in place to allow State Department employees to convey alternative views and perspectives on policy issues”.
The fighting between the parties escalated to such an extent that the Syrian Air Force carried out three airstrikes against Hezbollah fighters, which resulted in the killing and injuring of dozens of militants, according to the report.
“The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable”, the Times quoted the document as saying. “The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges”.
“Russia’s latest actions raise serious concern about Russian intentions”, the official said.
In a sign of Assad’s growing confidence, he vowed last week to retake “every inch” of Syrian territory from his enemies.
“There is an enormous frustration in the bureaucracy about Syria policy”, said Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.
Meanwhile, the bombing and the ongoing humanitarian disaster led the opposition to suspend United Nations -sponsored negotiations over a political solution to the conflict.
A Syria analyst, Karim Bitar, described the latest Aleppo truce as a “cease-fire of convenience, which is not linked to a real political process”. President Obama has consistently resisted direct US military involvement in the war, saying that it would simply add to the bloodshed and not improve the situation in Syria.
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The memo calls on the U.S.to create a stronger partnership with moderate rebel forces to battle both Assad’s forces and ISIS, which would change the tide of the conflict against the regime and “increase the chances for peace by sending a clear signal to the regime and its backers that there will be no military solution to the conflict”.
