Dear friend,

I write to offer you a first look at a new Quincy Institute report that puts forward a course correction for the United States’ Syria policy. 

Current policy risks tilting the country towards collapse. This outcome would cause greater suffering for the Syrian people, further destabilize neighboring countries, and escalate military tensions between Iran and Israel — undercutting fundamental U.S. interests in the region.

Steven Simon, who authored the report, is a Quincy Institute senior research analyst and a former member of the National Security Council staff under the Obama and Clinton administrations. He argues that since the start of the Syrian civil war there has been an unbridgeable gap between stated U.S. goals in Syria and the means available to achieve them. The plan Simon puts forward reckons with that gap, as well as the reality that Assad has not been and — apparently cannot be — coerced out of power. Simon calls for an alternative course of measured and pragmatic diplomatic engagement with the Syrian government and its allies to minimize further harm. He suggests a specific set of actions by the Syrian government and its backers, and a set of reciprocal actions by the United States.

You can read Simon’s recommendations and the full text of the report here. 

If you are able, please share this 15-second video or one of these graphics on social media to help us promote the report (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6). 

We will hold a Zoom webinar on report in the coming weeks, inviting a debate on it. We will share details soon.

Thank you and best wishes,

Lora Lumpe
CEO, Quincy Institute