State Department: Number of Dissenters to Obama’s Syria Policy ‘Unusual’

“It is unusual for a dissent channel message to have as many signatories as this one. It’s unusual,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said, referring to a memo signed by 51 diplomats and circulated by way of the State Department’s “dissent channel.”

The memo criticized Obama for his refusal to use force against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who has continually violated ceasefire regimes and barrel bombed his citizens, The New York Times reported Thursday. The diplomats urged a harsher policy that included “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons” in order to show Assad that the U.S. is willing to use military force. Such a threat, the officials argued, “would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

Obama’s firm demand that Assad must “step aside” has fizzled over time, replaced instead by military focus on the Islamic State (ISIS) and a refusal to lead “so-called regime change.” Simultaneously, Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempts to resolve the bloody civil war through political or diplomatic means have crumbled.

Kirby noted Friday that conditions in Syria have remained dismal under Obama’s policy, but insisted that a Syrian-led political solution was “the best … for the people of Syria.”

“No one is content with the status quo,” Kirby said. “Too many people are dying, either of starvation or being bombed. Too many weeks have passed without getting a political process moving forward, and there’s been too many violations of the cessation of hostilities, and frankly, far too few people are getting the food, water, medicine they need.”

While welcoming dissent, he reiterated the administration’s three stated goals, or “muscle-movers,” in Syria: “getting the political talks back on track, getting the cessation of hostilities to be truly accepted, and enforced, and adopted nationwide, and getting more people more of the aid that they need.”