MORE than 50 US State Department officials have come up with a dangerous suggestion to end the brutal Syrian civil war and defeat the militant Islamic State group: unleash more violence, specifically a US-led effort to topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime. An internal cable made public on Friday revealed that the staffers want “targeted military strikes” to force Mr Assad to come to terms. This is not the first call for regime change in Damascus. Many in capitals both Western and Arab have been beating the war drums, calling for the Syrian strongman’s forced ouster, ever since the civil war broke out in 2011. Interestingly, the call from within the State Department coincided with the visit of Saudi deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington. The Saudis reinforced their demand for air strikes against the Syrian regime. Though Barack Obama has supported regime change in Syria, he has stopped short of actually using US military force to overthrow the Damascus government. Obviously, the US president’s cautious approach — in stark contrast to the gunboat diplomacy of his immediate predecessor — has not gone down well with many in the US foreign policy establishment.

Not only are the dissenting voices publicly critical of Mr Obama’s Syria policy, coming from the State Department they may also be a message to the next incumbent of the White House. For example, Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, has indicated she would not be averse to deploying US military muscle in Syria. Yet, the thought of the US toppling another Arab regime is disturbing, especially when we see the disasters that have unfolded in Iraq and Libya — two shattered states where the regime change theory was championed with much zeal by many in the West. Instead of pacifying Syria, bombing the Assad regime will likely result in transforming a civil war with limited spillover into a regional conflagration. It is highly unlikely that Russia and Iran, Mr Assad’s principal foreign backers, will let their ally be bombed into submission. Mr Obama has done well to resist the shrill calls of the pro-war lobby in Washington; it is hoped his successor will follow a similarly measured approach. Instead of changing the regime in Damascus by force, a much better alternative would be for the foreign backers of all of Syria’s factions to use their clout to push for a negotiated settlement. At this point, it seems foreign forces have no such intentions.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2016