The administration has asserted Assad must go, to include the President’s statement that Assad’s regime “has lost legitimacy” and the repeated calls for his ouster by both the incumbent Secretary of State and the President's inner circle.
Western officials have called for the removal of Assad for years–a position that remains official US policy.
Any political solution in Syria must compliment a military solution that removes Assad from power.
In September, Jen Psaki, the deputy spokesperson for the State Department, said: “The best thing that the Syrian people can have going forward is not ISIS, it's not the Assad regime, but it's a new transitional government.” This is encouraging but insufficient.
The government in Damascus continues to fight a war of attrition against rebels across the country, besieging residential neighborhoods and using collective punishment such as barrel bombing campaigns against civilians and opposition alike. Over 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict that began as peaceful political protests, but escalated into a full blown civil war.
The Assad regime’s façade of unity has already begun to crack as increased manpower shortages have forced the Syrian government to increasingly turn to forced conscription and foreign and local militias to bolster its forces.
In possible early stirrings of discontent among the regime power base, isolated protests against the government’s policies within the Alawite communities have manifested in Assad strongholds, increasing in number after the fall of the Tabqa Airbase in Raqqa Province to ISIS in August and the subsequent execution of hundreds of Syrian Army Soldiers.
In addition, even pro-government Syrians increasingly view the paramilitary National Defense Forces [NDF], the military backbone of the regime, as mafia-like criminal gangs who operate above the law. As the Assad’s forces attempt to retrench and reinforce, actions taken during the ongoing conflict will become increasingly unpopular within their own loyalist population.
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The goal of targeting the regime is not to cause it to collapse completely. Rather, it is to allow rebels aligned with the West to make strategic gains and force the regime into a vulnerable enough position to negotiate in earnest with opposition forces.
Several Western-backed Free Syrian Army groups publically expressed the willingness to one day reunite with the regular Syrian Army, provided those members of the regime directly responsible for atrocities and sectarian violence be held responsible.
The Obama administration has repeatedly called for Assad’s ouster, now it's time to act.
SEE ALSO: Obama's Policy On Assad, In One Word