Prioritizing or re-energizing diplomacy on #Syria policy does not necessitate ceding leverage & bestowing concessions to a criminal regime.

If pressure has failed to secure regime compromise, granting it breathing space certainly isn't -- it'll facilitate accelerated repression.

To wrest back 2/3 of #Syria under his control, #Assad 'burned the country' & 'cleansed his population' (his words).

That consequences of that scorched earth policy are now coming clear: a wrecked economy, broken society, crumbling state, rife corruption, warlordism & terrorism.

US & EU sanctions are not the cause of the collapse of the SYP, nor the existence of warlords, corrupt elite or an eroding middle class -- that's the result of #Assad's 10yrs of uncompromising, all-out war on his own people/country.

Removing sanctions is not some magic solution.

If US priorities in #Syria were [minimally] limited to CT, CW prevention & alleviating humanitarian suffering, we should recognize by now that all of these issues will be sustained or even accelerated were #Assad re-empowered -- not ended.

We're talking root causes vs. symptoms.

As a new @JoeBiden administration takes form, reassessing 10yrs of #Syria policy is unquestionably necessary -- but ignoring a decade of regime behavior would not be an ideal starting point.

#Assad has only ever blinked when he's perceived threat -- not when treated nicely.

Now for some, "threat" sounds like military action (as with #Turkey in Feb 2020), but it doesn't have to be.

The consequences of #Syria's financial collapse have barely begun to emerge & as the gateway to solving that, we do hold leverage.

Hard diplomacy? Yes.
Conciliation? No.