Former US officials sound alarm on Biden's Syria policy
A group of former US officials including Marine General Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie Jr. and former Syria envoy James Jeffrey are urging the Biden administration to counter the region's rapprochement with Syria.
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.”
The letter, provided to Al-Monitor, outlines concerns with the Biden administration's approach to Syria, where since 2011 fighting between the Syrian government and the opposition groups seeking to overthrow it have left nearly half a million people dead and created the world’s worst refugee crisis.
Signatories to the letter include former US special envoys to Syria Frederic Hof, James Jeffrey and Joel Rayburn and former assistant secretaries of state for Near Eastern affairs Jeffrey Feltman and Anne Patterson. Also signing on were former CENTCOM chief Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, former CIA acting director John McLaughlin and William Roebuck, former US deputy special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
