John Kerry is traveling to the Middle East and Europe later this month to unveil his new plan to get Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down. “I believe there are additional things that can be done to change his current perception,” the new secretary of state said this week. “My goal is to see us change his calculation.”
The State Department hasn’t released an itinerary yet, but there’s some speculation that Kerry may use the opportunity to visit Damascus to see his one-time dining companion. Indeed, pro-Assad Arab media outfits claim that Kerry will visit Assad. Such a visit would hardly be surprising given the number of trips the then Massachusetts senator made to Syria starting in 2009, when he became the administration’s key interlocutor with the regime. None of those consultations changed Assad’s calculations, or Assad would not have killed more than 60,000 Syrians in the last two years in a conflict that threatens to damage U.S. interests around the region.
