WASHINGTON—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been on the international stage for nearly four decades. But his campaign against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad likely will define his diplomatic legacy.
In a little over two years, the former senator from Massachusetts who took the helm at the State Department in February, has morphed from Washington's leading advocate for engaging Syria's 47-year-old dictator to taking much more aggressive steps to unseat him, U.S. and Arab officials say.
This aggressive stance has placed Mr. Kerry at the center of Syria policy in successive U.S. administrations, despite President Barack Obama's tendency to dominate the development and execution of American foreign policy, say current and former U.S. officials.
Many Middle East analysts say they believe a division between the two men emerged after Mr. Obama announced on Saturday his decision to seek congressional approval before launching strikes on Syria. The statement came less than 24 hours after Mr. Kerry gave an impassioned speech to a global television audience, arguing that punishing Mr. Assad for a deadly poison gas attack Aug. 21 on an area east of Damascus would be critical to maintaining the international community's unity on preventing the use of chemical weapons.
"If you compare Kerry's statement with the president's…there's a huge gap there," said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department diplomat who focuses on Mideast policy at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "It may be Kerry's style, but he appears much more impressed with the clarity and urgency for action in Syria."
The secretary of state and other U.S. officials on Sunday denied there was any distance between Messrs. Kerry and Obama on Syria policy. Mr. Kerry, in appearances on all five television interview shows on Sunday, said he believed a congressional debate on military action in Syria would only strengthen U.S. policy and build greater international support for a military strikes aimed at degrading Syria's chemical weapons capabilities.
In the interviews, Mr. Kerry also showed a growing level of personal enmity for Mr. Assad, particularly after the Syrian regime on Sunday claimed Washington was too weak to exact damage on Damascus.
"Assad has said a lot of things in the course of this [conflict]," said Mr. Kerry on ABC's "This Week." "I think the more he stands up and crows, the more he will help this decision to be made correctly."
Mr. Kerry, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during Mr. Obama's first term, was extremely active on the global stage on issues ranging from economic aid to Pakistan to the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But in Syria, he used his very personalized brand of diplomacy to try and woo Mr. Assad in roughly a dozen meetings and telephone calls with the Arab strongman, say current and former U.S. officials.
Mr. Kerry has said he believes his outreach to Mr. Assad was warranted and prudent as the Syrian leader had expressed an openness to engage in peace talks with Israel. The Obama administration also was seeking to split Syria from its military alliance with Iran, which is used to funnel arms to Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups.
Aides to Mr. Kerry acknowledge that this experience has only heightened his belief that the U.S. and its allies must act forcefully to stop Mr. Assad's military onslaught, and eventually unseat him.
"He believes Bashar is delusional, and…thinks you have to do something that forces him to change his calculation," a U.S. official said of Mr. Kerry. "He also saw firsthand Bashar's ability to lie and he called him on it in some tough conversations."
Since becoming secretary of state, Mr. Kerry has been perhaps the most aggressive official inside the Obama administration calling for military action in Syria and the arming of Mr. Assad's opponents, say Arab diplomats and Syrian opposition leaders.
His predecessor, Hillary Clinton, also advised Mr. Obama to intervene militarily, according to current and former U.S. officials. But Mr. Kerry seems to have more leeway to pursue foreign-policy initiatives than Mrs. Clinton, possibly because the White House doesn't view him as a political rival.
Najib Ghadbian, a leader of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the rebels' main political body, held meetings with Mr. Kerry earlier this year and says he was impressed by the diplomat's aggressive stance against Mr. Assad. Mr. Ghadbian says the Syrian rebels have been disappointed by the failure of the U.S. so far to deliver arms to the rebels based along Syria's Turkish and Jordanian borders, but he doesn't fault Mr. Kerry.
"Clinton's head was in the right place, but Kerry seems to be much more engaged," said Mr. Ghadbian. "Maybe she didn't want to take chances for political reasons, but Kerry doesn't seem to have those political calculations."
