Kremlin warns Washington against striking Assad’s forces

“I will… have a chance to meet with people when I get back”, Kerry told Reuters during a visit in Copenhagen.

“Our air force operation is continuing in Syria”, said Peskov during a conference call with reporters.

Peskov said the Kremlin “knows nothing” about the memo and would not comment about it specifically. On the one hand, this provided a green light for the Assad regime to continue its killings through conventional means, and on the other, it reduced USA influence in the global arena. “Such a move is capable of plunging the region into complete chaos”.

Numerous Republican lawmakers have urged USA airstrikes against Assad the use of US military force against Assad, and some have called for American troops on the ground.

The official said the cable was unlikely to alter that, or shift Obama’s focus from the battle against the threat posed by the Islamic State militant group.

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria.

“I don’t think it’s very realistic”, said Stephen Biddle, a George Washington University professor who has advised US commanders in the Middle East.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the calls for military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government “can’t but worry any reasonable person”.

The Russian president said the most important thing for Syria was not for Assad to establish control over territory but for overall faith in the authorities to be restored. In 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed arming and training anti-Assad rebels.

We know there is a problem and President Obama does not want to start a new war, but he may have to. Generally, CIA-backed factions of the Free Syrian Army have been unsuccessful in defeating fighting factions loyal to Assad and in fact often clash with Allied Kurdish forces who see their mission as defeating the Islamic State. The diplomats sent the memo though the State Department’s dissent channel, which was was set up during the Vietnam war. The channel can not be used for conveying disagreement with non-policy matters such as personnel issues, but is “reserved only for consideration of responsible dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues that can not be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels and procedures”.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan told a congressional hearing on Thursday that Assad was in a stronger position than he was a year ago, bolstered by Russian air strikes against moderate opposition. Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has said he would concentrate on the Islamic State and would leave Assad alone. While such dissent memos are not unusual – known in Indian circles through Brady Kiesling, once an India desk officer in the state department, who resigned in 2003 after opposing the Iraq War – the large number of signatories (51) for the Syria memo has surprised the diplomatic world, suggesting a growing polarisation over Obama’s foreign policies within the government.