Nevertheless, Obama has said Assad must relinquish control if there is to be peace.
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The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says U.S. policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria.
Lavrov added that he raised the issue in a recent phone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who he said denied any such plans.
The U.S. Central Command said that as of Monday, the Syrian Arab Coalition completed the first phase of their operation to free the town of Manbij by securing the territory surrounding the ISIS stronghold.
The internal cable may be an attempt to shape the foreign policy outlook of the next U.S. administration, an unnamed official familiar with the document said.
The United States has called on Assad to step down. But Obama only has authorized strikes against the Islamic State and other U.S.-designated terror groups in Syria. Mr. Assad and his inner circle are Alawite, a small Shiite-linked Muslim sect and a minority in Syria.
“Failure to stem Assad’s flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal of groups such as (IS), even as they endure tactical setbacks on the battlefield”, the Journal quoted it as saying.
Barrels bombs hit Syria’s Aleppo on Thursday just hours after a temporary truce announced by regime ally Russian Federation came into effect in the northern war-torn city.
Picture taken on March 16, 2016 and released by the Russian Defence Ministry shows Russian Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack aircraft taking off from Hmeimim military base in Latakia province. The rebels largely use cruder, homemade weapons such as improvised mortar shells.
Such a force would shift “the tide of the conflict against the regime [to] 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”.
The U.S. military has been operating a training program in Syria since early 2015 to fully train units of moderate Syrian rebels to fight against IS. South of Aleppo, ferocious fighting went on between rebels and government and allied forces, which include fighters from Lebanese group Hezbollah.
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 past five years, at home or overseas. He added that although there is a truce, government forces as well as Russian and Syrian warplanes have been targeting the Castello road that links rebel-held areas with the rest of the country, preventing people from leaving.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by US Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.
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They argue the current approach is working against the Syrian opposition and helping Assad to stay in power.