Mr. Ghadbian and other Syrian activists criticize Mr. Kerry and the Obama administration for being naive in some diplomatic endeavors, particularly Washington's outreach to Russia. Mr. Kerry on Sunday said he continues to work with Moscow to try to hold an international conference that will aim to end the Syrian conflict, despite Moscow's vast military and financial support for the Assad regime.
Mr. Obama will press his position on Syria, and likely will face the issue of testy of U.S. relations with Russia, at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg on Thursday and Friday.
Many in Washington also say that Mr. Kerry's desire for a more activist approach to Syria could be foiled by Mr. Obama, who has voiced deep reservations about getting embroiled in Syria's civil war and the potential for a wider conflict involving Iran and the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. Arab diplomats say it was only Mr. Assad's suspected used of sarin gas on Aug. 21, and the deaths of nearly 1,500 Syrians, that prompted Mr. Obama to agree to military strikes against the Syrian government's military infrastructure.
"I think Kerry really, really wants to act. He wants to be activist and engaged," said Mr. Miller of the Woodrow Wilson center. But it is really hard: because the nature of the world and this president. You could make the argument that Kerry's role is still being undercut."
U.S. officials on Sunday countered this analysis and said Mr. Kerry worked closely over the weekend with President Obama in developing the strategy to go before Congress.
They said both leaders agreed that building the case for action against Syria among the American citizens was crucial for its success. And they said that they didn't believe the delay in any action—by a few weeks—would, in the end, limit its effectiveness.
"What do we lose if we give more time to get Congress into this process more," a U.S. official said Mr. Kerry argued in White House meetings.
Next week, Mr. Kerry will try to advance the U.S. policy during meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, according to U.S. officials.
Opposition to a military intervention in Syria has been growing, and could increase while the U.S. debates Mr. Obama's policy in Congress, say European officials. Mr. Kerry also will seek to get greater Arab support for military action, something the Arab League has withheld, despite its sharp criticism of the Syrian regime's war.
Write to Jay Solomon at [email protected]
In a little over two years, the former senator from Massachusetts who took the helm at the State Department in February, has morphed from Washington's leading advocate for engaging Syria's 47-year-old dictator to taking much more aggressive steps to unseat him, U.S. and Arab officials say.
This aggressive stance has placed Mr. Kerry at the center of Syria policy in successive U.S. administrations, despite President Barack Obama's tendency to dominate the development and execution of American foreign policy, say current and former U.S. officials.
Many Middle East analysts say they believe a division between the two men emerged after Mr. Obama announced on Saturday his decision to seek congressional approval before launching strikes on Syria. The statement came less than 24 hours after Mr. Kerry gave an impassioned speech to a global television audience, arguing that punishing Mr. Assad for a deadly poison gas attack Aug. 21 on an area east of Damascus would be critical to maintaining the international community's unity on preventing the use of chemical weapons.
"If you compare Kerry's statement with the president's…there's a huge gap there," said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department diplomat who focuses on Mideast policy at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "It may be Kerry's style, but he appears much more impressed with the clarity and urgency for action in Syria."
The secretary of state and other U.S. officials on Sunday denied there was any distance between Messrs. Kerry and Obama on Syria policy. Mr. Kerry, in appearances on all five television interview shows on Sunday, said he believed a congressional debate on military action in Syria would only strengthen U.S. policy and build greater international support for a military strikes aimed at degrading Syria's chemical weapons capabilities.
In the interviews, Mr. Kerry also showed a growing level of personal enmity for Mr. Assad, particularly after the Syrian regime on Sunday claimed Washington was too weak to exact damage on Damascus.
"Assad has said a lot of things in the course of this [conflict]," said Mr. Kerry on ABC's "This Week." "I think the more he stands up and crows, the more he will help this decision to be made correctly."
