WASHINGTON — As President Bashar al-Assad is gradually welcomed back into the Arab fold, a group of nearly 40 Syria experts and former US officials are calling on the Biden administration to more forcefully push back against the regime’s normalization.
“Unconditional regime normalization is not inevitable,” they wrote in a letter Monday to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “Opposing regime normalization in word only is not enough, as tacitly allowing it is short-sighted and damaging to any hope for regional security and stability.”