ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR<\/b>: The President
FROM<\/b>: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT<\/b>: PREVENTING STILL WORSE IN SYRIA<\/p>\n
We write to alert you, as we did President George W. Bush<\/u><\/a>, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, that the consequences of limiting your circle of advisers to a small, relatively inexperienced coterie with a dubious record for wisdom can prove disastrous.* <\/a> Our concern this time regards Syria.<\/p>\n We are hoping that your President\u2019s Daily Brief<\/em> tomorrow will give appropriate attention to Saturday\u2019s warning by Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova: \u201cIf the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speaking on Russian TV, she warned of those whose \u201clogic is \u2018why do we need diplomacy\u2019 … when there is power … and methods of resolving a problem by power. We already know this logic; there is nothing new about it. It usually ends with one thing \u2013 full-scale war.”<\/p>\n We are also hoping that this is not the first you have hear of this \u2013 no doubt officially approved \u2013 statement. If on Sundays you rely on the \u201cmainstream\u201d press, you may well have missed it. In the Washington Post, an abridged report of Zakharova\u2019s remarks (nothing about \u201cfull-scare war\u201d) was buried in the last paragraph of an 11-paragraph article titled \u201cHospital in Aleppo is hit again by bombs.\u201d The New York Times totally ignored the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s statements.<\/p>\n In our view, it would be a huge mistake to allow your national security advisers to follow the example of the Post and Times in minimizing the importance of Zakharova\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n Events over the past several weeks have led Russian officials to distrust Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who parses his words carefully, has publicly expressed that distrust. Some Russian officials suspect that Kerry has been playing a double game; others believe that, however much he may strive for progress through diplomacy, he cannot deliver on his commitments because the Pentagon undercuts him every time. We believe that this lack of trust is a challenge that must be overcome and that, at this point, only you can accomplish this.<\/p>\n It should not be attributed to paranoia on the Russians\u2019 part that they suspect the Sept. 17 U.S. and Australian air attacks on Syrian army troops that killed 62 and wounded 100 was no \u201cmistake,\u201d<\/u><\/a> but rather a deliberate attempt to scuttle the partial cease-fire Kerry and Lavrov had agreed on \u2013 with your approval and that of President Putin \u2013 that took effect just five days earlier.<\/p>\n In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov has told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26:<\/p>\n \u201cMy good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin), apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.\u201d<\/p>\n Lavrov\u2019s words are not mere rhetoric. He also criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia, \u201cafter the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama stipulated that they would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …\u201d<\/p>\n Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria. We suggest you get hold of a new book to be released this week titled The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War<\/em> by master historian H. W. Brands. It includes testimony, earlier redacted, that sheds light on why President Truman dismissed WWII hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur from command of U.N. forces in Korea in April 1951. One early reviewer notes that Brands\u2019s narrative makes us wonder about challenges of military versus civilian leadership we still face today.\u201d You may find this new book more relevant at this point in time than the Team of Rivals<\/em>.<\/p>\n The door to further negotiations remains ajar. In recent days, officials of the Russian foreign and defense ministries, as well as President Putin\u2019s spokesman, have carefully avoided shutting that door, and we find it a good sign that Secretary Kerry has been on the phone with Foreign Minister Lavrov. And the Russians have also emphasized Moscow\u2019s continued willingness to honor previous agreements on Syria.<\/p>\n In the Kremlin\u2019s view, Russia has far more skin in the game than the U.S. does. Thousands of Russian dissident terrorists have found their way to Syria, where they obtain weapons, funding, and practical experience in waging violent insurgency. There is understandable worry on Moscow\u2019s part over the threat they will pose when they come back home. In addition, President Putin can be assumed to be under the same kind of pressure you face from the military to order it to try to clean out the mess in Syria \u201conce and for all,\u201d regardless how dim the prospect for a military solution are for either side in Syria.<\/p>\n We are aware that many in Congress and the \u201cmainstream\u201d media are now calling on you to up the ante and respond \u2013 overtly or covertly or both \u2013 with more violence in Syria. Shades of the \u201cWashington Playbook,\u201d about which you spoke derisively in interviews with the Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> Jeffrey Goldberg earlier this year. We take some encouragement in your acknowledgment to Goldberg that the \u201cplaybook\u201d can be \u201ca trap that can lead to bad decisions\u201d \u2013 not to mention doing \u201cstupid stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldberg wrote<\/u><\/a> that you felt the Pentagon had \u201cjammed\u201d you on the troop surge for Afghanistan seven years ago and that the same thing almost happened three years ago on Syria, when President Putin persuaded Syria to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction. It seems that the kind of approach that worked then should be tried now, as well \u2013 particularly if you are starting to feel jammed once again.<\/p>\n Incidentally, it would be helpful toward that end if you had one of your staffers tell the \u201cmainstream\u201d media to tone down it puerile, nasty \u2013 and for the most part unjustified and certainly unhelpful \u2013 personal vilification of President Putin.<\/p>\n Renewing direct dialogue with President Putin might well offer the best chance to ensure an end, finally, to unwanted \u201cjamming.\u201d We believe John Kerry is correct in emphasizing how frightfully complicated the disarray in Syria is amid the various vying interests and factions. At the same time, he has already done much of the necessary spadework and has found Lavrov for the most part, a helpful partner.<\/p>\n Still, in view of lingering Russian \u2013 and not only Russian \u2013 skepticism regarding the strength of your support for your secretary of state, we believe that discussions at the highest level would be the best way to prevent hotheads on either side from risking the kind of armed confrontation with Russian forces that nobody should want.<\/p>\n Therefore, we strongly recommend that you invite President Putin to meet with you in a mutually convenient place, in order to try to sort things out and prevent still worse for the people of Syria.<\/p>\n