Mr. Kerry, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during Mr. Obama's first term, was extremely active on the global stage on issues ranging from economic aid to Pakistan to the U.S. war in Afghanistan. But in Syria, he used his very personalized brand of diplomacy to try and woo Mr. Assad in roughly a dozen meetings and telephone calls with the Arab strongman, say current and former U.S. officials.
Mr. Kerry has said he believes his outreach to Mr. Assad was warranted and prudent as the Syrian leader had expressed an openness to engage in peace talks with Israel. The Obama administration also was seeking to split Syria from its military alliance with Iran, which is used to funnel arms to Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups.
Aides to Mr. Kerry acknowledge that this experience has only heightened his belief that the U.S. and its allies must act forcefully to stop Mr. Assad's military onslaught, and eventually unseat him.
"He believes Bashar is delusional, and…thinks you have to do something that forces him to change his calculation," a U.S. official said of Mr. Kerry. "He also saw firsthand Bashar's ability to lie and he called him on it in some tough conversations."
Since becoming secretary of state, Mr. Kerry has been perhaps the most aggressive official inside the Obama administration calling for military action in Syria and the arming of Mr. Assad's opponents, say Arab diplomats and Syrian opposition leaders.
His predecessor, Hillary Clinton, also advised Mr. Obama to intervene militarily, according to current and former U.S. officials. But Mr. Kerry seems to have more leeway to pursue foreign-policy initiatives than Mrs. Clinton, possibly because the White House doesn't view him as a political rival.
Najib Ghadbian, a leader of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, the rebels' main political body, held meetings with Mr. Kerry earlier this year and says he was impressed by the diplomat's aggressive stance against Mr. Assad. Mr. Ghadbian says the Syrian rebels have been disappointed by the failure of the U.S. so far to deliver arms to the rebels based along Syria's Turkish and Jordanian borders, but he doesn't fault Mr. Kerry.
"Clinton's head was in the right place, but Kerry seems to be much more engaged," said Mr. Ghadbian. "Maybe she didn't want to take chances for political reasons, but Kerry doesn't seem to have those political calculations."
Mr. Ghadbian and other Syrian activists criticize Mr. Kerry and the Obama administration for being naive in some diplomatic endeavors, particularly Washington's outreach to Russia. Mr. Kerry on Sunday said he continues to work with Moscow to try to hold an international conference that will aim to end the Syrian conflict, despite Moscow's vast military and financial support for the Assad regime.
Mr. Obama will press his position on Syria, and likely will face the issue of testy of U.S. relations with Russia, at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg on Thursday and Friday.
Many in Washington also say that Mr. Kerry's desire for a more activist approach to Syria could be foiled by Mr. Obama, who has voiced deep reservations about getting embroiled in Syria's civil war and the potential for a wider conflict involving Iran and the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. Arab diplomats say it was only Mr. Assad's suspected used of sarin gas on Aug. 21, and the deaths of nearly 1,500 Syrians, that prompted Mr. Obama to agree to military strikes against the Syrian government's military infrastructure.
"I think Kerry really, really wants to act. He wants to be activist and engaged," said Mr. Miller of the Woodrow Wilson center. But it is really hard: because the nature of the world and this president. You could make the argument that Kerry's role is still being undercut."
U.S. officials on Sunday countered this analysis and said Mr. Kerry worked closely over the weekend with President Obama in developing the strategy to go before Congress.
They said both leaders agreed that building the case for action against Syria among the American citizens was crucial for its success. And they said that they didn't believe the delay in any action—by a few weeks—would, in the end, limit its effectiveness.
"What do we lose if we give more time to get Congress into this process more," a U.S. official said Mr. Kerry argued in White House meetings.
Next week, Mr. Kerry will try to advance the U.S. policy during meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, according to U.S. officials.
Opposition to a military intervention in Syria has been growing, and could increase while the U.S. debates Mr. Obama's policy in Congress, say European officials. Mr. Kerry also will seek to get greater Arab support for military action, something the Arab League has withheld, despite its sharp criticism of the Syrian regime's war.
Write to Jay Solomon at [email protected]