Former Obama administration officials may have pressured the U.S. Holocaust Museum into pursuing a study absolving it of responsibility for not striking the Syrian regime after it used chemical weapons in 2013, Tablet Magazine reports.

The study reportedly advanced a classic talking point of former Obama deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes “that greater support for the anti-Assad rebels and US strikes on the Assad regime after the August 2013 Ghouta chemical weapons attack would not have reduced atrocities in the country, and might conceivably have contributed to them,” according to a draft reviewed by Tablet. Rhodes consequentially was appointed to the Holocaust Museum’s council in the last days of the Obama administration along with several other alumni.

The controversy concerns former President Barack Obama’s 2013 decision not to strike Syria for chemical weapons use despite pledging to do so. Obama declared that chemical weapon use by the Assad regime would be a “red line” for the U.S. but demurred on following through with his declaration after proof the Syrian regime carried out a chemical attack emerged. Obama instead opted for a Russian-brokered deal with the Assad regime in which Assad would supposedly give up his chemical weapons arsenal, a deal that was proven farcical when the regime again used chemical weapons in 2017.

The former president and his most trusted national security advisor Ben Rhodes maintained to the end that any military intervention would have drawn the U.S. into a wider conflict in Syria. “I actually think that the issue that required the most political courage was the decision not to bomb Syria after the chemical weapons use had been publicized and rather to negotiate them removing chemical weapons from Syria,” Obama said at an event at the JFK presidential library in May.

“I profoundly do not believe that the United States could make things better in Syria by being there,” Rhodes similarly told The New York Times in May 2016.

The Holocaust museum has now removed the study from its website saying:

Last week the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide released a research study that examined several decision points during the Syrian conflict. ​Since its release, a number of people with whom we have worked closely on Syria since the conflict’s outbreak have expressed concerns with the study. The Museum has decided to remove the study from its website as we evaluate this feedback.​

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