More than 50 State Department officials rebuked the Obama administration’s Syria policy in an internal letter that urges for military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad for persistent ceasefire violations.
The document calls for President Obama to make "judicious use of stand-off and air weapons" to push "a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process," the New York Times reported Thursday night.
The memo outlines a stark move away from the administration’s current policies concerning the Syrian civil war, where Obama has stressed neutrality despite repeated accusations that the Assad regime has violated ceasefire pacts and Russian forces have killed U.S.-backed rebels.
The "dissent channel" memo was signed by 51 diplomats, a potentially unprecedented number of State Department officials formally protesting a president’s policies abroad.
The sentiments put forward in the document stress divides within the administration regarding approaches toward handling the war in Syria that has resulted in severe human rights abuses and killed more than 400,000 people.
Most of the signatories on the memo are midlevel officials who have had a hand in the administration’s Syria policy over the past fives years, according to the Times.
The State Department confirmed it had received the dissent channel document. The channel allows diplomats to privately express disagreements with the secretary of state and top officials without facing retribution.
Obama administration officials have hesitated to become militarily involved against the Assad regime. Such action could stoke conflict with Russia and Iran, which are both allied with Damascus.
The State Department officials insisted in their letter that failure to halt Assad’s "flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal" of terrorist groups like ISIS, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable," the memo said. "The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges."