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27 Memorandum To: President Obama From: Michael Doran Date: January 23, 2014 Subject: Pursue Regime Change in Syria Summary and Recommendations The decision to call off military strikes against President Bashir Assad’s forces and instead to work with Russia to destroy his chemical weapons deeply disappointed the Syrian opposition and its major external backers. Pro-regime propagandists have depicted this policy as a quid pro quo: as a reward to Assad for his participation in the chemical weapons deal, the United States will withhold support for regime-change efforts. In the Arab world, this interpretation of U.S. policy is widely accepted. Even if Assad’s chemical weapons have been taken entirely out of play (by no means certain), the regime’s goal of waging total war against the rebels remains unchanged. “We are fighting terrorists,” Assad said recently. “Eighty to ninety percent of those we are fighting belong to al Qaeda. They are not interested in reform or in politics. The only way to deal with them is to annihilate them.” More than 6.5 million Syrians have been displaced by the war, according to the United Nations. Of those, two million have fled to neighboring countries. More than 130,000 people have died. The war has also divided the Middle East into two camps. The Saudis, Turks and Qataris, among others, remain committed to toppling Assad. They face staunch opposition from the Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah, who are working assiduously to save the regime. The fight between the two sides is a zero-sum game. I recommend that you return to a policy of regime change in Syria. The United States currently appears fickle, risk-averse and unreliable to our allies and partners in the region—especially in comparison with Russia and Iran. This has serious knock-on effects to our standing not only in the region but around the world. DOUBLE DOWNS 28 michael doran This recommendation raises an obvious objection. Any effort to topple Assad, it is frequently claimed, will draw the United States into a quagmire. After all, the Syrian opposition remains deeply fractured, and the radical Islamic element in it is growing ever stronger by the day. A regime-change policy, however, need not require that you send American soldiers into harm’s way. All it requires is a commitment to help American allies in the region muster sufficient force to change the balance of power on the ground in Syria. This policy would certainly include arming and training elements of the opposition. It would also mean providing strategic guidance, intelligence support and diplomatic backing. But the single most important dimension of the policy is simply the political commitment itself—the assertion of American leadership to remove a ruthless autocrat and replace him with a regime that is more representative of the Syrian population as a whole. The United Nations will likely soon hold the so-called Geneva II conference , which is designed to negotiate a political solution to the conflict and the transition to a new government. The conference, though well intended, has little chance of success because Assad is growing stronger and will never negotiate the terms of his own departure. There is an added risk that the conference will have the effect of isolating and marginalizing the National Coalition, the most legitimate opposition to Assad. The Russians and Syrians are seeking to pack the proceedings with a variety of different opposition groups, some of which are little more than creatures of the regime. We should work to minimize the participation of other groups in order to prevent them from drowning out the voice of the Coalition. We should also prevent the inclusion of Iran, which, like Russia, is dedicated to the perpetuation of the Assad regime. Background Syria is now much more than just a civil war. It is the central battle in the conflict over the new order in the Middle East. By committing the United States to regime change, you would demonstrate solidarity with America’s traditional allies in the region. Our standing aside will not convince them to abandon their efforts to topple Assad. On the contrary, the war will continue, in one form or another, and our allies will take positions that are both inimical to our interests and impervious to our influence. For example, even the Turkish government, a staunch NATO ally, has from time to time turned a blind eye to the flow of al Qaeda fighters into Syria. A regime-change strategy is...

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