Reporter tells the State Depart. 'Officials are scared they may lose their career' for exposing Obama's policies in Syria

Current and former State Department officials fear that the diplomats who authored an internal memo leaked Thursday that criticizes the Obama administration’s Syria policy and calls for strikes against the government of Bashar al-Assad are putting their careers in the department at risk, according to Reuters’ U.S. foreign policy correspondent. At the State Department daily press briefing on Friday, Arshad Mohammad brought up the potential backlash that 51 current diplomats could face for signing a letter sent through the department’s “dissent channel” urging President Obama to judiciously use military strikes against the Assad regime as part of “a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process” to end the five-year-long Syrian civil war. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both reported the story on Thursday night, the day that the confidential document was leaked to the press. Mohammad first described to State Department spokesman John Kirby how the Foreign Affairs Manual prohibits any retaliation against employees who use the dissent channel to make their disagreements with U.S. policy known. “I want to know what the secretary thinks about whether the mere use of the dissent channel should ever be used to prevent someone from getting a promotion or getting another sensitive job or moving up in the hierarchy and becoming an ambassador,” Mohammad asked Kirby. “I think it’s safe to say that Secretary [John] Kerry would absolutely find abhorrent any intent or desire by anyone in this department from holding against someone for purposes of promotion or advancement their right to use the dissent channel,” Kirby responded. Mohammad challenged Kirby’s answer by saying that multiple department officials told him earlier in the day that they fear the authors of the memo could face some kind of professional repercussions.

“I ask the question because I’ve talked to two people in the [State Department] today already who talked about the fear that this could happen,” Mohammad said. “Because Archer Blood never made ambassador and was, in fact, systematically prevented from moving up, as I understand it.” Archer Blood was a career diplomat who became famous for sending in 1971 the so-called “Blood Telegram” to Washington, a document that lambasted the Richard Nixon administration for not doing enough to address the atrocities of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Mohammad added that Frederic Hof, who is now at the Atlantic Council but was formerly the State Department’s special adviser for transition in Syria, said in a public statement that the 51 diplomats are risking their careers with this internal memo.

“Fifty-one loyal and effective officials have risked their careers to protest a policy that is profoundly wrong and fully counterproductive. Their superiors should press President Obama one more time to change his policy. If he refuses, their choice is plain: stand up and publicly defend the indefensible, or resign,” Hof wrote in a statement issued on Friday. “To the extent that there are anxieties out there that this [memo] is going to hurt these people in their careers, your view is that the secretary would not tolerate that?” Mohammad asked. “Not one bit,” Kirby replied. “I can assure you that no one has risked anything by submitting a dissent message with respect to Syria or any other policy that the State Department pursues. That is the purpose for the dissent channel.” This is not the first time that American diplomats have expressed frustration with the administration’s policy toward Syria.