Our policy towards Syria is embarrassing

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke for the Administration, stating why we’re flattening Libya but doing nothing to help the anti-Assad forces in Syria. The answer is nauseatingly ignorant (Commentary):

There is a different leader in Syria now, many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer

Madame Secretary, one follow up question, please . . .

ARE YOU HIGH?!

This nonsense is mind-boggling on several levels: the current “leader” of Syria’s Ba’athist regime – Bashar Assad – has been in power since Mrs. Clinton was still First Lady (for the mathematically challenged, that’s eleven years ago). Moreover, whatever various ”members of Congress of both parties” might say (BTW, if she means Arlen Specter, he was indeed a member of both parties, but he’s not in Congress anymore so he doesn’t count), this “reformer” has done the following since he inherited the job from his bloodthirsty father:

• Turned his country into a haven for the remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime
• Allowed his country to be a way-station for the above remnants, al Qaedites, and anyone else looking to kill Americans in Iraq – along with any Iraqis unwilling to succumb to would-be tyrants of Sunni or Shia stripe
• Cement ties with Hezbollah
• Assassinated Lebanon’s elected Prime Minister
• Move heaven and earth to undermine the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon (successfully as of earlier this year)

This is no “reformer.”

I understand that we have few options when it comes to helping the Syrian people take their country back, but we do have some (Reagan managed to get aid to Solidarity during the 1980s). For this Administration to be so feckless as to claim that Assad – an Iranian stooge and enemy of the United States – as a “reformer” is maddening and embarrassing.

Cross-posted to BD