Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to meet soon with several of the U.S. diplomatic officials who wrote a dissent memo saying that the Obama administration’s Syria policy is failing, and that U.S. airstrikes against Syria’s Bashar Assad are needed to enforce a broken cease-fire in the war-torn country.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Kerry believes the memo, which has been winding through the department’s “dissent channel,” was “well-written, and that he wants to meet with some of its authors.
“He did read it and … found it to be a well-written argument, but I’m not going to talk about the content,” Kirby said, referring to Kerry. “And as for meeting with the authors, he has expressed an interest in meeting with at least some of them.”
But Kirby was careful to say it’s not clear at all what Kerry thinks about the policy advice, even though Kerry believes it was “well-written.”
“I would not characterize his comments today as being indicative of a full-throated endorsement of the views in this particular dissent channel message,” Kirby said. He added that he’s “not prepared” to say Kerry will take up the argument in the dissent memo.
“Obviously, he read the memo and found it to be a well-crafted argument, well enough the he feels it’s worth meeting with the authors.”
The memo was leaked last week, raising questions about whether any of the authors will face retaliation from the department. But State said last week there would be no retaliation, and Kirby said Monday that State welcomes a discussion about new ideas.
“Nobody’s happy with the status quo of events on the ground, and that is why … we do consider, we are considering, we are discussing other alternatives, other options that may be applied,” he said.
The U.S. has tried to manage a cease-fire in Syria that has been patchy and temporary at best and nonexistent at worst, and has acknowledged that Russia has been working against U.S. goals in the country. In late May, State admitted that the cease-fire is at risk of a “complete breakdown” unless Russia does more to get Syria to stop bombing its own people.
